We officially announced the Reach for the Swag contest in June of this year. And here we are, nearly three months later. Bungie.net has a brand new look, Gamestop is completely sold out of preorders, and we now have winners of our first ever giveaway contest.

The second prize winner, who will receive the “Grenades are Tactical” TGZ shirt, is…

…Eric “EZE” Abrams!

Our first prize winner, taking home the Halo: Reach Standard Edition, is…

…Steven “Tweeder” Duvall!

And finally, the grand prize winner, who will be rocking the Halo: Reach Legendary Edition in just a few short days, is…

…Ryan “EMOFATGUY” Eastwood!

Congrats to our winners, and a big, heartfelt thank you from KM and Myself for your donations and support, which makes the Gamerz Zone a great place for gamers like you and me to come together and celebrate our favorite hobby.

It’s less than a month away and we already have a handful people who are the running to win the LEGENDARY Edition of the upcoming game, Halo: Reach.

What does that mean for me?

Your chances are still PRETTY DARN GOOD to be in the running for this amazing chance.

What do I have to do to enter?

Well, you can make me laugh via twitter by giving me, @thekittyman, reasons as to why you think I’m gay. Make me laugh? You’re in. I’ll be sure to let you know if you’re in. It’s not hard to make me laugh either.

Or just follow me and Morte for questions you can answer for another free chance to win! Some of the questions could be pretty hard, so just keep an eye out. Difficulty could mean an EXTRA chance to win.

I don’t have twitter and I’m also not funny! What else can I do?

Well, you can donate 5 dollars and get a name in the drawing or even 10 for 2 names in the drawing. It’s a quick and easy way to help the site and also have a chance to win something really awesome.

*Disclaimer* You are not purchasing a chance in the contest. It is a reward to those who choose to help us maintain the site and forums. Our donors are awesome people and deserve something for their contribution. We at TGZ thank you guys. Ya’ll rock.

Are there any other ways I can get a better look at what this all means?

Well, you could be a member of the forum and get a chance. That’s right. Just sign up on the forum and be a part of the action.

(note: there seems to be a slight problem with registration. Really interested and want an easy way in? Shoot me an email with desired Username and pass to get you started. km@thegamerzzone.com )

What if I don’t win the Legendary Edition?

No need to worry! We’ll also be giving away the regular edition of the game as well as shirts!

What kind of shirts and what if they don’t fit?

They’ll be shirts of our own design.

and we’ll make sure to get your size after confirming the win to ensure utmost satisfaction.

Get cracking. It’s only less than a month left and tons of chances to be a part of this.

Halo has had vehicles before, but holy shit. Dog fights in space? DOG FIGHTS IN SPACE? Yes. Me Want!

I knew that they wanted to go out with a bang before the huge, and slightly confusing, split into 343 Industries, partnership with Activision, blah blah blah, but damn. Just damn. Even after the beta, feeling the gameplay, and falling in love, I think the campaign still has a lot to deliver that won’t leave me wanting more like Halo 2 did. The excitement continues to grow. If you want to win it though, you definitely need to take part in the contest.

Well, the time has come. We’ve made a big push to bring awareness to our little contest, and now you get the juicy details. Don’t worry, we’ll keep this short, sweet, and simple[citation needed].

Prizes

First off, the prizes. We’re going to be giving away three prizes.

Second Prize: The “Grenades are Tactical” TGZ shirt.

The only T-shirt guaranteed to protect you from grenade spam, noob tubes, and campers.*

Inspired by such blockbuster games as Halo: Grenades, Call of Duty: Grenade Spam, and Battlegrenade: Bad Grenade 2, the “Grenades are Tactical” shirt is the perfect way to show your love of grenade spam.

*Disclaimer: Does not protect against grenade spam, noob tubes, or campers.

One winner will receive the “GaT” shirt in the size of their choice.

First Prize: The Halo: Reach Standard Edition

The no frills added version of the future most-played-game-on-Xbox-Live. Save yourself $60, or give it to a friend to convince them to play it with you. Either way, you can never have too much Halo.

And finally, the Grand Prize: The Halo: Reach Legendary Edition

Featuring the MacFarlane Toys Noble Team centerpiece, special Reach packaging and documentation, in-game flaming skull and elite armor, and a +10 Girth to your E- peen, promising to be one of the hottest special edition releases ever, this baby is guaranteed to make your friends jealous.

Contest Method

We’re gonna throw all your names in a hat and pick three of ‘em out. Simple enough right?

Contest Entry

There are three ways to enter the contest, and each one you do will net you a single chance, for a total of 6 chances total. Yes, I said six. No, I didn’t screw up the math.

First Chance: The Contest

Three times over the next month, we will be posting a quote and a question. All you have to do is put the quote and the answer in an email to contests@thegamerzzone.com with “Reach for the Swag Contest” in the subject line. Get it right, you win a chance. Simple right?

Oh, and the quote will be encoded in some way. Good luck.

Possible Chances: 3, one for each correct answer.

Second Chance: Be a Forum Member

That’s right. Simply be a forum member for a free chance to win. This does not apply only to current members: sign up the day of and you still get your shot. Simply include your forum name in the emails you send answering the question.

Possible Chances: 1

Third Chance: Be a TGZ Donator

Simply be one of our donors and receive up to two extra chances. Donations between $5 and $10 will give you one extra chance, and donations over $10 will give you two. This will apply retroactively, so all previous donors will be included, as well as those who choose to donate from here on out. Simply include your paypal account email for verification.

*Disclaimer* You are not purchasing a chance in the contest. It is a reward to those who choose to help us maintain the site and forums. Our donors are awesome people and deserve something for their contribution. We at TGZ thank you guys. Ya’ll rock.

Possible Chances: 2, 1 for $5+ and another for $10+

Total Chances: 6, 3 contest, 1 forum, 2 donor

Still a little confused? Well, let’s give you a practice run.

‘Contest Question Beta:
“00100010 01000110 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000
01110101 01110011 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01100001 00100000
01110100 01101000 01101111 01110101 01110011 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000
01101111 01100110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01101101 00111111 00100000
01010000 01101001 01110011 01110011 00101101 01110000 01101111 01101111 01110010
00100000 01101111 01100100 01100100 01110011 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010
00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01101100 01101001 01110100 01110100
01101100 01100101 00100000 01100111 01110101 01111001 01110011 00101110 00100010″
Who said this quote?’

So you would send an email saying:

To:contests@thegamerzzone.com
Subject:Reach for the Swag Contest
Field: “Four of us and a thousand of them? Piss-poor odds for the little guys.” -
Blue-Two

Forum Name: Morte
Paypal Email: nick@thegamerzzone.com

And just like that, you got your first 4 chances. Answer the other two questions right and get six total.

After the last question has been given, we’ll tally the results, and do the drawing. Drawing will be done for the grand prize first, then first, then second, to give everyone a fair shot at the grand prize. Winners will be announced and notified shortly thereafter.

So, good luck Noble Six, and make sure you’re checking the forums and twitter as well, never know when we might toss out some extra opportunities to earn a free chance.

In this episode:
Fall of Duty and the recent firings at Infinity Ward
Halo Reach
Portal 2
Ps2′s 10 year anniversary
Games we’re playing
The TGZ Network
And a final surprise question.

Hope you enjoy. Please leave feedback via comment or email.

km@thegamerzzone.com

Make sure to subscribe via iTunes and rate us up. The more feedback we get, the better we can do the next time. <3

-KM

It’s unclear what role he will play at this time, but as the screenshot indicates, he will be yelling, yawning, or burping.

[editor's note]: I had a complete article written out, but it was deleted upon posting. I’m taking another shot at it.

Halo Reach is the latest installment in the ever growing Halo franchise and this video seems to reveal quite a bit of things. New or not.

Some new things to come

-Sprinting
-Health System
-New Weapons (Noob Tubes!)
-Assassination Animations
-Updated (and extremely sexy) graphics
-Story Driven Game

Let’s be honest, Halo used to be about immersion into the story, the environment, and the characters. It wasn’t until ODST came around that we got the isolation and immersion back. Halo 2′s campaign was a schizo, unfinished placeholder for the multiplayer aspect of the game. Halo 3 was trying hard to tie up loose ends for the story arc while “finishing the fight” still left it open for interpretation as to where the story would lead.

Bungie have really began to get into their storytelling skills again since they basically perfected multiplayer (while also leaving it out of ODST for some reason).

How The GamePlay Will Change for both campaign and multiplayer for this new halo adventure seems to be vast. According to the vidoc, they’re trying to keep the core of what makes Halo, well, Halo. It still definitely looks like Halo, but willl it feel like Halo?

Halo 1, to many people that I still talk to, is still the best game of the Halo franchise overall. Sure, it had a long development time and genre changes, but the final product was an amazing launch title that helped put Microsoft into a niche that’s been working for nearly a decade. With further endeavours to improve and expand the game, howwever, came changes.

In Halo 2, we lost ladders, the pistol, the health system, the Assault Rifle, a finished story, isolation, and the feeling of humanity within the story.
Introduced dual wielding, the battle rifle, lock-on rockets, xbox live multiplayer, swords, lifts, and button glitches.

Halo 3 lost inifinite sword ammo, sword lunging, crappy needler replacement, most of the main characters due to “end of the story” reasoning to kill them, and a lack of urgency for “main” sorts of enemy weapons like the Scarab.
Introduced a new Assault Rifle from Fisher-Price, man cannons, Spartan Lasers, new grenades, saved films, a “finished” story, interesting marketing campaign, meta achievements, a broken melee system, vast environments (for Halo), and 4 player co-op over xbox live that doesn’t fuck with the story at all.

ODST lost… the spartans.
Introduced a very human element, isolation (again), new ways to survive from what was once an “easy” group of enemies, custom weapons for ODSTs, the pistol with a zoom, better-than-spartan turret control and movement, and Firefight.

While Halo 1 introduced the solid core of gameplay, each installment added something different. It seems to all culminate into this, a prequel. For people who aren’t knee deep in the ever growing story behind the Halo franchise, it’s hard to imagine that there were ever any other Spartans other than the Master Chief. Afterall, he’s been the only one we’ve seen up until now. After ODSTs vulnerable characters and isolated feeling while searching for your squad left a positive impact, in much the same way Master Chief’s isolation and confusion did in Halo 1, Bungie seems to be getting their act together to COMBINE a campaign and multiplayer into one game. But, what will the changes do to Halo?

The Campaign Experience

All gameplay changes will not have an impact on the campaign experience. If the footage from the video suggests correctly, it will still feel like Halo. The new features will just be icing on the cake for people who actually do enjoy the storyline and don’t just play the games to see how quickly they can rank up in Team Slayer. It seems that with the new AI capability that the need for more than just one enhanced Spartan will be needed. Some people I know still have trouble with the Legendary difficulty, so I’m going to assume with many more enemies to deal with, playing with friends will be a definite must if they include it as a part of the campaign in the same way they did for Halo 3. Let’s just hope it doesn’t arbitrarily tell us that we can’t have multiplayer because it could fuck with the story it wants to tell (I’m looking at YOU Infinity Ward…).

The Multiplayer Experience

It WILL feel like Halo. FEEL being the key word. I don’t want to say anything definite since I haven’t gotten my hands on it, and won’t until the public beta, but it seems that with the added elements of sprinting and kill animations that it could definitely change up the flow of combat depending on the maps. Halo 3 lost the ability to properly control maps, making the game a lot more unpredictable. Good or bad, that’s up to you, but we know the pro circuit has definitely taken notice in the changes (I’ll miss you original Final Boss).

Sprinting is going to be a welcome introduction for me. Nothing like being able to not only coordinate pushes on an enemy, but also RUNNING THE FUCK AWAY. That’s just my style though.

The kill animations seem to be an odd edition to me. While it is cool to see kill animations, they typically work best within a third person shooter like Gears of War than an FPS like Halo. I know it’s “optional” to give that added satisfaction and humiliation to the person you’re killing, much like teabagging, but how will it work out in a game that is fairly well paced in it’s combat. I’m sure the fact that it’s optional makes it a risk for the player that does the action by making them a semi-stationary target, but I think I really need to play with it to give a proper opinion on it. Right now, I’m worried. I know they said they’re trying to not fuck with it too much to not piss off certain people aka MLG, but I have to really see it. I have to feel it.

Upon further review, they keep saying “The campaign will be different” and “campaign experience” instead of just saying “Game” experience. Maybe that’s a hint that those features will not be in the multiplayer. Too many questions for me being a fanboy.