While the queues were not as big as perhaps those of the Halo 3 launch, the anticipation and the excitement were still just as strong.

Both Gamestation and GAME opened their doors at midnight to the 40 or so people that had waited outside for the last half an hour or so. The whole thing was carried out with military style precision and was even backed up with some security, just in case.

We scored our copy of the game early on, and there was a distributed mix of people going for the standard edition (which received a welcomed last minute price cut to £34.99) and some going for the limited edition with the ODST controller.

By now these shops are very used to dealing with midnight openings and have them figured out neatly, with probably at least a few members of staff having worked around ten previous moonlit launches.

The (possibly overstaffed) shop coped well with the queues, preventing browsing of other items and focussing on getting the game out while offering all the usual extras. Need a controller? Strategy guide? LIVE membership? Good ideas, but most were really just there for the game.

If you want to see a couple of snaps from the event go straight to our Facebook gallery or start following us on twitter.