Halo: Reach from Xbox has lineup of fans at release party

It was a party nearly a decade in the making, and Steve Van Horn bought his ticket months in advance.

As the midnight-release party for the highly anticipated Xbox 360 game Halo: Reach, kicked into high gear at electronics retailers in more than 25 countries, the clamor of cash registers around the world revved up as the clock ticked closer to launch. Van Horn, of Coeur d’Alene, arrived a few minutes before midnight at the Ironwood Mall GameStop, where he found a line of roughly 200 people stretching out the doors of the store and around the building as fans queued up hours in advance of the game’s release.

Some arrived in pajamas. Others toted energy drinks to stay powered through the night. One even arrived in a homemade interstellar marine outfit fashioned out of cardboard.

For those in line, which included husbands and wives, fathers and mothers and sons, and people of all ages (though primarily younger males), it was a gathering of a generation of fans who’ve followed the video game’s celestial sci-fi storyline.

“I’m stoked,” said the 31-year-old Van Horn. “Not only is it the last Halo game that Bungie Studios is going to make, but it’s just epic. It’s one of those things as a Halo fan you wait years as you see the first little teaser trailer come out, and then you’re finally like, ‘midnight release,’ right on. I know I’m going to be on my couch for the next three days.”

The original Halo title, released nearly a decade ago, helped put Microsoft’s Xbox console on the map, and generated a franchise following that has brought in more than $2 billion for the company in the competitive home-console industry.

Van Horn considers himself a tried-and-true Halo fan. Having followed the series since its inception, he’s been earning his stripes in the previous first-person-shooter game entries as the Spartan soldier known as Master Chief. The Halo saga has spawned comic books, action figures, board games and long-rumored major motion picture deals. Battles in the game rage across the galaxy on a variety of halo-like ring planets, while the multiplayer portion pits gamers around the world in versus and cooperative matches.

On midnight Tuesday, Van Horn was joined by a sampling of the fans who pre-ordered the game, which totaled nearly two million copies in the U.S. alone, according to the sales-tracking website, vgchartz.

In Halo: Reach, which retails for $59.99 for just the game and up to $150 for more feature-rich editions, the story revolves around Noble Team, a six-member squad of soldiers at the threshold of an alien invasion on the human-colonized planet Reach. It’s the last Halo title to be developed by Bellevue-based Bungie Studios, and the game has garnered praise from industry critics, receiving a 92 out of 100 rating on the aggregate review website, Metacritic.

Tiffany Cogburn, a 30-year-old student at the American Institute of Clinical Massage in Post Falls, sat in the middle of the line after arriving at 10 p.m. An avid gamer with several consoles and a Street Fighter 2 arcade at home, Cogburn estimated she plays video games on average about 30 hours per week.

“I’ve been a fan since the first game,” she said, adding that she was raised with home consoles going back to the 1980s. “I’ve been a gamer since I was like 4; going back to the Atari … I think it’s going to be awesome.”

Cliff Rutland, 25, and Molly Rosenbusch, 24, who’ve been dating for about 4 ½ years, arrived at GameStop about an hour before the launch. Rutland, a Halo enthusiast for nearly a decade, was picking up an early birthday present.

“It’s kind of a birthday gift for him. I don’t really play, anything beyond Mario is really too hardcore for me,” Rosenbusch offered.

Across town at Hastings, a more subdued crowd of roughly 30 shuffled around the store before the release.

Ryan Hilbert, a 22-year-old disc jockey in town, had thought out a game plan prior to his stop at the store. “I don’t work until tomorrow night, so I’m good,” he said. “And I’ve got a case of Red Bull at the house, so I’m good to go.”

After the launch at the GameStop store, Buddy Grandstaff, 44, and his younger brother, Chris Russell, 18, left carrying two, limited-edition copies of Halo: Reach, one of which was going to Grandstaff’s boss next door at Albertsons grocery store.

“I’ve been a fan since the first game came out,” Grandstaff said. When asked if he was planning on a late night, he said, “Oh yeah, I’ll play all through the night. I plan on playing however many hours I have free in the week.”