Hundreds jump at chance to preview Halo 2

It was only 10 minutes, but man, it was a sweet 10 minutes.

Finally — finally — Daniel Bostick was seated in front of the computer, his face glowing blue from the screen, his fingers furiously working the game controller, his long hair brushed out of his eyes for this occasion: 10 minutes of play time on the much-anticipated Xbox game, Halo 2.

Ten minutes, after waiting in line for an hour to get into the preview at Experience Music Project (EMP), 10 minutes that put him 11 hours ahead of the general public and three years after the debut of the wildly popular elder Halo, which was to go on sale at midnight.

"It was great," the 15-year-old said after his time was up. "It stands a lot higher than the original. It was superior all the way through."

It was 10 minutes he'd earned, too.

"You really want to know?" asked his mom, Patricia Bostick. "He said, 'Can we go to this?' I said, 'Yeah, if you get rid of that 'F' in English.' "

Done and done. And he wasn't the only one taking the day off to usher in the new game.

Probably 1,000 players thronged EMP yesterday afternoon to check out the new game, much more than creator company Bungie expected. They were thinking maybe a couple hundred or so. An hour after the doors opened, they were worried that not everyone would get a chance to play.

"It's like, 'Wow,' " said Pete Parsons, executive producer of Halo 2. "All these people are showing up for us?"

What an understatement. Fans came in from as far away as New York and San Diego to best their friends by 11 hours. Parsons was so popular, kids were lining up to get him to autograph their T-shirts.

"Yeah, that's weird," he said with a grin. "That's highly weird. But if people want my autograph, I'm happy to give it to them. They deserve that much for waiting in line to play our game."

Though most of the fans were seeing Halo 2 for the first time, an intrepid few had, ahem, already sneaked a peek.

"Dorks like us?" said Jason Sambajon, 20. "It's not that difficult to get an [advance] copy."

But most were guys like Bostick, whose 10 awesome minutes were over all too soon.

"Oh yeah," he said. "It was worth it."

Then he got in line again.

Lisa Heyamoto: 206-464-2149 or lheyamoto@seattletimes.com