Oh those cunning Joystiqers, prowling the corridors at PAX 08. Luckily they stopped their prowling long enough to get some hands-on time with Halo 3’s latest map: Assembly.

There are some textual details after the jump, but, if you’re so inclined, you can skip them all and go straight to the video, after all it’s only my life, soul and 6 hours hard toiling that went into this article.

Sarcastic Gamer’s PAX 2008 Coverage is brought to you exclusively by:

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My gaming collection took a pretty big hit in late 2007 and early 2008 for reasons I’m not going to get into here. Two of those games that were lost to me were Halo 3 and The Orange Box. This left me with Call of Duty 4, a game I chose to keep not because it was better, but because it was the most fun for me at the time, and the one that this very community was leaning towards.

Well, with my last paycheck, I decided that I was going to regrow parts of my gaming collection, namely with these two games that I had lost. Woo-Boy, controversy abound! As Sarcastic Gamer’s resident grim reaper of death in Call of Duty, I was met with some strange responses when some of the many people on my friends list signed on to see me playing Halo 3.

Some of them were worried. Some angry. Some were even scared. But all of them were chocked full of questions.

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I was awoken this morning by a frantic call from Doc, who had just scored our biggest exclusive ever.  The announcement that we’d been waiting for.  The new Halo game. Bungie’s new Halo game for the Xbox 360.

Click on over for the big news.

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Let’s face it, guys: product placement is everywhere in video games these days. We’ve seen Snake using an iPod to chill out in Metal Gear Solid 4 and we might as well admit that racing games such as Forza and Gran Turismo are just big fat adverts for each of the car manufacturers who appear in each game.

The thing is, there’s clever product placement and there’s downright shameless product placement; but which is the worst? My top 5 worst, after the jump.

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CVG has somewhat validated what our source told us yesterday, that a new Halo game will be announced by Microsoft at E3. They did a bit of digging with their own sources and got the same answer we did, plus assurance that the new game would not include the beloved Master Chief. (Sort of a No-brainer)

Halo is one of the best selling game franchises in history, and it’s no wonder that Microsoft would be quite keen on expediting another installment to market. The reaction to the news is drawing mixed reactions from the gaming community.

Some are calling the notion of another Halo installment so soon after Halo 3 a mistake. Personally I think they’re missing the difference between “an announcement that a game is in development”, and “releasing a game”. They are far from the same thing.

Others, equally loyal to the franchise seem to be pretty excited by the prospect.

Do you think this announcement will be Halo 4? A Prequel? Peter Jackson’s entry into the foray?

Now our source is really sticking her/his/its neck out.

As we told you earlier, our inside woman/man/thing got hold of some pretty exciting news.

News that Bungie was already hard at work developing what will be Halo 4.

Now we’re told that this will be announced officially at E3.

The prior news was probably like a weatherman predicting a hurricane “sometime somewhere.”   This starts the ticking clock for what would end up being a pretty big deal.

Halo 4.  E3.

Stand by.

At some point you’ll just have to trust us on some of this stuff.  We have to protect our sources to keep them from being fragged by their employers or associates.

A very good and anonymous source tells us that Halo 4 is already in full development over at Bungie.  (more…)

We all knew it was going to happen. Bungie told us as much after the release of the Heroic map pack back in December. Just in time to pull some attention from Rainbow Six Vegas 2, more information is trickling out about the Legendary Map Pack due out this Spring. I think they’ve run out of cool names, maybe the next map pack will be “Easy.”

Take the jump to get this avalanche of information!

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This week we covered a ridiculous number of topics in just 30 minutes, plus exposed a treasonous scandal brewing within the cast. Find out why “Chocolate Martinis” brought the show to a screeching halt, and hear Dave ATTEMPT to make it through a minute of uninterrupted airtime. Specifically we spoke about:

• Travel Plans for 2008
  • E3 - July 15th thru 17th (LA)
  • QuakeCon - July 31st thru August 3rd (Dallas)
  • PAX - August 29th thru 31st (Seattle)
• 1up awards (that were awarded)
  • Assassin’s Creed: Best Action Game?
  • Mass Effect: Best RPG!
  • Portal: Best Puzzle Game
  • Best Shooter/Best Multiplayer/Game of the Year: Halo 3?!?
  • CoD4 snuffed
• Did Halo 3 break ground?
• CoD 4 tops Xbox Live 3rd week in a row
• A moment of silence for no reason whatsoever
• Patapon looks fantastic to Lono (PSP)
• God of War: Chains of Olympus impressions
• Rothbart versus Gamerscore (Article)
• Playstation 3’s version of Gamerscore
• Playstation Home is a stupid name
• “Get to know the show” - email your answer to contests@sarcasticgamer.com
  • Who is listening to The White Stripes?
  • Tenacious D?
  • Colbie Callait?
  • Win the GFW title Age of Empires 3: Gold Edition (PC)
• Pre-order madness w/Dave (Article)
• Dave’s 1-minute of uninterrupted airtime
• Portal theme song coming to Rock Band
• What song would you most want on Rock Band?
• Lono’s close call (Thanks Frawlz)
  • Click here for the article
• Gratitude and stuff (CoD4 Tournament link)
• STFU guys!
• Martini Time (Chocolate version)
• Bonus Song: “Still Alive” from Portal

Listening to our show is easy, and you can get it delivered in a bunch of different ways.For the seasoned folks, who just want their mp3, CLICK HERE.

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Source Xbox360fanboy

The wonderful people at Apple and Halo 3 Zealots got together recently and decided that there are a lot of Halo fans out there. Yep, they decided it, so it must be true. They also decided that the Halo 3 fanboys that have never felt a woman’s touch, never should. They decided that they should sit at home and play Halo 3, or constantly think about Halo 3 when they are away from their 360s. If they have an iPhone, that is. (more…)

Source: Forbes.com

The next time someone looks at you like you’re painted purple and riding a unicycle when you tell them your hobby is video games, send them a link to the article above from Forbes. Reports now indicate that the video game industry took in nearly 40 Billion dollars in 2007, thanks largely to blockbuster hits like Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, and…. (could this be true) Wii Play?Yup. Among the top ten selling games of last year, five of them included less-than-buzzworthy titles like Wii Play, Spiderman 3 (meh), and a pair of Pokemon games (pronounced ‘Kid-Crack’). As studios step up the production values on their Triple A titles, gamers are reallocating their lunch money and entertainment funds to buy more games. This shoots an armored-car-sized-hole in the theory that gamers have only so much to spend on games, and that in order for a game to succeed, it has to take revenue AWAY from another property. More after this orange thing here… –> (more…)