Topic: HALO 2 Midnight Madness - Isn't this crap? (Not off-topic, I promise!)

[UncleBob]

So I go to the "local" EB Games (about an hour away) to pick up my Brother-in-law's HALO 2 Pre-Order at midnight. I get there at about 10, get handed number 86 and wait in line for over two and a half hours (in the cold outdoors, because apparently the mall management wouldn't let us wait inside) to get the game. When at the register, I ask about getting Mario Power Tennis (something for myself, after all) and I'm told (somewhat briskly) that "No, we're *only* selling HALO 2 tonight. You'll have to come back tommrow if you want that.".

What the crap is this?

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

They didn't want to you have fun in any other way other than with Master Chef.  HOW EVIL.

[ruby_onix]

I'm not surprised.

What you do is, next time you happen to be in EB Games, just "casually" mention to one of the clerks (or preferably the manager)...

"Hey, Mario Power Tennis! Y'know, I actually wanted to buy this game a couple days ago, while you had that Midnight Madness thing, but you refused to sell it to me because of some "Halo only" thing, so I bought it the next day from [insert competetor here]."

[UncleBob]

>What you do is, next time you happen to be in EB Games, just "casually" mention to one of the clerks (or preferably the manager)...

But... it was the store manager.

[Pale]

What you do is, never shop at ebgames again...

[joshnickerson]

You forgot the single most important fact about EB Games...

THEY SUCK!

But to be totally fair, I doubt they really wanted to be there at midnight, and just wanted to shovel out all the reserves for Halo 2 as fast as possible so they could just go home.

[Savior]

Must have been youre EB only.

[MaleficentOgre]

gamespot sold me mario tennis at midnight.  The EB in my mall lost costomers to the mall gamestop because gamestop sold other games as long as you got halo.

[VideoGamerJ]

The reason they wouldn't allow anything else to be bought was because it was only for Halo 2. If they started allowing other things, it would slow things down and in many stores the lines went on and on. I didn't make the rule, but I enforced it. It's only a shame games like Metroid Prime 2 won't get this publicity. Oh well, always Zelda 2005!

[Shift Key]

EB love money hats, nuff said. The midnight release made it to Page 3 in the local paper, with some geek chick at an EB store in town. ;______;
There were also news pieces from around Australia, and I couldn't help but laugh over one guy getting soooo excited for the camera, bragging he had it pre-ordered since February

[RABicle]

Actually Bob think about how mcuh longer you would've had to wait outside if the 85 people in front of you all wanted to buy another game, or place pre orderes for Halo 3.

Quote
There were also news pieces from around Australia, and I couldn't help but laugh over one guy getting soooo excited for the camera, bragging he had it pre-ordered since February

It doesn't surprise me that weak Xbox losers pre-ordered back in Febuary. After all it's the only decent release on the system since... well since Halo 1. No wonder he was excited! Oh and yeah it made page 3 of the West Australian too. Disgraceful.

[Hostile Creation]

And to add to it all, I hear tell that several Xbox gamers are a bit disappointed with the game.  Not all that it was cracked up to be, apparently.

[KDR_11k]

And yet all reviews claim it's perfect... Well, at least in score, the review text still points out flaws. According to Penny Arcade MS even dictated what pre-release reviewers are allowed to write.

[NinGurl69 *huggles]

Nice.  Pre-release copies for glowing pre-release reviews.  Must've been awesome pre-release versions.

What on earff happened?

[joshnickerson]

Quote
Originally posted by: Professional 666
Nice.  Pre-release copies for glowing pre-release reviews.  Must've been awesome pre-release versions.

What on earff happened?

Perhaps MS took a cue from Atari and Dri3er?

*runs and hides*

[UncleBob]

> Actually Bob think about how mcuh longer you would've had to wait outside if the 85 people in front of you all wanted to buy another game, or place pre orderes for Halo 3.

Then I would have thought "Gee, I should have gotten here eariler so I wouldn't have to wait behind all of these people."
See, I don't mind waiting so much (though I am a little cheesed that we all had to wait outside in the cold instead of waiting inside the mall...)

[Ian Sane]

"According to Penny Arcade MS even dictated what pre-release reviewers are allowed to write."

How does that work?  "Sure we'll give you a pre-release copy but you're not allowed to reveal any flaws."

Reminds me of MGS2 where none of the reviewers mentioned that you only play as Solid Snake for the first part of the game.  All the reviews were positive and then once everyone else start playing suddenly this really SUCKY part of the game's design was revealed and there was a huge backlash.  Then later MGS2: Substance came out and all the reviewers told us what they REALLY thought.  Technically I think they were told to not mention Raiden because it was supposed to be a surprise but what can a reviewer do if the surprise severely hurts the game's quality.  They're stuck because they have to somehow site a fault they aren't allowed to talk about.

There should never be any restriction to a review's content.  Once you limit what a review can say you completely remove the purpose of having a review.

[Flames_of_chaos]

Quote
Originally posted by: KDR_11k
And yet all reviews claim it's perfect... Well, at least in score, the review text still points out flaws. According to Penny Arcade MS even dictated what pre-release reviewers are allowed to write.

Dont you mean that this is a Bizarro Review.