Years of waiting have lead to hours upon hours of gaming and finally, we here at Joystiq are prepared to weigh in with our final judgements of what is easily the biggest event of the year: Halo 3. For our megareview, we've gathered three of our writers, each with his own unique perspective of the Halo 3 campaign.

James Ransom-Wiley is our most learned reviewer, having been locked in a small room with Halo 3 weeks before most had even managed to get it leaked into their hands. From there, Jason Dobson fills the role of 'teh n00b' -- his Halo experience can be summed up in a single statement: Um, I know it's a space-alien shooter... Finally, yours truly, Jared Rea, is the be-all-end-all Master Chief groupie. Shall we proceed?

Seven days left until Halo 3 swallows the world of gaming and it isn't safe to be online due to potential spoilers. Does Snape kill Cortana? Is Sergeant Johnson really Master Chief's father? We can't say for sure, but we can tell you this ... the folks at Xbox 360 Fanboy are giving away one sweet rig.

A 50" Panasonic 1080p plasma television, a Bose 3-2-1 GSX surround sound system, and an Xbox 360 Elite gaming console. All you need to do to enter is leave a comment over at X3F and hope for the best. The winner will be chosen at random but you can enter once per day to improve your odds.

Hit the jump for some real spoilers.

Dance Dance Revolution showed that rhythm titles had a life here in the States, but Guitar Hero proved they could also become full blown phenomenons. No one could have guessed it at the time, but Harmonix's musical masterpiece quickly became the most culturally significant video game since Master Chief became a household name.

The success was long overdue for Harmonix, having already shown off their rhythmic chops with the PlayStation 2 favorites Frequency and Amplitude. Teaming up with Konami, they quickly established their dominance of the microphone on this side of the ocean with Karaoke Revolution. With 2005's Guitar Hero, they crafted the perfect blend of boyhood dreams and American rock insanity. The next step was obvious, but how could it possibly be done?

Speaking with Harmonix CEO and co-founder, Alex Rigopulos, we look into the history of the great white hope of rhythm gaming and what goes into creating what, if everything goes according to plan, will be considered one of the greatest rhythm titles of all time. From the challenges of gathering licenses to taking on their own success, this is the story of the next great franchise.

The GameTap Summer Throwdown concludes this week with what should be considered the headlining act, Garou: Mark of the Wolves. Though its quality is practically folklore at this point, Garou represents SNK at the top of their game. Hidden amongst the quality fighting is a guilty pleasure that makes this week's releases so very sweet indeed.

• Garou: Mark of the Wolves (Neo-Geo) - Like the rest of the Fatal Fury line, Garou tends to fall apart under the pressure of competitive play. For casual play, however, you can't go wrong with what is easily SNK's finest and most accessible fighter ever. Oh, not to mention it's a technical marvel and like most fighters on GameTap, it features online play.
  
• King of Fighters 2003 (Neo-Geo): After a return to form in 2002, KOF nearly reverted back to its old ways with this incredibly unbalanced entry. The saving grace of 2003 is in its cast, featuring some great new faces (Malin!) and characters from -- surprise -- Garou: Mark of the Wolves.
• Jaws Unleashed (PC) - It may not have taken home any awards for its quality, but we have a soft spot for ol' chompers. You swim around the ocean as Jaws and munch on defenseless humans. Are you not entertained?
• Atlantis Evolution (PC) - Hooray for adventure games! Boo to sequels that toss in far too many shoddy action sequences!
• Enemy Engaged 2 (PC) - Okay, for once we've been stumped. We can't recall playing any helicopter games since G-Police and that barely counts. Perhaps you folks would like to fill us in on this one?
  
• Beach Life (PC) - Manage a luxury resort in this simulation that shares more than a few qualities with a sim favorite, Theme Park. Hello, weekend gaming.
  

We have the updated list of free games for you after the break that includes some great new additions such as The Last Blade and the overlooked PC action title, Joan of Arc. Enjoy!

You remember Dark Sector, right? After all, it was only the first "next-generation" game ever. It's gone through some significant changes since we last saw it and come this Fall, a demo will allow PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 owners a chance to go hands-on with it before it launches on January 22nd, 2008.

Dark Sector tells a Cold War tale of a secret agent who has been injected with a virus that allows him to pull a blade-like weapon from his body. It could stand a few cybernetic ninja if you ask us.

Read -- Dark Sector demo this fall [1UP]
Read -- Dark Sector dated [GameSpot]

With five programmable buttons, adjustable weights and an on-board LCD display, the only thing missing from Microsoft's new SideWinder gaming mouse is a signed autograph by Fatal1ty in pizza grease. The SideWinder series was a staple of Windows gaming in the 90's, marred by compatibility issues and bad taste. Well, it's back and while we're sure that Microsoft won't have any issues with compatibility (it's only a USB mouse, after all), they've still got a long ways to go in the style department.

The SideWinder mouse will be available this October and for the hefty sum of $79.95.

The nation of Korea let out a collective "GG!" today as Blizzard released a new patch for both the original Starcraft and its expansion, Brood War. Starcraft has been on the shelves for a little over nine years now, surviving countless leaps in technology to remain one of the most popular strategy titles available. This patch doesn't fiddle with the intricate balance achieved by nearly a decade of competitive play, but it does iron out few of the last remaining bugs before Starcraft II arrives.

• Made stability improvements to replay saving code.
• Fixed a bug where the map download progress was not shown.
• Pressing alt-f4 while in Starcraft and logged into a league now logs you out of the league.
• Updated some of the localization for the league page.
• Fixed an exploit that allowed nukes to fall anywhere on the map.

After being held up for six days, EA's Skate demo has finally arrived on Xbox live, begging to be downloaded and obsessed over. We're just a tad bit obsessed with it ourselves, going as far as calling it "a spiritual experience." Will you reach gaming nirvana as well? Not unless you can achieve that state within thirty minutes of this timed demo.

Your thirty minutes in heaven takes place in the community center skate park in the suburbs and it's fully equipped to experience a good chunk of what's possible in Skate. After a brief tutorial of the flick-it controls, you'll be let loose on the park, free to do whatever you please.

What really makes this demo special is the ability to save and upload a movie using the saved films feature so please, feel free to share your creations with the rest of the class. As for PlayStation 3 owners, your demo will be arriving sometime soon as folks at EA have said that it's been completed, sent out and is now in Sony's hands.