Microsoft Australia has today announced its first official tournament for Halo 3, in conjunction with Samsung. The tournament will be running across five Asia Pacific nations--Australia, Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, and New Zealand.

　　To sign up for the tournament, all prospective Spartans have to do is sign into the Xbox 360 dashboard and click on the ad. From there, you are taken to a competition page where you download specially themed gamer pics, which in turn automatically signs you up using your Xbox Live account details.

　　Elimination rounds will be held between April 1-April 14 on special servers, which record all the players' data. From there a top player from each nation will be crowned and awarded a prize. Three game modes will be played during the elimination period--Slayer, King of the Hill and Oddball. The lucky Australian who wins can expect to receive a tasty 5000 Microsoft points and a limited edition piece of artwork. Then, on April 30 the winning players from around the region will come together on Xbox Live and compete for the chance to win a Massive Samsung LCD TV and a swag of Xbox 360 gear. Material goods aside, they will also be able to brag to all their friends that they're the best Halo 3 player in Asia Pacific!