I preordered tickets for First Look because I thought it would be just as good as Eurogamer and it was closer by(still in a different country though) but now I will tell you a story how my dedication to Halo ended up in the most frustrating day of my life (well right after the storm of pukkelpop 2011).
> The way to FL
My day to First Look started awful, my cellphone’s sim card decided to bail on me first thing in the morning leaving out 3G for navigation on a 2 hour trip (reminder : I live in a different country) I decided to just print directions and hope I didn’t get lost, I used my moms sim card so I could call but 3G was not an option.
Halfway there, I got an accident, luckily the police saw the whole thing and it was clearly the other guys fault, still my car was declared incapable of driving so after filling in a ton of insurance papers I headed for the station to go by train (note that I payed up to 75 euro, 50 for gas and 25 for a train ticket) hanging on to the belief I was going to play at least one game of Halo 4.
Every train I got onto (total of 3) got delayed, and I eventually arrived at the station of Utrecht 48+ minutes to late (note I left home ±5 hours ago, 8:00 left home, 12:48 I arrived at the station and was stilling heading for the convention hall), and -Yoink- got better, my ticket was still in my car. For once luck was on my side, my friend had an extra copy of my ticket but he was waiting in line for BO2 since the start and it was nearly his turn so he sent the code by SMS, the guards checked and let me through.
> Inside, change of luck?
After that I wanted to wait for my friends but as the heroes they are they told me I could go to Halo 4.
After a 26 minute wait I got an envelope with a sad face on it, little did I know at that moment this indicated I was not going to play Halo 4, but after I did find out I was quite disappointed (also there was an error in the introduction video of Kiki Wolfkill, she said Crawler and the Watcher showed up and vice versa). Directly after watching other luckier people play I wanted to join in line again but my friends convinced me to take a brake since I just took a 5 hours trip and had a car crash. After a long brake we decided to test our luck, after 2 tries with 3 guys, none of us had gotten the chance to play, eventually one of my friends got a nose bleed and had to leave his spot to find some help, he signaled us to stay, after coming back he told us the people he came with are leaving and so did he. And then there were 2.
Who still after 3 tries got no chance to play the game, best part :it was the last play and thus after six tries I only had goodies.
> Way home can’t be that bad
Disappointed (and -Yoinking!- carless) I decided to grab a bite and go home (had to buy a ticket making it to a total of 100 euro spend on public transit), after getting on a train I finally arrived at my first stop only to see the train I needed leave in front of my eyes right after I arrived. Next train was in 46 minutes. But had around an hour and a half delay(103 minutes when I asked), it was past 23 in the evening and still no train. Eventually an extra train arrived (somewhere around 23:50) to replace the other one, in total I was around 3 hours stuck at the station outside without a jacket and in a different country. Eventually I arrived in BE only to discover that due to union -Yoink-(train driver was way passed his hours) I had to switch train, luck has it the next train happened to have a 40 minutes delay. Oh and it was 1:10 the next day by then. Finally at 1:50 I was on my way home (the train still needed to stop 3 times), only to eventually end up at my GFs place since she had to pick me up from the station and lived closer by. It was 2:42 in the morning when I arrived at her place.
> Was it worth it?
Absolutely not, only 2 out of the 6 times that I sat there I was watching a guy that was able to play decently the other 4 times I ended up seeing some BK who happened to have waited in line just for the heck of it(not kidding I stood behind the kid as he got a smiley envelope).
In no way was this mentioned to us on the official site of FL, if I knew this I would have gone to Eurogamer so I at least ended up playing the game once, now I have a destroyed car, a loss of 50 euros on public transit and over 12 hours wasted getting there and back.
Even better is that everyone that entered the BO2 stand was allowed to play at least once, and that stand only lasted 5 hours, Halo 4 was there the full 7 and not me or my friends got the chance to play.
In all seriousness this should have been mentioned, I also love how the women that gave the introduction looked me in the eyes 6 times and showed no sign of pity she clearly recognized me as she mentioned I had been there before.
Next time I’ll just stay home and watch videos online, it’s cheaper and I don’t have to stand in line to see someone else play.
