DAPHNE, Ala. — At 11:20 p.m., someone shouted, “40 minutes, guys!”

At midnight, the Daphne Gamestop opened its doors and let a line of more than 100 people get their hands on their copy of the much-anticipated “Halo: Reach” video game.

The line began forming at 10 p.m. An hour before midnight, there were more than 50 people waiting outside the store.

The Halo video game series, a first-person shooter game with online capabilities, has become quite the phenomenon, and the midnight release event showcased the measures some people take to reserve their immediate copy of the game. Some people brought folding chairs; others brought laptops to kill time.

A.J. Sappenfield said he arrived at 5 p.m. and waited in his car until he decided to reserve his place in the front of the line.

He was the first person to walk out of the store with a game, and he said he planned to play the game until it was time to go to school the next morning.

Dustin Sayre and Jeremiah Clark—who said they arrived at the scene around 10 p.m.—put the back seats from a truck on the sidewalk to give a place to relax and wait for the release.

“I’m bedazzled,” Clark said about the people waiting for midnight to come. “I’ve never seen people act this way. I thought I was a geek until I got here.”

Those who pre-ordered the game received their copies first. The store held midnight releases for “Halo 2,” “Halo 3,” “Halo Wars” and “Halo: ODST.”

Midnight-release events are held nationally for major video games such as the Halo series, the Madden NFL series and the Call of Duty series.

The Halo video game series, developed by Bungie, is exclusive to Microsoft’s Xbox 360 video-game console.

The release of "Halo: Reach" attracted 100 teens and 20-somethings to the Jubilee Square Shopping Center. Some had waited hours to get their hands on the new shooting game.

(Staff video by Devin R. Golden; narrated and edited by Thomas Boni)