Battlezone Competition

Hoping to build up some pre- and post-release excitement for its first-person combat/strategy title Battlezone (the game is expected to hit store shelves by the middle of this month), Activision is running Battlezone promotions at Best Buy, Electronics Boutique and Babbage's.

Things at Best Buy don't kick off until April 5, but from that date through June 15, visitors to any Best Buy store in the U.S. (except, alas, in Florida) can register to win one of 10 original Atari Battlezone arcade machines, 10 Best Buy gift certificates worth $100 and 50 Battlezone T-shirts will also be given away as part of that contest. The winners will be selected via random drawing on June 22, 1998.

The pre-order promotions at Electronics Boutique and Babbage's are already underway, and run through March 10. People who pre-order Battlezone at Electronics Boutique outlets will be able to take home an Activision sampler CD containing an expanded Battlezone demo, four new Dark Reign missions, four other Activision game demos and previews of upcoming titles - including a trailer for the Dark Reign expansion pack Rise of the Shadowhand.

Players who pre-order Battlezone through Babbage's will receive a limited-edition Battlezone mousepad that displays the game's keyboard commands.

In other Battlezone developments, Activision has confirmed that the game has gone gold. This means that the projected mid-March release date is almost a certainty.