Microsoft's much-awaited Xbox alien combat game "Halo 2" went on sale nationwide at 12:01 a.m. yesterday, and Hawai'i gamers with itchy thumbs and forefingers snapped up copies of what some expect will be the biggest-selling — and played — game this holiday season.

David Cho, an employee at Toys n' Joys in Kaimuki, bought his own copy of "Halo 2" shortly after midnight yesterday but forced himself not to play the game when he got home around 1 a.m. "I knew I wouldn't be able to go sleep, (and) I had to open the store at 9:30," he said.

Reyn Fukui, a 12-year-old Star of the Sea student, bought the game yesterday afternoon at GameStop in Kahala after waiting roughly a year and a half for the release. "Everyone is waiting to get home and play," he said. "I've been waiting a long time for this."

Devotees of the original "Halo: Combat Evolved" game started lining up Monday night to get the earliest copies of the $50 game. Microsoft compared the game's debut to a movie premiere and forecast "Halo 2" will generate more sales in its first 24 hours than the first-day box-office receipts of any movie in history.

About 200 people were waiting outside Toys n' Joys on Wai'alae Avenue by midnight, with similar numbers reported at other Honolulu outlets.

For the uninitiated, "Halo 2" players assume the role of genetically enhanced soldier Master Chief, who helped destroy an artificial world known as Halo in the original game, and is returning to Earth to protect it from alien attackers.

"It's like 'Star Wars,' " said Mark Cruz, a 25-year-old role-playing game enthusiast who works at Daiei. "The first one comes out. The next one, you can't wait to watch it."

More than 7,000 retailers around the country participated in Microsoft-organized "midnight madness" sales events, including Hawai'i Blockbuster Video and Gamestop stores.

Much of the early buzz was about the game's enhanced graphics and online multi- player capabilities.

"Whoa!" cried Star of the Sea student Fukui as he fired Master Chief's gun at a heavily armored door while sampling "Halo 2" at Toys n' Joys. "Lots of action."

Dylan Knight, a 14-year-old Kaiser High School student, couldn't wait to play.

"I've been looking forward to it," he said. "They've got whole new guns ... and you get to go to Earth to fight the aliens."

How can doing homework compete with that?