Shops opening early Thurs for Halo 2 ?

[JU!]

At Brad uni at mo unfortunatly only go back to Derby in Summer or x-mas n work for HMV Leeds at mo so discount ahhoy Shocking, ever since i can remember nearly every shop in Derby jumps the release dates.

[anephric]

I begged and pleaded and they weren't budging.

Resorted to ComputerMania (!) in the market (who're still using carrier bags trumpeting the fact they've just got teh new Atari Lynx in, kidz).

[Concept]

I've at last finished the hulking beast that is San Andreas (or over 90% of it). Now it's time to move on to Halo 2.

I'm going to lay the final groundwork for my anticipation by replaying Halo from start to finish through tonight before I pick up the game tomorrow morning. I'm looking forward to it - Just a bit.

[anephric]

Just close your eyes during the cut scenes. They hurt.

[VR46]

tried Tesco's half hour ago (was there anyway), it is in stock but won't be on the shelves until 11am (when the girl who does the "tags" is next in), customer service eh.

[RLench]

Just close your eyes during the cut scenes. They hurt.

That's a bit excessive isn't it? The pop-in is noticeable but it happens once every couple of minutes, and only once

What about the fact that the cutscenes are well directed? Or that they have beautiful artistic direction, are acted very well or are interesting? I guess none of that matters if there is a small technical problem where textures load slightly slower (less than half a second) before they should do?

[Commander Marklar]

so anyway, *yawn*

I'm down Gamestation in Reading (the Earley branch was open too, so I learned when I was there 'cos one of the staff told me ) and it was well busy...



Feck me, what are all these people doing here? Must be the N-GAGE pod... I get closer to the counter...



God, I can't get to the Megadrive games!!11! Oooh, what's that on the TV?



Ah-ha, so that's why people are here!





My kid gets his copy...



...so does some other fella, insisted I take a photo (teh superkully!). Nice chap

Time to go home...



...oh, but what's this? The missus is on the Xbox! Nooooooooooooooooooo!!!

[Nisa]

Just got back from working on the midnight opening in sunny East Kilbride, the shop was a lot busier than I expected, made just under 4 grand in the first hour then it was dead. We had people queing from about 10pm (probably to pick up a free Master Chief figure which was offered to the first handful of customers).

From what I can tell the Gamestation round the corner had next to no customers show up (what a shame =p) which pleased one of the regions top brass who politely showed up at our store completetly unannounced.

It was a dissapointment for me though cos Metal Slug 3 and KoF weren't in stock yet and I had the limited edition Zelda SP staring me in the face saying "buy me now you consumer whore".

107 special editions!

All in our store had over 800 pre-orders and counting till the company ****ing decided to start with the whole deposit ****e.

[jassi singh]

Hang on, looking at SuperKully holding halo 2 (hello!) and

WTF

The LTD Edition game really doesnt come in a metalic case like the ones they have on display everywhere? ARSE :\


Oh well, nevermind.

[Nisa]

It does, it just has a plastic dust cover over the top but it is exactly the same as the ones that were on display aprt form the fact that the text on the rear of the display cases detailing the dvd extras is on the plastic cover and obviously the for display only message is missing.

[Crisp_Rapper]

tried Tesco's half hour ago (was there anyway), it is in stock but won't be on the shelves until 11am (when the girl who does the "tags" is next in), customer service eh.

we went at midnight, the chick told us the very same thing "but it says 11th on the box... it's the 11th"

she had a word with someone in charge and we were promptly sorted out with 2 copies. BAM! customer service...!

[oracle]

got mine at 12.15 this morn from the canterbury game

[superkully]

Waiting in the cold for half-an-hour listening to chavs and holding in a massive **** was well worth it - I was meant to get straight to bed for a 6:30 wake-up but played this for far too long...

Weird how so many people knew it was being released today, including the Police blokes in their car who tried to jump the queue and pick it up early and the suited, middle aged man at the end of the queue asking whether he'd any chance of getting a LE...

And, for the first time, Gamestation didn't smell of geek.

EDIT: Just looked at those photos Marklar... I'm going BALD.....!!!!! Bugger me... time to open a advice thread in off-topic methinks (or not).

[anephric]

That's a bit excessive isn't it? The pop-in is noticeable but it happens once every couple of minutes, and only once

What about the fact that the cutscenes are well directed? Or that they have beautiful artistic direction, are acted very well or are interesting? I guess none of that matters if there is a small technical problem where textures load slightly slower (less than half a second) before they should do?

Half a second? Bobbins. Unless my temporality is outside of yours. Some of them pop in over a second later (and can seem longer).

It's incredibly distracting and gives the impression of sloppiness. They shouldn't have used the in-game models if they weren't up to hacking conveying the storyline in the way they wanted to tell it... (I don't think the direction is "beautiful" either, it's... okay; but then I'm a cineaste snob). But I agree the voice acting is very impressive, and indeed it should be with some of the thesps they've got in there...

Ah well, I'm over the initial shock now... I just expected this to be glossy as Hell for the amount of time lavished on it and it isn't...

[giogi]

Oh well, picked up my copy this morning from Gamestation, no queues, but they had only about 20 LTD ED's that I could see.

Anyway sitting at work with the nice metal case staring back at me.

Think I'm starting to feel....a....little....ill!

:-)

Oh well better go home.