Happy free Heroic Map Pack day everyone! For those with a little patience, you'll be rewarded today with Halo 3's former $10 set of maps for the cost of air (but not PerriAir; that the Spaceballs still charge for). The pack includes Standoff, Rat's Nest and Foundry. While we'd love to tell you all about these levels, we're getting our first taste of them today.

With all that said, there's currently a hiccup in the system and the content – which was supposed to be free at 2AM pacific last night – is still listed for $10 on Xbox Live Marketplace. Bungie's forum has a nice thread (about to break 100 pages) on the issue and we're trying to get an answer from Major Nelson for the Microsoft angle. We'll update when the map pack actually becomes, you know ... free.

Update: It's free now, go get 'em.
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Have you or someone you love been egregiously injured either physically or emotionally by Bungie Studios, whose mega-blockbuster Halo 3 displayed at an upscaled output of 640p, despite being advertised as displaying in full, 720p HD? Do feel like you've been cheated out of 80 pixels that you paid good money for? Has it been a while since you sued McDonalds for selling you hot coffee that you proceeded to pour on your genitalia?

You may be entitled to recover some of the precious funds you spent on the game, according to Class Action Connect, a site that allows possible plaintiffs to find class action attorneys to represent them for a number of different class action suits. It's like MySpace for lawyers! Just click the new lawsuit link, titled "Possible False Advertising: Halo 3 Is Not Native High Definition," and reap the rewards of our country's justice system.

After we successfully get an 80 pixel refund from Bungie, we'll being going on a suing spree of developers who didn't include things they promised would be in their games. Peter Molyneux, you might as well go ahead and start liquidating your assets.

Halo 3 may be a distant memory as gamers' collective eyes and thumbs have since moved on to other things, but this hasn't stopped organizers of Vancouver's Game Design Expo 2008 to invite representatives from developer Bungie to take the stage and wax poetic about their FPS darling. The event will take place at the Vancouver Film School, and will also include talks led by designers, producers, and CEOs from such companies as Activision, BioWare, Eidos, EA, and Stormfront Studios. Tickets for the Game Design Expo 2008, which runs from January 19-20, go on sale November 21.

Bungie's speakers, namely audio lead Jay Weinland and director of cinematics CJ Cowan, are expected to talk at length about the tools and techniques used to create Halo 3's visuals, though we imagine once the microphone is turned over to the audience it won't take long for the topic to turn to what life is like after the dev's much-publicized divorce from Microsoft, including how they are holding up and, more importantly, who got to keep the dog.

No, we didn't vomit on the picture above. That's a Halo 3 heatmap, an upcoming feature of Bungie.net. This technology (which Bungie has actually been using for a while to help balance their levels) allows players to look at a number of statistics for each map, including the locations of kills, and the weapons used most often. It's just one neat addition the Bungie crew announced in their weekly update.

Considering Halo 3's ridonkulously successful launch, the guys and gals at Bungie should be sitting on some private beach right now, drinking out of diamond encrusted goblets, smoking tightly-rolled cigars made of money. Instead, they're hard at work, fixing various in-game bugs and updating the Matchmaking playlists (Rocket Race FTW). We've got a complete list of those updates after the jump.

No downloadable content was officially dated, but hopefully, we won't be waiting too much longer. According to Bungie, "things are in motion and the DLC bullet train is making a bee line straight for your face."

[Via X3F]

Well, you thought maybe he was down for the count with the release of Halo 3, right? Master Chief would be far too busy to make a sequel. Perhaps even too busy to utter a single lolololololol. Well, you were wrong. Here's the proof. He's been drinking Halo 3 Mountain Dew, reading Halo novels, and wearing the Halo 3 helmet.

You get to see how Master Chief puts his little videos together, how he types, and how l33t he is. Just check out the headshot he manages to get. We can hardly wait for Master Chief Sucks At Halo 4. There's gonna be one, right? RIGHT?! We'll be here, waiting.

If you haven't seen the original Master Chief Sucks At Halo, or the sequel, then you've been missing out. Check 'em out, and then take a gander at part three.

Dean Takahasi of The San Jose Mercury News (and recent panelist on the Joystiq Podcast Roundtable) has apparently found the world's oldest person playing Halo 3, and it looks like that honor falls to a 95-year-old Japanese grandmother.

Sure, her gaming skillz look a bit weak, but we've seen younger players do just as poorly the first few times they played. We wonder if she's gaming online at all, because she dishes out some smack talk to the TV at one point ... at least, we assume it's smack. Plus she might want to sit a bit further back or else she'll need glasses. Oh, wait.

If you've got an older Halo 3 gamer in your life, let us know about it. Better yet, drop some suggestions in the comments for what this player's gamertag should be.

It seems like if you want some guaranteed internet traffic these days, all you have to do is slap Halo tags all over the place. In fact, it's probably standard practice by now for sites offering things like FREE VIAGRA and GET RICH NOW NOW NOW to put Halo in the metatags. Darned 'Halo' branded little blue pills.

However, if you actually go out and create something all your own as a fanatical tribute to the Halo universe, then you have our respect. When it involves recreating the Zanzibar map from Halo 2 completely to scale in Lego, then you have our allegiance. In fact, we'd love to have something like this gracing the front window of the 'Stiq offices. If you've ever read Douglas Coupland's Microserfs, then hopefully you get the reference. If you haven't read it, then you probably just think we're dorks.

Anyhow, check out the video of this incredible Lego creation, and then go raid your old toy closet and pull out the bricks. Time to get crackin' on your own Lego version of Lockout. Ping us when you're done.

Boy, we didn't expect the crowds in line for the Halo 3 launch at Universal Citywalk in Los Angeles to start screaming like little girls when Zac Efron appeared, but they certainly did. We'll be hearing those shrill screams in our ears for days to come. Unless we pump up the volume on Halo 3 while we get into some fragoffs.

So, having attended the Halo 2 launch at the same spot, this launch was incredibly lackluster. There was no music, no local radio DJ pumping up the crowd, no bikini-clad babes handing out samples of Mountain Dew, no one hurling t-shirts into the crowd, and no big countdown and fanfare. The most noise made by the crowd was whenever Master Chief would stroll by, and everyone would go nuts trying to take a photo of him. Then there was the guy handing out free swag for ... The Kingdom. Everyone mobbed the poor guy, thinking it was Halo stuff, but they were bummed when it turned out to be notebooks and pins from the upcoming movie.

Ladies and gentlemen, Master Chief is back. This time he's in for a double whammy, learning that The Arbiter taped over his movies with episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond, and finding out that the Halo 3 beta has expired. Poor Master Chief.

He tries to soothe the pain with some Halo 2 action, and also serves up today's video in the process. It's not quite as good as the original (not enough Master Chief laughing lolololololololololz), but it'll kill some time between now and the release of the retail version, which looms ever closer.

Gamersyde has some scans of Halo 3 from the latest Famitsu magazine. The text is pretty much all in Japanese though we expect few of you to notice as it's surrounded by pretty pictures. Shown across the seven (Ha!) scans are some campaign missions, armor permutations, weapons, equipment, and multiplayer levels. Most of these have been seen before in some form or another, but any Halo 3 news is good Halo 3 news, even if we don't get to play the Epsilon build.

[Thanks, DjDATZ]

The Bungie Store hopped into their (Microsoft paid for) time machine and traveled to the 1970's to learn about disco, big hair, and the artistic design. Then, they jumped back into their time machine, made a rest stop in 1992 for some Crystal Pepsi, and arrived back in 2007 to offer up a new 70's inspired tshirt. The tshirt is none other the Valhalla Tee with what the description calls Barracuda Fastback stripes and enough retro style to make you one cool cat. It is $16.95, but how can you put a pricetag on something that is so studly and took so much time travel research to create?

You've heard about it and have seen a few pictures, but we wanted to share with you some higher res up close and personal shots of the Halo 3 Xbox 360. After digging around some press kits we stumbled upon the images in the gallery below of the Halo 3 Xbox 360, pretty green controller and headset and man are we enjoying the design. Go ahead, take a look at the high res photos in our gallery below, you'll be glad you did.

Also, we're trying to contact Microsoft to clear up some confusion we have about the included headset. You see, Xbox.com and the press materials we received specifically state the bundle will include a wired headset (now confirmed). But we heard from E3 and Bungie stated in their Weekly Update that they were going to include the Halo 3 wireless headset instead. So, we aren't sure which it is, wired or wireless, but we'll be sure to pass along any clarification when we get it. Until then, take a look at the photos below.

Update 1: We just got confirmation from Microsoft that the pictured wired headset will be included in this bundle. The wireless Halo 3 headset will be a separate purchase for $59.99. All cleared up.

In a video interview with Xbox.com's Major Nelson, Microsoft's Vice President of Global Marketing Jeff Bell just might have let one of Halo 3's long rumored secrets slip. Towards the end of the interview, while talking about his gaming habits, Bell said that he loved playing Halo 2 co-op with his son and then said that "we're really looking forward to playing with my three sons, all together on Halo 3". All together playing Halo 3 eh? Sounds a lot like a four player campaign co-op Halo 3 experience to us. But, to be fair, he didn't specify how he and his children were going to play Halo 3, although his remarks came right after he was talking about the teamwork he and his one son experienced while playing Halo 2 co-op. So, it's not "officially" confirmed, but darned if it doesn't make for some great water cooler material.

[Via UNSCleric, Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Has it been nine months since we've had our last taste of sweet, sweet Bungie podcast nectar? Frankie says so, so it must have been that long. Anyway, after a nine month hiatus lukems forced the Bungie team into the podcast booth as they talk about E3, Halo 3, and all kinds of other topics that reference to the number three. Some coolio new information revealed in the podcast are such things like the rename of multiplayer map Shrine to Sand Trap (which 22 Oblivions will fit in), saved films/screenshots will work in multiplayer AND campaign, and Frankie admits he freezes when on stage. This podcast is overdue and busting out after nine months of hibernation, go download now!

The clever and very observative fanboy SRU Phil spotted a little mistake over on Xbox.com's accessory page pertaining to the Halo 2 Halo 3 wireless headset. It's not called a Halo 2 headset guys and mistakes like that could so get a guy's hand chopped off or tongue ripped out. Unless of course the ad isn't a mistake and is really a leaked announcement. Maybe something along the idea that the Halo 3 wireless headset will come with a free copy of Halo 2 Vista. That's it! It's confirmed, buy the Halo 3 wireless headset and get Halo 2 Vista for free. Man, we're too good.

[Thanks, SRU Phil]