However, he made a blog post suggesting that there are new gamerpics available for Games for Windows - Live users. Sorry Major, but those gamerpics were released in an August update to Games for Windows - Live. More reasons why you need someone reporting GfW-Live news.

Here's looking forward to playing Gears of War on the PC. Hopefully the GfW-Live revolution will begin.

It felt like Christmas Sunday morning when both my wife and I woke up to finally open up Guitar Hero III which we had picked up at 12:00 midnight whilst returning from the HaloWeen BYOS LAN. After being up so late and sleeping in, we didn't get to start wailing on it until around lunchtime.

Upon opening the box

Gears of War PC has officially gone gold and will be released November 6.

Thankfully, this probably won't end up being one of the most disappointing, lametastic ports ever (Halo 2 Vista, ugh).

If only I had the PC power to run it!

download high res movie from gamingTV.us (.mov or .wmv)

Some people say we went for a vacation. Some say we went to gamble or visit the Grand Canyon. Nope. I went to Las Vegas to visit my hero.

Surprisingly, admission to see the Master Chief statue is free as it's in the lobby of the museum. There's even a couple of kiosks promoting Halo 3 and XBOX 360.

I was amazed that the overwhelming majoring of the males in line knew who Master Chief was...even if they were not Americans. If that male was with a significant other, the person also knew about Master Chief. I think the following picture expresses how significant others around the world feel about Master Chief:

This is aimed at general PC users and gurus alike. If your interested in a free, easy to use (and very cool) alternative to Windows, Ubuntu Linux is a very popular choice. In my opinion the ease of installation is now even easier than installing Windows considering you don't have to enter in a license key.

Steps to install:
1. Download Ubuntu Desktop Edition
2. Burn .iso to cd.
3. Place CD in tray and restart computer. Ubuntu will boot from the CD.
4. On the desktop is an "install" icon... click it. Follow the wizard.

Then your good to go. That's it.. it's that simple.
Click "read more" to see what you get with Ubuntu

Today Activision launched a site for Guitar Hero III (www.guitarhero.com) that appears to be a start towards what Bungie.net is for Halo 3. You can register your name, create a band for your friends, and earn "groupies" for various things. It's pretty cool. I created a band called The Hushed Casket. If any THX'ers want to join, just create a profile and search for it. Eventually it is supposed to track scores and provide a lot of other cool social networking features. Official press release is below with more info.

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Activision, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI), in partnership with Agora Games, a leading provider of online community development and in-game data collection, announced today that a new dedicated Guitar Hero community teaser website has launched, and fans can now visit www.GuitarHero.com to get a Backstage Pass to obtain insider information, news announcements, exclusive behind the scenes footage of Slash and other in-game talent, gameplay videos, and screenshots. Aspiring axe-shredders will also have the ability to pre-order and hear snippets from the set list of the highly anticipated title, Guitar Hero® III: Legends of Rock.

Fans who are first to sign up will have the exciting opportunity to create their own account and claim their stage name, which will be their unique identity on the official Guitar Hero community site, scoreboards, and forums. After the game launches on October 28, 2007, players will be able to go "on tour" by creating or joining a group to compare scores, and compete online in global head to head tournaments with other tour groups, along with the opportunity to establish new friendships and connect with other passionate Guitar Hero fans from around the world. They can also build a "rock radius" to opt-in and see friends, tour group members and players to connect with online through a global map.

Introducing the THX Live section of the Hushed Casket web interface: This is just the first step in a series of changes we're planning on bringing to the THX website. THX Live is now the comprehensive view providing a place for you to go and see all of the content & comments on a single page.

You will also notice the new "Commen117s" section to the right of the page. This was coded from our very own fingers (which are also sore from the repeated abuse of the veto button in the pregame lobby of H3). Click "read more" to find out how it works:

Would you like to play with combinations of armor and colors even when not on your Xbox 360? Thanks to someone's clever programming that references the armor preview feature at Bungie.net, now you can. Select any type of armor and any set of colors and it will give you a preview image of what the combination will look like. Two even cooler features are the ability to look up any XBL gamertag and see his armor combination in use right now, and the program's ability to tell you what you must do to unlock each piece of armor selected. The above picture is a Spartan decked out in the mysterious "Recon" armor.

Check it out.

Action from the Hushed Casket 5th Anniversary LAN

It’s 10 PM on Saturday night, October 6th. The temperature is 81 degrees Fahrenheit, but my central A/C unit has been running non-stop since noon. There are 38 people in my house playing Halo 3 multiplayer in four separate games on 26 Xbox 360s, most of them connected to high definition displays. In my office sits five gamers I’ve never met. Two exhausted gamers sleep in my living room amidst the commotion. My electrical meter spins like God’s own anti-son-of-a-bitch machine. This must be the THX 5th Birthday LAN.

Maybe the campaign is more fun than multiplayer?

Press Release:

For Release 8 a.m. PDT

Oct. 5, 2007

Bungie Studios Becomes Privately Held Independent Company

Bungie and Microsoft forge new long-term relationship.

KIRKLAND, Wash. — Oct. 5, 2007 — Bungie and Microsoft Corp. today announced a plan for Bungie Studios, the developers of Microsoft’s “Halo” franchise, to become a privately held independent company, Bungie, LLC, in which Microsoft will hold a minority equity interest. As part of this transaction, Bungie and Microsoft have forged a deep and long-term development and publishing relationship focused on the continued success of the “Halo” franchise. It is also the intent of both parties to expand their partnership to include new IP created and owned by Bungie.

Bungie’s critically acclaimed Xbox 360® exclusive “Halo 3” achieved $300 million in global sales in its first week. Released on Tuesday, Sept. 25, “Halo 3” is the fastest-selling video game ever and already one of the most successful entertainment properties in history.

“This exciting evolution of our relationship with Microsoft will enable us to expand both creatively and organizationally in our mission to create world-class games,” said Harold Ryan, studio head for Bungie. “We will continue to develop with our primary focus on Microsoft’s platforms; we greatly value our mutually prosperous relationship with our publisher, Microsoft Game Studios, and we look forward to continuing that affiliation through ‘Halo’ and beyond.”

“Working with Microsoft was great for us, it allowed us to grow as a team and make the ambitious, blockbuster games we all wanted to work on. And they will continue to be a great partner. But Bungie is like a shark. We have to keep moving to survive. We have to continually test ourselves, or we might as well be dolphins. Or manatees,” said Jason Jones, Bungie founder and partner.

Bungie’s management retained the services of Don Leeds, senior managing director of B-Hive Global, LLC, to assist in the structuring of the deal and negotiating on their behalf. Bungie will remain in Kirkland, Washington, and is always looking to hire excellent talent.

One neat feature of the current version of the Hushed Casket website is the automatically rotating headers at the top of the page. There is some sweet magic happening on the backend of the site to make that happen. I want you guys to be a part of it.

I want the community to recommend screenshots for inclusion in the header. This is how it will work:

1). Post in this thread your Bungie.net profile URL and the name of the screenshot you want added

Example:
URL - http://www.bungie.net/stats/halo3/screenshots.aspx?page=0&gamertag=EA
Screenshots - "OMG headshot" and "Warthog blast"

2). Shortly thereafter, one of the badmins will navigate to your B.net profile, resize the screenshot, and add it to the website if we like it.

Be creative. Use the Theater to make some really cool shots of your gameplay. Don't forget to detach the camera to fly in for the perfect shot.

Important: note that all images in the THX.com header are 1920 x 250. That's a very odd aspect ratio. The image is only 250 pixels high. Please take this into consideration when you make your screenshot. A 4:3 screenshot may not look as awesome as a 1920:250 image.

Last week several members of THX participated in the Halo 3 launch in many different ways. Some of us waited in line at game stores while others attended official launch parties. We all took a slightly different approach to finishing the fight. Click read more for two of these accounts.

For most of you, the Call of Duty 4 multiplayer beta ended on September 25th. However, it actually ended this weekend. Here's an email from Activision:

A long video, but I think a good one. I made this video. It's how to get ALL the skulls in Halo 3. IMO the music is great, and it's clear as to where each skull is and how to get to their locations. I hope you guys enjoy this as much as I enjoyed making it. Right now only QT and Flash is available, but WMV is coming soon.

http://gameroom.mlgpro.com/view/kpF3UCrvb7U.html

DOWNLOAD/STREAM @ gamingTV.us