Yessssss. <3 Sidewinder. I wasn't gonna get the map pack because the heroic wasn't worth it to me since the maps almost never came up in matchmaking. But I just can't wait for the Sidewinderish map! If Moonlight Sonata is a Lockout remake there's no way I wouldn't buy the map pack.

YES! Finally!!!! I've been waiting so long for this! Love Sidewinder!

W00! I've been waiting so long for this! I love sidewinder!!

Fuck. Yes.

I hope it looks better in-game than it does in the screens.

@collusioned: you just gotta love the optimists gathered on this site eh?

@collusioned:

I was thinking the same thing. I thought the last map they showed from this pack looked great. This one? Not so much. I suppose it works for nostalgia purposes, but that's not going to get me to shell out the "points."

Wow! I'll use the money Bush is sending for this instead!! :D

W00t, wait I don't play Halo, or own a 360? hmm... still good news right?

how much US $ is 800 "MS Points"

@illmatic291: $10 abouts.

@illmatic291:

$10 bucks.

*head explodes in fan-dom*

chiron
damnation
derelict
chill out
prisoner.

About time this was remade. Too bad i no longer care about halo.

Hell yes, great memories of CTF Sidewinder.

Now I just need Damnation and Boarding Action. Shit, Boarding Action would be a great Forge map.

@kojirodensetsu: A lock out remake would be amazing and would be enough to pull me back into the game. Guardian sucked.

Needs moar Coagulation. You can't have a Halo game without Blood Gultch.

looks nice... almost makes me want to get halo 3 again.

I KNEW IT! As soon as they said they were going to include a big map which was a remake of an old one, it just had to be Sidewinder. Although the original Blood Gulch would have been better.

This'll be much better now than it was then, what with the glory of Xbox Live an' all.

...so when are those old maps going to be free?

I'm seriously dissapointed in Bungie only because they should have made all DLC maps free. Halo 3 didn't come with that many maps from the get go and some of those maps sucked. No wonder COD4 has taken over my multiplayer sessions. Halo 3 now belongs in my xbox games collection right next to Halo:CE .

@Grocerspride: When these maps are released.

@Nexus6: Its really Microsoft's call. They have final verdict on the price of all DLC, and its not like they are going to have a change of heart and say "Hey, lets not make money on a map pack that should be free and will be downloaded by millions. Let be generous for a change."

Man hours spent = deserves to get paid. That's just how it works. I'd be more surprised if they DIDN'T charge anything for them.

wait, they are free aint they? well after a while any ways

Why do people assume that the work of others should go unpaid, Sit down with your mates and try and spend as much time as the bungie guys will of done putting these maps together. Or, imagine going to the supermarket and buying some cookies, taking them home and assuming you deserve more cookies for free simply because you bought some cookies first time.

Also, people thinking this looks crap?

ARE YOU BLIND? It's crisp clean and beautiful.

Why do people assume that the work of others should go unpaid,

maybe because they've been brought in in a whitebread upper-middle-class suburban environment where mom and dad bled for them and now they expect the world to continue in the same manner.

The sense of entitlement is mind-blowing at times.

@digiwalsh: Unpaid? Are you serious? The team that worked on these maps get paid no matter what regardless, and have already got paid for their work, and will continue to. Halo 3 has brought in a good billion dollars for the Bungie and Microsoft, they wouldn't care not getting an extra $2 million for maps.

I'm sure Bungie would give them away for free to, if Microsoft didn't have blindless control of the Marketplace.

I think what it boils down to is whether there should have been more maps in the first place. Also, they've completely ruled out user-created content. From your cookie analogy there, you could say "buy our cookies because you sure as hell can't make your own at home." Then again, if you don't want to pay for it, I guess you don't have to! You can always buy someone else's cookies...

I recognised it right away.

Ooooooh. Sign me up for go ol' Sidewinder remake. Time to go get some more MS Points before it comes out!

@valuepack: I'd love to see user-created content, but with consoles, that age is only just beginning.

More maps? Yeah, probably. But no matter how many maps are included, someone's going to be dissatisfied. "They gave us 500 maps, but 495 of them sucked! And now they're charging me for more?!?!" You get the picture.

Mmm...cookies.

Even Halo 2's maps cost money (though they usually had a free pack, and then a "buy me" pack). And for any of you frugal people out there (including me), just wait until the next one comes out. About a week before this pack is released, the older ones will be made free. They've done this since Halo 2, so it's nothing new.

ahhh good old sidewinder... good times on that map. Now all we need is a hang em high remake and a chiron remake and we're set!

@Cell9song: Don't be stupid. Don't make stupid assumptions.

@digiwalsh: Actually, some people do just that. And when they are done they give away their new maps for free. Also, every once in a while a developer will release a map pack for a game and offer it free on the net. A handful of maps is not worth $10, and considering that Microsoft and Bungie have most likely more than broken even on the game's cost, they should offer the pack for free as a servuce to the fans.

Sidewinder was my favorite map. My brother and I used to play capture the flag, one-on-one, best of three on this map all the time. It was so great!

@psycoking: Wait 3-4 months, and they become free. If you don't want to pay the premium, don't. Problem solved.

@Nexus6: Read the article next time to learn that Bungie don't set the prices or have any say over the pricing.
Or use even a fraction of the deductive reason you need to successfully pull your pants on in the morning and determine this to be the case because it applies to every other developer of XBox 360 games with DLC.

Moonlight Sonata, the next map in the pack, will be revealed next week.

Hint: It's a Lockout remake.

It would be better on CoD4

/ducks

@Len Bias Cocaine Surplus: You'll get it in Call of Duty 5: Polar Warfare. ;)

Loo@collusioned: It is on a halo 2 engine after all. All jokes aside it does look bland

To be perfectly honest, with the constant attitude of "where's the new shit" I'm usually a little happily surprised whenever a studio releases a small update that doesn't affect the overall experience too much. Let me explain with Bungie as the specific example.

Obviously, love it or hate it, the Halo franchise is huge. Perhaps bigger than huge. It's done what it set out to do, and for the most part will continue to be played for an enormous time to come. Without any additional maps. Check one off in the win column. Done. Obviously they are working on something currently that they can't announce/discuss. With the ever-growing budgets and time needed to make these games there is going to be some serious non-cashflow time. So you have to look at it realistically, with an already daunting and expensive task ahead of you, is the logical choice to pull several talented artists, programmers, etc. off of the current project? Probably not.

The most current figures I could find were from yesterday. At that point 760,000 unique players were on Live. Obviously not everyone who would buy the map pack played yesterday, but then again not everyone that played yesterday would buy it. Probably more heavily skewed to the latter. So I feel that this is a pretty decent number of people who would spend 10 bucks. Hell, make it an even million. So the new map pack generates $10 mil. Being that Halo was released under Microsoft how much to you think Bungie sees? My guess would be not a whole hell of a lot, half maybe. It's just speculation but I'm guessing that Bungie's operating costs are astronomical.

So yes, while the packs will bring in MAYBE $5 mil a pop do you think they are really just rolling around in the extra cash? I doubt it. It's more like a band-aid on the gunshot wound that is 4-5 years of game development, marketing, etc. All for a game that could ultimately fail. Making the add-ons free after a few months just adds to the fanservice that this ultimately is.

I'm probably just too old to understand the rage people feel about this. Players constantly bitch about the hours of playability in today's games. If you're going to be fine when a $60 game was 8 hours long, but complain when you'll play a $10 map pack for dozens of hours over Live, you need to sort your fucking life out.

i learned my lesson last map pack,

wait till they are free.

@Kermi: Bungie may not set the prices but they can damn sure negotiate with MS to make it reasonably priced. Why can't Bungie be more like Valve... [kotaku.com]

@Dual45s: Agreed. I consider a $10 investment in what will amount to be many, many hours of entertainment a lot more worthy than other things I could spend that same ten bucks on. Regardless of the "evil machinations" or motivations of the compan(y/ies) that developed/released it.

You would get the exact same "man, many hours of entertainment" on the free maps that come with the game. The game doesn't magically change with these three new generic maps that cost a fifth of what you actually paid for the game. It's a rip off and you can't justify the cost for three maps being that high even ifyou are willing to pay that much.

While I think the last map pack was worth it, only because of Foundry, I'm not convinced about this one. I'll try to wait until these are free, hopefully GTA IV will be able to help me out with that...that does come out in April right? If not, hopefully River City Ransom will make it to the VC by then...BARF!!!

Sweet.

Oh man, SIDEWINDER!

My friends and I had plenty of crazy ass battles up in that map.

Wow.

Seriously can't wait for this map pack but I'm building a new PC soon, which I really need.

=(

Need more money tbh, it looks so sick, the atmosphere looks amazing and the general look of the map, well, lets just say I'm amazed.