Stand in the rain for nearly 22 hours just to buy a video game? Julian Yarbrough was all about that as he waited Monday evening at Seattle's University Village for the release of "Halo 5: Guardians."
He, Angie Harter and Raina Hansen arrived in the wee hours Monday -- 2 a.m., Yarbrough said -- to grab a good spot in line outside the Microsoft store to snag a copy of the latest version of the popular combat video game series for XBox One. It was going on sale at midnight.
Their effort paid off: They were first in line and got kudos from Steve Downes, the actor who voices Master Chief, a key Halo character.
"Awesome. You're crazy, but it's awesome," Downes said.
Behind the three of them, hundreds of other fans stood waiting under darkening, rain-filled clouds.
What drives that kind of devotion to a video game?
"Playing Halo since I was 5 years old," Yarbrough said.
"We're ready for this," Hansen said.
[asset-images[{"caption": "Steve Downes (right), the actor who voices Master Chief in the Halo series, signs an autograph for Raina Hansen as Angie Harter (center) and Julian Yarbrough look on outside the Microsoft store at University Village in Seattle on Monday, Oct. 26, 2015. Yarbrough, Harter and Hansen were the first three fans in line for the Halo 5 release -- they said they'd been waiting outside the store since 2 a.m.", "fid": "121736", "style": "placed_wide", "uri": "public://201510/20151026-halo-3.jpg", "attribution": "Credit KUOW Photo/Gil Aegerter"}]]
[asset-images[{"caption": "Brenden, Lena and Kendra Thorne wait outside the Microsoft store for the release of 'Halo 5' on Monday, Oct. 26, 2015. They were with dad Preston Thorne, who works on video games for Amazon.", "fid": "121738", "style": "placed_wide", "uri": "public://201510/20151026-halo-2_0.jpg", "attribution": "Credit KUOW Photo/Gil Aegerter"}]]
