Halo 2 Backstage Pass Sweepstakes:

The World Comes to Xbox

The winners of the Halo 2 Backstage Pass Sweeps.

You know what the beautiful part of the Halo 2 Backstage Pass Sweepstakes was, besides getting a free trip to Redmond, Washington for the chance to play Halo 2 a full five days before the rest of the world? Most of these gamers didn't even realize that they'd been entered to win until they got a phone call asking them if they were available November 3-5. Some of them were convinced it was a joke. But, it was no joke. On Wednesday, November 3, sixteen Xbox Live members and their guests converged on Redmond for the beginning of a whirlwind ride that they'll remember the rest of their lives.

All day Wednesday we had Hummer-loads of winners coming in from all over the U.S. and U.K., as well as Singapore, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Germany, Denmark, and Italy. They were picked up in this little hooptie here:

Pimp my Halo 2 ride.

When they arrived at their hotel, the brand new Marriott at Redmond Town Center, Major Nelson and I were waiting for them in the Presidential Suite. I'm not kidding, this is where #43 stayed when he was out here for a fundraiser this summer. I sat on W's bed … it had bad juju. As the winners arrived in the "Master Chief Suite," as we renamed it, they feasted on some grub, hung out, played Xbox, and checked out the view … such as it was.

Winners and Xbox marketing dudes scope the Redmond skyline.

Winner JBowDown (left) and his guest tetreves.

JBowDown, a freelance video technician from Minneapolis, has been an Xbox Live member since Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow came out. When his friend tetreves got married in June, JBowDown gave him a Halo Edition Xbox console for his bachelor party. That's friendship, people.

Winner CheeseHeadz (right) and guest Larry.

CheeseHeadz spent his $100 gift certificate on goodies for his wife and three kids, Jared, Jordan, and Joy, back in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin. His fellow finance students at UW Whitewater freaked out when they heard about his prize.

IAmAdam (right) and his grandfather.

IAmAdam is a high school senior in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. His grandpa, Fred, came along for the ride, and charmed all the Xbox girls with his tales of World War II. We love Adam because he wants to be a teacher.

IGN winner firebOrn and Xbox dude Trench.

Fireb0rn won his Backstage Pass trip through IGN, where he has made 12,000 posts in the Halo and Bungie forums. He didn't get to bring a guest, so his "incredibly sweet and understanding" wife Ashley stayed home in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, where Fireb0rn is the weather guy at WJSA radio, which is owned by Covenant Broadcasting. Coincidence? We kept a close eye on him just in case.

It's feeding time at Backstage Pass.

In the evening, we had dinner at Desert Fire with the winners from the U.S and Asia—the Europeans didn't arrive until later in the evening, so there were two feedings. The Europeans had been traveling all day and could barely keep their eyes open, but they were good sports.

Winners from Europe toast their good fortune.

The British and Italian contingents arrive.

Sleepy winners sign their lives away.

Thursday morning, the winners arrived at Xbox H.Q. and gathered in the Xbox conference room to sign Non-Disclosure Agreements promising not to tell anyone what they saw until Halo 2 released. As Xbox hard-ass Trench told them, "You don't sign, you don't play." Paperwork out of the way, the winners broke into four teams. I had the Red Team, consisting of PeterX from Seoul, fireb0rn from Pennsylvania, monkey rocks from London, StonyGhost from Copenhagen, and their guests. I referred to myself as "Red Leader" as I led them to the Playtest Labs … oddly, no one found this amusing besides me.

The Holy Grail of gaming: the Xbox Playtest Lab.

Red and Blue teams (Blue led by Xbox money-man Patrick) swarmed into Playtest Lab B and saddled up. Fireb0rn requested a 'fatty' controller—the late, lamented Duke—and Patrick scavenged one for him, while tetreves and JBowDown brought their own Duke controllers just to be safe.

Bungie's Frankie helped corral wayward gamers.

Frankie from Bungie was there and helped the Korean and Italian gamers (Dio18 and Ninja from Rome) set up consoles in their native languages. Then the playing began. It was deathly quiet at first, with only the sounds of furious button-mashing. Then JBowDown and tetreves started with the trash talk. Leave it to the Americans.

UK winner sneal_UK and his Swedish/Australian honey.

Their first reactions to the game? "Awesome!" And, that's about all I can get out of them because, well, they're playing Halo 2. I snap pictures until someone threatens to implant my camera where I can't reach it. Apparently flash photography during gameplay makes contest winners cranky.

After an hour of playing, Red Team got a tour of Bungie Studios. We met the few Bungie employees still around (most are taking some well-deserved R&R), and caught some of the art guys ogling the girlies from Street Racing Syndicate. After our tour, all four teams huddled up in the Bungie team room for lunch.

Box lunches in the sanctum sanctorum.

So there we were enjoying our sandwiches, when—surprise! Bungie Studio Manager Pete Parsons came to rally with us. First, he sucked up to the crowd by promising them all copies of Halo 2, with the caveat: "You just can't walk out of here with it. We have to mail it to you." He congratulated the winners and took some questions. Poor guy didn't realize he was walking into a room with heavy-hitters like German winners quandoz and XX BEAST XX, who grilled him on System Link play, downloadable content, dedicated servers, Halo 3, and the possibility of a Halo movie.

Next, we all trooped over to Robbie's playhouse—the private conference room of Robbie Bach, Senior Vice President of Microsoft's Home and Entertainment Division. He's the one dude who can put any kind of smack-down on bad boy Xbox V.P. J Allard. As soon as we all squeezed into the room, Robbie, J, and VP of Marketing and Publishing Peter Moore showed up to congratulate the Backstage Pass winners. High on their previous encounter with Pete Parsons, the winners made like Barbara Walters and interrogated the unsuspecting execs about when the Video Chat device would be available in Europe and what effect Sony's  PSP would have on the Xbox business. Then they begged to have the Duke brought back. J noticed JBowDown's Duke controller and said, "You brought your own. That's love."

After ditching the execs, we went back to the playtest lab where teams Red, Blue, Green, and Gold had 2½ blissful hours to get their Halo 2 game on with some of the Bungie guys. This time things got a little harsher. Our winners were feeling more confident and clearly comfortable enough to break out the big-boy words. Cuss words sound extra classy with a British accent (thanks Que510N Mark and Cha5er).

We nearly had to cut power to the entire building to get them to stop playing, but we finally got the lot of 'em loaded on the bus back to the hotel, and herded back onto the bus an hour later for the trip to Gameworks in downtown Seattle. The winners got all the food they could shove down their gullets plus unlimited gaming. Here are some highlights:

Who says America glorifies violence?

IAmAdam gets his DDR groove on.

Team Denmark loves the Star Wars Racer.

Romans Dio18 and Ninja play—what else—futball.

This guy's either shy or liking Virtual Reality.

Pinball wizards from the Twin Cities.

Sound god Marty (ctr) w/ Major Nelson and fireb0rn.

Mmmmm … I suddenly have a craving for Danish.

Team Xbox revs it up.

When the night was over, our exhausted but happy winners piled back on the bus for one more night at the hotel before heading home on Friday. Thanks to all our winners!