not customizable weapons those are just the brude spikers. they were in the beta.

sorry brute

Map editor? Sweet!

That first armor looks pretty fucking sweet.
I wonder if you can make custom armor.

the dual covenant MG's should have extended ammo seeing they suck otherwise.

Those kind of look like action figures/statues

or "spikers".....whatever.....

The weapon on the left is a brute spiker, the weapon on the right is the brute shotgun (which is also dual-wieldable)

what's that gun in the left hand of the spartan on cover 2?

i know in the right hand it's a spiker, but the in the left looks new...

Woot! Metroid Prime 3!

I like the Elite one the best.
Guess I'll finally have to pick a copy of EGM. They never looked thick enough to justify the price.

Samus...?

Wowzers, look at the details on the Elite's face.

geez it is halo 3 and some of u only see the small box on the top right of samus getting owned

@Lost_Fable:

EGM's one of the best remaining gaming mags IMO. The writers are often humorous. I stopped getting it though because I would already know about all the new news from the internet when I got the issues >_> The only thing worth reading would be reviews, exclusive articles because of the writers (especially Seanbaby's hilarious segments on crappy games and whatnot) and exclusive major features like these Halo 3 features, which are few and far between.

Was a map editor already known? Because that's news to me.

metroid prime? Heavnly sword? little big planet?

I thought EGM was owned and operated by microsoft...

Halo 3 is going to sell really well because of the name brand, but i don't think it's going to be a very good game...

2 months to go!

Whatever your smoking, please share....

@Halo 3 is going to sell really well because of the name br...:

ELITE! ELITE!
The only important character in the game.

I gave up on EGM waaaaaaay back when they brought out EGM^2. You're buying more ad than content per pound of magazine. Plus, the way things work these days, everything in a monthly publication is old news by the time it hits the stand.

@Heihachi.vs.Kazuya: With the reviews they push out, sure seems like it.

It's literally a map editor, not a map creator.

@Kyle81:

All of the reviews between first party titles all seem justified.

The spartan up top looks like he is wearing a construction hat like bob the builder.

the map editor is called "the forge". it basically allows you to add and move around objects on the map, boring? not so much, you can do this with up to 8 people(i believe) on xbox live and anyone of the people can go start playing on the map at anytime. so if your friend is building a fort out of crates, you can go into the game, lob a grenade, and down goes the fort. you can also set up games in which one person on each side is editing he map while the others are fighting each other, the poeple editing the map can then either help their team mates by drop weapons and vehicles, or they can hurt the enemy by taking a weapons and vehicles.

I like the top one.

Metroid Prime 3 and Halo 3, definetly my most anticipated games this year, schweeet.

Those are so awesome! Please don't let that past-due balance to EGM stop me from getting this magazine!!!

In the top one, the weapon in his left hand is the dual-wieldable Brute shotgun that was already announced in a leak from the magazine. It's different from the Spiker.

@jesusjuice: Sound like a mod that was available for Half Life 2

@Kyle81:

Sounds like the primitive word called: "TOOLS".

Stop trying to start an argument.

@INSERT_GENTLY

Please get off whatever drugs you're smoking. Srsly.

Anyways, that Elite looks totally badass. Cannot wait for this~! :D NEED MORE HALOCRACK.

@jesusjuice: That is going to make multiplayer so much more fun

@Kyle81: Source Forts. Pretty fun if you play with people that know what they're doing or with friends. Good luck finding a decent amount of people online playing it, though.

The weapon in the left hand of the Spartan in the first pic is known as the Brute Mauler. Less powerful duel-wieldable shotgun. Looks awesome!! I must say that Elite armor looks incredible, I might consider using the Elite this time around in MP.

@Karttikeya: Not trying to start an argument, but you apparently want to. Bugger off.

@AppleTamer: Yea thats the one! Was great fun, some crazy gaming there.

@jesusjuice: Back when Marathon Infinity Shipped for Mac Bungie included a full set of tools also called Forge. Being an environment that encouraged map building and modding, the products weren't half bad and Bungie even included contest winners maps with a later version of the game, sort of a UT style game of the year edition in the future. Tools for map editing on LIVE? I don't see allot of creativity being possible, depending on how pared down the software is. Too bad, MS could have had a nice counter argument for the supposed ps3 UT3 mod support.

Time for Trolling 101.

The right way to troll:

BY PANZERJEDI AT 03:51 PM
Woot! Metroid Prime 3!

(Good-natured, positive, relevant because of the Metroid 3 headline on the cover)

Wrong way to troll:

BY INSERT_GENTLY AT 03:59 PM
Halo 3 is going to sell really well because of the name brand, but i don't think it's going to be a very good game...

(Agumentative, ignorant, and obvious. And what's with the ellipsis? Did you forget what you were going to say next?)

@JoJitsu4u:

I wouldn't be surprised to see Microsoft distribute a free tool set with Halo 3 for Windows (whenever they do), and allow cross platform compatability with the mods. Especially when Bungie is going to have custom creation "leaderboards" on their website and within the game's interface...but one can only hope.

That spartan looks hot! I can't wait 'till I'm designing mine..

Did I just miss what meta-games are in Halo 3? There were achievements for "Get X score in the Meta-game on Level 3" or something like that for each level.

What are they?

@Akanubon:

Leaderboards for each level.

I know Halo 3 is going to be incredible. I've been following it since it was announced.

My only problem: With all of the great things (Forge, Campaign, Multiplayer, Saved Films, LANs, Customizations, and so on...), how can I be expected to play Guitar Herp III and GTA IV.

roman numerals are making a come back, eh?

Isn't the Elite holding a new gun? I didn't see that in the bee-tah.

Oh! And the not-a-spiker gun in the first cover, what's that?

@InsidiousTuna:
Elite is holding Fuel Rod Gun. It's been in every Halo, and was usable in H2 and now in H3.

The gun in the first cover spartans left hand is the new brute shotgun. Less powerful, but dual weildable.

It all looks very cool. But how is changeing the color of your armor going to work in ranked multiplayer. It is still Red vs Blue.

@RageKage: I've only used the fuel rod gun a couple of times, and I thought it was bigger, almost rocket-launcher sized. And I had no clue about the mini-shotgun. Thanks!

Seeing as I've already read the article (well what wasn't a blur) I'll most likely wait for the high res screenshots from Bungie and the scans that'll show up mere minutes after the mail man comes.

But I'm loving the Elite. I still won't use them but that armor looks pretty badass, especially can't wait to see the other variants in better detail.

As for Forge, like other people said, it's like a content editor where you can spawn things to use within the game. I'm not sure about how many people can play in the game (I read 8 above) and how actually playing with it will work, especially with teamplay, but it seems like another tool Bungie has given to the community that'll allow Machinima to be an even higher quality.

@jihadjoe343:
I'd only use elites in multiplayer if I'm goofing around, or they get rid of that damn PINK HUD!

Looks alright... I still am dissapointed with the graphics, I do know that graphics are not everything and I am definitly looking to buy this game for the compaing alone.. I loved Halo 1's campaign and played it over many times until halo 2 came out. I really hope Halo 3 pushes campaign to a new level.

Wow, the Spartan and the Elite covers look good.