Halo: Reach enjoys peachy pre-launch party

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Tuesday, 14 September 2010 01:48

Your IT - Entertainment

Midnight madness style Halo: Reach launches are happening at selected electronics and games stores in various Australian cities to celebrate the latest instalment of Microsoft's iconic Xbox (and Xbox 360) game, Halo.

It's not just Apple that is able to pull in the pre-launch midnight madness crowds - Microsoft can do it, too, and with one of its big guns at that: Halo.

Halo: Reach is a prequel to the existing successful Halo trilogy and has already received great reviews from some of the world's major gaming websites, with the main consensus being that the single player story mode has no major surprises for long-time Halo players, but that the multiplayer mode is worth every penny and re-ignites the Halo phenomenon a fourth time around.

Although there were a few midnight madness launches in Sydney Australia, the main one Microsoft was promoting to journalists was taking place at EB Games in the Westpoint Shopping Centre in the Sydney suburb of Blacktown.

According to the PR people present, around 250 people had arrived by around 9.30pm, with that number nearly doubling to around 400 people at around 10.15pm. Photos you can see on page two let you see how many people were lining up to pre-purchase a copy of Halo Reach to claim from midnight onwards - there was certainly hundreds of people there waiting to get a copy.

EB Games supplied a DJ playing dance music hits while a green screen was set up where anyone could line up to have their photo taken and superimposed into Master Chief-type armour, printed out on photo paper for a few hundred people as a memento.

A Kinect-equipped XBox 360 was also on display for use by the crowds, most of whom were eager to have a sneak peak and trial of Microsoft's answer to the Nintendo Wii and the Sony PS3 Move motion systems.

EB Games was also giving out a "gift bag" to the first 300 Halo Reach customers with "$50 of value", containing a gaming magazine, Halo Reach poster, chips, soft drink and other paraphernalia. As usual there was more than one version of Halo to purchase, be it the basic version through to the more expensive "limited edition" version. 

iTWire colleague Mike Bantick has been hard at work over the past few months chronicling the game's development and, until now, pending release, although the game has now finally launched in Australian stores.

Back on the 4th of March, Mike was giving us a "first look" at the multiplayer mayhem of Halo Reach.

Continued on page two, where you'll see some photos of the assembled Halo Reach ready crowd!