Let's face it.  Coagulation was kind of close to being the remake of Blood Gulch.  And we know HALO 3's Valhalla wasn't quite Coagulation or Blood Gulch.

A new map is being released by Bungie for Halo 3.  It's called Avalanche it is a near-remake of Sidewinder.  "It has the same familiar U-shape, multiple ways from base-to-base, and a whole sandbox full o’ vehicles to play with."

Avalanche and the rest of the Legendary Map pack will be launched on April 15th and cost 800 marketplace points (or $10 for those counting beans at home).

In an interview Bungie map makers have described Avalanche.

• No ladders in this map (or since HALO 1 for that matter).  Thus, they had to change the interior of the bases.
• Hallways connecting bases removed because it was too easy to overtake vehicles in those tight quarters.  Bungie wants gamers out in the open sections of the map.
• Man cannons have been added to help you get around the map on foot.
• There are new attack routes.
• More vehicles with icy texture maps.

I look forward to the map and hope it brings back memories.  I expect it to be as close to Sidewinder as Coagulation was to Blood Gulch.  That will be enough for me to spend $10 for the map pack.

Strikingly during the interview, Avalanche level designer Niles Sankey said "we also needed another big vehicle map" when asked why they remade Sidewinder.

Queue Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update segment called "Really!?!".

If Bungie keeps thinking that we need bigger maps, I guess we won't be seeing Chill Out, Rat Race, Prisoner, or Hang 'Em High anytime soon.

On March 12th, I purchased, played, and subsequently beat Mass Effect's first round of downloadable content in about two hours. The ferocious alien shown above is a member of the Batarian species within Mass Effect's world, and this DLC is the first time you encounter them. The first time you see this guy bare his teeth (pictured) is pretty phenomenal. Killing him is just as much fun, even though he's just a grunt.

MTV Games' Stephen Totilo has some reservations against Mass Effect's side quests, and rightly so. Each side quest drops you on a barren world, devoid of trees and birds, prompts you to enter a facility that had the same architect as the rest of the galaxy, and kill everyone. A handful stray from this formula, but sadly, most follow those simple guidelines. Bioware points fingers at the development time of the game's technology, leaving little time to actually flesh out comprehensive side quests. They are, after all side quests. Bioware promises they'll make it up to us in Mass Effect 2, though.

So five bucks essentially bought me two hours of the best side-quest Mass Effect has to offer. Was it worth it? Rationally, I spend more money for the same amount of entertainment at the movie theater. Also rationally, Mass Effect cost me $60, and it has more than 12 side quests. Being a fan of Mass Effect's universe, I would say the purchase made sense for me. The chance to interact with a new species and get more intel added to my in-game journal helps add even more depth to an already complex universe. Oh, and the chance to save millions of people from a 16km-wide asteroid crashing into a planet was pretty fun, too. That's twice the size of the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs, in case you didn't already have that committed to memory.

I talk about the new Mass Effect DLC on my blog.

http://mintz.hushedcasket.com/mass-effect-dlc-1-batarians/

Anyone else play it?

Before you get too excited, it's just the single master track "Fuel," which is great, but there's no mention of more old school Metallica. A leaked photo of an advertisement for the March issue of OXM has revealed the Rock Band DLC for the month of March. On their forums, Harmonix has confirmed the schedule as "tentative." There's some cool tracks from several rock/metal sub-genres. Take a look:

March 4: Thrash Pack

* Blinded By Fear - At The Gates
* Thrasher - Evile
* Shadow World - Haunted

March 11:

* Shooting Star - Bad Company *Cover*
* Simple Man - Lynyrd Skynyrd
* Message In A Bottle - Police

March 18: Nine Inch Nails Pack

* March Of The Pigs
* The Collector
* The Perfect Drug

Mar. 25: Metal Pack

* Wrathchild - Ironmaiden *Cover*
* Supernaut - Black Sabbath *Cover*
* Fuel - Metallica

I expect these will be $2 per track or $5.50 per three-pack, as usual.

Thanks, X3F.

http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/846/846903p1.html

January 22, 2008 - After a total of six multiplayer maps, one new game mode, and 250 achievement points, it appears Gears of War downloadable content is being put to rest. Developer Epic is moving on to other projects. Representatives from Microsoft and Epic told IGN, "We don't have anything planned for [Gears of War] right now in terms of DLC."

Though both companies left open the possibility that new Gears of War content could be released in the future, new DLC seems doubtful. Perhaps Epic is clearing its workstations for another important product? Maybe a sequel of some kind?

It's been more than half a year since the release of the last downloadable pack for GoW. Despite this, Gears remains one of the ten most played Xbox Live games.

Who would be interested in dusting off their copies of H3 and having a LAN on Dec. 15, the Saturday after the new maps come out? I'd be willing to host.

UPDATE: Location has been changed to my brother's house in 5 points. If you need directions, let me know and I will PM them to you (it's easy to get to).