It’d just gone 5pm Monday when I got the call. I’d been waiting for it the last month or so but it was still unexpected if you get my drift… Anyhow, so the guy on the other end says “Be at the rendezvous at 11.58 tonight. Not midnight, not a minute before midnight, not a minute after, 11.58. And bring the money or you don’t get the goods. Unnerstand?” He hung up before I could answer or even ask him if he was an Iron Maiden fan. Well, what could I do? If you knew Little Eddie, you’d know I had to be there or there’d be… consequences; so I turned up at the place and found there was a whole bunch of guys after the same stuff I was. This looked like it could turn ugly… fortunately, I’d brought salt and a Taser. Honestly, I can’t tell you how handy throwing salt in someone’s face without them knowing what it is, shouting something like “Your electrolyte balance is gonna get messed up!” and then tasering them is! Well, enough tips… so I eventually got the goods without needing to use any of that stuff then I got the hell out of there before I had to. Some of those guys had been waiting a loooong time to get their paws on the merchandise and I didn’t want to risk being there if demand beat supply. Little Eddie was happy he got what he wanted, I was happy I could keep the use of my legs. WIN-WIN!

OK, it didn’t happen exactly like that. I’ll start over. I got a call from GAME about a small game that was having a midnight launch. A game with five seemingly random letters for a name which wasn’t an RPG. A game called GTAIV. So, at about 11.30 on the Monday just gone, I took a dander to my local GAME – first along a darkened footbridge to find the side entrance closed… which meant I had to backtrack and take a rather long, slightly scary detour through the ground level of a deserted multistorey carpark before finally making it into the shopping centre where GAME lay. Oh, passing vacant shops filled with mannequins at 5 to midnight is not recommended if you’ve played Condemned! What’s possibly worse is having Keane playing over the sound system as you’re doing so!

Right, I get there to find a bunch of folks already in line, maybe 70 odd. A good mix of folks from families with, rather shockingly, their kids in tow (or maybe it was the other way around) – you know you’re getiing old when you can’t determine a kid’s age with any certainty – to some girls and even someone who reminded me of Dante. Well, if Dante was a beanpole of a kid. And maybe he was… the point is, there was a surprisingly good cross section of gamers for my little burg. I eventually snaffled a copy for my kid brother and will soon be getting 500 MS points for my troubles. WIN-WIN!

But will I play the game? No; if it came down to me and a mule – albeit one with remarkable fine motor skills considering it has hooves – being bribed with cake and carrots respectively to play it, the mule would crack first. And I really like cake!