Sent in by Christiaan Rule, aka GA7CA.
It was just after 5 pm and the hype train had been running through my head all day. In less then an hour I would be at Microsoft’s New York offices playing halo3 with countless other gaming nerds. I had scored this rare and prized opportunity through a friend of mine who had a connection at Microsoft. It was the Halo 3 pre-launch party starting at 6 and going till 10. On the subway ride uptown all I could do was think of the countless possibilities of free gear, games, and merch I was about to get my grubby little hands on. I was never a huge Halo fan but I couldn’t help but be excited by the opportunity to attend the pre launch party to one of if not the most anticipated game of all time. It was a Monday night and the thought of playing video games, while sipping champagne and ogling booth babes sure beat out watching Monday night football.
We arrived outside the office. There was a notable amount of people waiting in the lobby and a woman with a clipboard signing in what I thought was going to be the elite of gaming Uber nerds. The first thing I noticed was that none of the people waiting around were at all the expected. The majority of the people looked like everyday dads that had just gotten out of work. Where were all the gamers? Where was the press? Where were the guys dressed up like master chief and everything that you would expect to see at an event of this stature?

After a short wait we were herded into elevators and made our way into the office. It was the type of office you would expect to find in the Midwest during the early 90’s on the side of some road. A halo 3 poster hung by the reception desk but that was it. All the walls were otherwise blank. The spot light seemed to be on the room with the food, which contained a large table of Christmas cookies and some chips and dip. The first thing that popped into my head was that I needed a beer. I quickly spotted the drink table and headed right for it. The closer I got the bigger the fear in my eyes grew as I began to realize that the drinks consisted of bottled water and ginger ale. After grabbing a soda, we shuffled around the table with random people we didn’t know…looking for anything edible. You could hear people muttering to themselves, “is this it?”, “Are they gonna serve real food later?”. The general feeling in the room was that of heartbreak. All I wanted was a master chief cake or something but was stuck with Microsoft’s left overs from their last Christmas party.

Legendary Invite

After consuming our refreshments we took the small pieces of paper that had been given to us into a large room that had 7 flat panel screens with Xbox 360 elites attached to each. We walked over to our corresponding consoles and sat down. Nick and I had been paired with a phantom(It was like this guy wasn’t even there, I also don’t remember him at all), and the strangest of strange looking Asian dudes. A Microsoft employee quickly fired up the game for us and the tournament had begun. As AC DC played in the background I took the first minute or two to figure out the new controls. The game looked good but almost identical to what halo2 and halo1 looked like when they first came out. Before you know it the dashboard blade came up and the funny looking Asian dude aka “WART” had pressed the middle button. I quickly instructed him to press the b button to get back into the game. It was only a matter of time and before Nick and I were dancing around in the courtyard while occasionally racing to the cannon fodder that had been assigned to our console. Nick and I took turns bitch slapping “WART” to the ground while he was staring at the floor in a corner. Soon the time was up and being that I had the highest score I was given another piece of paper with a game time of 8:55 scribbled on it. I immediately asked what the prize was if I won. The guy said ” 1st place receives a legendary halo copy of the game”. Those were his exact words mind you. Legendary…halo…copy of the game. Thats when me and nick decided it was time to pick up our swag and leave. There was no way we were gonna sit around limp dick with nothing to do for 2 hours for a prize that I could just goto the store tomorrow and buy for 60 bucks.

legendary shirt i will never wear

On the way out there was 3 big cardboard boxes by the door with a Microsoft employee hovering over them. When we approached him he asked us “shirt or hat.” I’m not sure what was worse but I went with the shirt which looked like it had been printed and overnighted the day before the party. They only had large and extra large so I went with the large. In addition to the lovely shirt he offered me a poster which was almost identical to the graphic on the shirt. I said sure and he handed me 2 saying here I gave you a couple extra like I was special for getting more then one dumb poster. Nick on the other hand received the hat which I thought was incredibly gay, as well as the 2 posters…I suppose I wasn’t so special after all. Nick also received the limited edition halo3 brown paper bag which was probably the most useful item of the lot. I had been left with nothing to carry the useless junk I had just received. Right before exiting the office we spotted the best of the best that the party had to offer. 3 computer consoles with free Internet stood against the wall. Too bad one was off line and the other two were being used by people who couldn’t figure out what the point of the party was in the first place. On that note we went headed home broken but not empty handed by any means. Let me now take this time to share our halo goodies in all their pre-launch swagging glory.

a bag that could only be legendary

all the legendary merch

legendary sabersword

legendary crayon set assorted colors

limited edition legendary helmet

microsoft employees change

team legend