**LONG POST!!**
Wow, what a night! As most of you know, I work(ed) at Gamestop part-time, and I requested to work last night, since I wanted to be a part of the madness and see what it was all about.
I started my night off at 8:30pm, and when I pulled into the parking lot, there were already about 60 people in line, stretching down the strip mall sidewalk and around the corner. The first guys in line had gotten there first at about 2pm yesterday afternoon and set up their chairs. I was lucky enough to be put on outside duty, mingling with the customers, grilling hot dogs, directing lines, etc. It sure as hell beat being behind the register all night without being a part of the "line".
Our particular store actually had a very good setup. On the right side of the door, we started lining everyone up, regardless if you had preordered or were just picking up a copy without reservation. At 9pm, when the store "closed", we would filter people in about 5-10 at a time, and go ahead and ring up their sale as if it was final. They would get their final receipt, and we'd mark it up with a green highlighter. They would then take their place in a new line being formed to the left of the front door. Then, at 12:01am, they would be directed back into the store in an orderly manner, come to the back door, where a girl was telling me what they had bought, marking their receipt as picked up, and I'd hand it away.
The system actually worked great, as between 9pm and 12am, we had a constant flow of people through the store. I wish I was able to garner some kind of numbers, but my guess would say that we had about 300-350 people total there at midnight. The store was never empty between 9pm and 12am, there was ALWAYS a line waiting to get in there to get their final receipt. At around 11:45pm, I had to start putting people at the back of the huge line on the left of the front door, since we were trying to empty the store before midnight, to create as much space as possible.
At 12:01am, the store manager manned the front door, and started letting people in about 5-10 at a time. It was quite hilarious listening to people, and even though I was standing in the back room waiting to hand whichever version off, I could see them on the security camera in the back, jumping through the store as they were headed back there. The girl telling me what they had ordered is pretty cute, and it was hilarious to hear all the nerds try and bring their A-game. One even said he was so happy that he had to give her a hug . Nice try, buddy. Hilarious comments were heard all around....I wish I had written some of them down. Too many idiots thought they were being original when they'd hand their receipt over and say they had the legendary when it was just a regular, then laugh like they were the first that thought to say that.
Since I was handling the multitude of games in the back, I can say that without a doubt, almost ALL of the limited edition boxes had discs rattling around in them, but luckily, no one had read the news quite yet, and nobody questioned the copy we handed them. I went through and hand picked one that I thought didn't sound that bad, but when I got it home, the main game disc had a small blemish on it......more on that later.
The huge stack of legendary editions almost filled the back room, but I've got to give Microsoft credit, they pumped those things out to fill the preorders. Between Sunday night and last night, we had 18 people cancel their legendary preorders, a preorder we had quit taking a week ago, so more than a few were happy last night that they were able to pick one up. We had well over 100 of the legendary to fill preorders stacked up in the back room, well over 100 of the LE, and I think around 400-500 of the regular edition. Surprisingly, by the end of the night, by the time we set aside the preorders, we only had a couple of legendary's left, and less than 10-15 regulars left. That's it. And another quick note I'll stick in here, at around 11:15-11:30pm last night, our total store sales for the day at that moment was $16.5k, and we still had plenty of people filter through after that. I wouldn't be surprised if we topped $20k for the "day" if you count those who came in and paid money after midnight. That's 10x a normal day's take, people.
We had a one legendary edition that was damaged during shipping, and another that I tore the cardboard on while trying to take it out of it's shipping box .
A funny side note of irony (or karma, depending). The guys who were first in line, as I mentioned before, had been in line since about 2pm. They were pretty cool, actually, weren't complete nerd jockeys, so it wasn't bad being around them near the front door all night. But, at 12:01am, they were the first to get their copies. Apparently, they ran out the store, bragging to everyone else in line that they had their copy, and hopped in their car and took off down the parking lot. Once they were pulling out onto the street, an oncoming car hit them.... That's the feel good story of the year right there, people. :thumbsup: They might've been first in line and first to get their copy, but I guarantee they were the last ones out of everyone to get home.
That about does it for my night of somewhat fun and excitement. It was funny to see people get so damn excited, but it was kinda cool, too, that these people love their games. I thought one guy had jizzed his pants when we handed the legendary box around the corner. Then there was the kid who wanted to hold the game after we gave it to his mom, and she wouldn't let him . There was another guy who was absolutely pissed when he got there at 10:30pm, and was told that he'd have to wait in line, even though we assured him he'd be out of the store with his game 15 minutes after midnight....he was out by 12:15am easily. There was another woman who wanted to buy a 360, but once she was 5 spots away from the door, wanted me to hold her spot so she could go down the street to our competitors, Play-n-Trade, to pick up other games, since we weren't letting people shop the store last night (they could buy something if they knew what they wanted, we didn't let people browse around). And speaking of Play-n-Trade, they were smart enough to drive by and hand out free swag with their logo on it...an action of which the store manager got unnecessarily pissed at, and started calling the district manager as if they could do anything about it (kudos to PnT, that's a great marketing tactic IMO). Then there were the two idiots setting off bottle rockets, then standing there acting like it wasn't them while a bellow of smoke rose from directly behind them. Then there was the guy who was pissed because we were only serving regular hot dogs, not beef hot dogs (you've got to be kidding me dude!). It was definitely an interesting night.
But anyway, I bought the limited edition, one I had hand picked out of the box that did not sound like it had rattling discs. When I got it home, both discs were loose. The game disc had a small, quarter-inch sized blemish where it had been scratched. The extras disc didn't fare as well, but I will test it out to see how it runs. My initial reaction is wait and see if Microsoft addresses this issue, and see if there will be another option besides just taking it back to the store for a refund and purchase of the regular. I popped in the game disc last night, and I did have the video/audio stutter during the opening Bungie splash logo, but I don't know if this was due to the blemish on the disc (which happend to be towards the center of the disc). Also, the first thing I did was start a campaign to get a look at the graphics before I went to bed, and I got the cool-looking loading screen where it materializes a halo. However, it took more than a few seconds for the halo to complete itself, then the screen showed the Halo 3 logo, and just stayed there. The system hadn't locked up, since stuff was still moving on the screen, but after a minute or so, I started hitting the A button and start, but to no avail. I finally hit B, and some screen flashed oh-so briefly, and dumped me back to the main menu. A second try getting into the campaign loaded quickly and correctly, so I don't know what happened there. I did find it odd that it tells you to insert the game disc before you insert the extras disc, though.
I play on a 42" LCD in 1080p, and I must say the game looks absolutely gorgeous. I did only play for about 5 minutes, up to the first enemy battles, but the HDR lighting through the trees is fantastic, everything looks great. The water looked a bit underwhelming from what I saw, but it was 3am, and I was ready to go to bed. I thought I was getting out of Gamestop at 1am, but they said nobody could leave until the store was cleaned up and all trade-ins put away (which there were a ton of). At 2:15am, I told him I was leaving regardless, since I have a day job, and he was fine with that, so I didn't get hardly any playtime last night like I wanted. I didn't get to bed until 3 am, and got back up at 6:45am to come into work (was planning on sleeping another 30 minutes, but the damn dogs apparently thought that I should already be up, which I usually am).
That's about it. I'm at work right now, counting down the hours until about 3 or 4, then it's Halo 3 all night. I'm still not sure if I want to play through the campaign in co-op with some friends tonight, but it's doubtful that I will. I want to play it myself first, to get the story. After that, I'm game . I'll probably hop into a couple of hours single player tonight, then head into multiplayer and try out some of the new modes.
Viva la Halo 3!