It's out. The new downable content for Halo 3 costs 800 MS points and comes with 3 new maps, a legendary theme, and gamerpic.

The Legendary Map Pack blends old and new. Ghost Town’s asymmetrical mix of confined spaces and long lines of fire makes for frenetic games. Avalanche re-imagines the original Halo classic, Sidewinder, with new features, tweaked vehicles and massive outdoor spaces. Significant changes bring big improvements to the map, yet its contours and cliffs should provide a welcome sense of familiarity. Blackout, on the other hand, is the purest remake to date – all time favorite Lockout gets a graphical overhaul, but retains its challenging mix of ramps, platforms, tunnels and hallways. There are no refunds for this item.

We previously talked about this here: http://hushedcasket.com/node/2837

The Halo 3 website and IRIS ARG are up for webby awards.
Go to http://pv.webbyawards.com to check out the sites and Vote for the HALO work.

Halo 3 "Iris" Alternate Reality Game is under the Integrated Campaigns category.

Halo3.com/Believe is up for the Best Use of Video or Moving Image

Or you can just look up HALO in the drop down menu in the top right of the site.

In the latest Bungie Weekly Update they revealed a new camera feature called Forge Filters.  This filters allow mapmakers assign image filters to certain areas of the map.  These filters can be experienced by gamers in real-time during multiplayer. 

This means that you can venture to a certain part of the map and all of sudden be playing in Black-and-White mode, or Sepia mode, or Pen and Ink mode.  The filters are Forge objects so I guess there will be a limited number of these to go in each map.

This will add an interesting twist to custom maps and gameplay in Halo 3.  It could be interesting to see what happens when you can't see what color the other team is.

Nova mode

Old Timey mode

Pen and Ink mode

hey do you guys know where Grunt party is in the first level
if you can tell me that would be great thanx
Scarecrow23

From subtheorist at MLG:

"You asked for it and Bungie has delivered! As promised, the MLG Playlist officially went live at 5 a.m. EST. Thousands of gamers are already enjoying an exact replica of MLG v4 settings, without the hassle and time involved in searching for a custom match. You’ll find the MLG Playlist under a brand new Matchmaking tab titled “Community.” Even though it’s not found under “Ranked” lists, the MLG Playlist is ranked and also counts towards your ranked match total."

I'll be on this playlist tonight. Anyone else?

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.

http://gamingtv.us/home/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1

Yes people, that's right. GTV will be bringing to you the first LIVE Humpday Challenge. Bungie has done this since Halo 2, and for this one our friends at ForgeHub will be taking them on. This is sure to be an exciting event as it is the first Humpday to be broadcasted Live by our very own SubRandom who also helps out at ForgeHub.