I spent a bit of the weekend playing around with them and came away fairly impressed, though their are some things that make using them for honest to goodness gameplay a challenge.

The developers of the toys seem to have spent quite a bit of time incorporating a Halo 3 flavor into not just the way the devices look, but how they operate.

Each post has a trigger and a reload button. The guns, according to the instruction manual, can fire off 50 regular shots before having to be reloaded, which produces the reload sound from the game. You can also do super shots by holding in the trigger to overheat the gun. Firing off one of these shots takes up a tenth of your ammo and causes the gun to remain overheated for five seconds, meaning you can't fire for a bit.

The side of the guns have a little red light which blinks when you're out of ammo and the front of the gun glows green when it is powered on. The green light flashes brighter when you fire.

The target is a square cube that you latch to your pants or what have you. The front of the target is a big red circle that flashes red when a hit is scored. Underneath the red circle is a green light bar made up of what appears to be six LEDs. Each time you take a hit one of the LEDs blink out. If you get hit with an overcharged shot you lose half of your LEDs. This shield indicator will actually start to recharge if you're not hit for 20 seconds.

When your shield totally depleted the target says "game over" in the voice from Halo 3 and then five seconds later, it reactivates and says "Slayer". Both add a really neat touch of virtual realism to the game.

While I like the design of the weapons and how accurately the targets both track score and represent death, there are some issues.

First off having a single target makes it hard to play a true game of Halo 3. You can't shoot someone from behind, or the side and it's easy to have the target accidentally or purposefully covered. I know this is more of an issue that laser tag games face, but it would have been nice if the Halo 3 set included two targets, one for the front and one for the back.

Another issue is that the gun isn't in anyway linked to the target, which means you can keep shooting even after you are killed which results in a lot of hard-to-call, down-to-the-line battles.

Finally, I wish they had incorporated vibration in the pistols. It's a minor thing, but an overcharging Covenant pistol isn't an overcharging Covenant pistol unless it's about to shake right out of my hand. The Plasma pistol sold on it's own not only vibrates, it has a vent that pops open after a overcharge shot is fired. It also has an digital display of ammo left.

One thing I suppose people could do is play dual-wielding Halo 3 laser tag and buy one of these two-player packs for each person. That way they'd get two pistols and two targets, one to wear on the front and one to wear on the back. Personally, I think the targets should be worn on some sort of harness or something that allows it to be located at chest and back level, but that's totally doable to.

Final verdict? The guns are a ton of fun to play with, sure the ones sold individually have more bells and whistles, but if you're looking for something fun to play around with in a darkened office or outside at night, these are probably worth the $40. Now if only Jasman sold the target cube's seperately.

Hit the jump for a video of the guns in action. They are far more impressive when you see...
1. Their absurd sizes.
2. Their absurd firing kickback.

Looks like a fun enough afternoon. The pistol set with run you $80, and the rifle is quite a bit more at $130.

Halo 3 Laser Pursuit Plasma Weapons [ThinkGeek] Thanks Erik!

For Blu-ray, optical disk drive recording playback slimline design [Sony via Gizmodo]

It seems to be Nintendo video day today so I have one last one for you. This time it's a GameBoy commercial featuring a giant armoured robot thing that shooots blue lasers out of it's fingers. Apparently the blue laser has the power to transport human boys into the misty land of the GameBoy nebula. When used by humans, however, the blue finger laser can be used to destroy your robot enemies.

After seeing this, I went and plugged in my old GameBoy, but unfortunately as hard as I tried, I couldn't manage to get the laser thing to work. Man, I got gypped. Flynn De Marco

One of those things is simply "Get a kill with the Spartan Laser. It is the most satisfying thing you'll ever do." Really? The most satisfying? Ever?! If I ever see Frankie in the flesh, I'm giving him the number of a Thai masseuse I know.

Keep on truckin' for the other two and don't miss our upcoming additional coverage on the Halo 3 beta. Michael McWhertor

'Halo 3' Sneak Peek: Three Things Every Beta Player Must Do [MTV]

One of my earliest arcade memories involves shoving an endless supply of quarters into Dragon's Lair and getting really really honked off. Nobody could figure the game out! And, from what I remember, there was actually an episode of "That's Incredible" in which someone cleared the game.

As Brandon at Insert Credit points out, the game has already hit HD DVD. And now, Don Bluth's arcade game is coming to Blu-ray. Well, not just Blu-ray, but BD-J (AKA "Blu-ray Disc Java") — That's the way they get interactive content on Blu-ray. Looking forward to it!

That's not that the Blu-ray version above, but the original arcade version. Yes, the one that used to piss me off. Brian Ashcraft

Dragon Lair [Insert Credit]

During the Super Bowl Sony Computer Entertainment of America had a clutch of Playstation 3s painted and then laser etched to wow the celeb crowds hanging out in their posh lounge.

We posted about it and drooled a bit. Well last night I received this sexy, painted and etched PS3 fresh from that event to giveaway to the good readers here on Kotaku with Sony's compliments. I'm also throwing in copies of Ridge Racer 7, Call of Duty 3, Madden 07 and Fight Night Round 3 for whoever is lucky enough to win the contest.

How will be giving it away? Don't ask me, I'm leaving that in Ashcraft's malicious hands. I've only asked that the content be painful, as in "how many robots are sitting on my desk" painful. Brian Crecente

Really not sure how well the Energy Sword is going to factor into a projectile based game, but I'm sure Jasman has very intelligent toy designers who are paid to figure these things out. Look for the toys to hit the streets sometime in late 2007. Michael Fahey

Jasman Toys Announces Halo 3 Licensing Agreement With Microsoft and Bungie

Toy manufacturer Jasman to produce licensed Halo 3 Laser Command laser tag game targeted to fans of the popular franchise

SAN DIEGO, Feb. 22 /PRNewswire/ — Jasman Toys, a growing toy designer and manufacturer announces a new licensing partnership with Microsoft Corporation and Bungie Studios. Under the agreement, Jasman will produce a line of Halo 3(TM) Laser Command products. Highlighting the line is a laser tag-style set that features an infrared-light laser gun and sensors. Targeted to core Halo fans, Jasman's Halo 3 Laser Command products will be available later in 2007.

"We are extremely excited to announce this licensing partnership with Microsoft," said Brian Bonnett, executive vice president of Jasman Toys. "The Halo franchise is one of the most-recognized brands in the industry; the anticipation surrounding Halo 3 and our innovative product should prove to be extremely successful for Jasman and Microsoft."

Jasman's Halo 3 Laser Command builds on the success of the most sought-after video game brand with an exciting laser tag-style game. With the upcoming release of Halo 3, this is a must-have product for any Halo fan. Weapons will include the Covenant's Plasma Rifle, Plasma Pistol and Energy Sword. These alien laser weapons emit a harmless infrared beam and sensors are worn by players to register hits. Engage in capture the flag, team battles, free-for-alls ... the possibilities for gameplay are endless!

About Jasman Toys

Jasman Toys is a growing designer and producer of high-quality, innovative toys for children of all ages. With toy categories that range from remote controlled helicopters, electronic dinosaurs and shooting toys, Jasman has established a strong presence in the boy's toys market. Jasman's product lines include Command Force(R), Flight Factory(R), Mighty Megasaur(R), Laser Command(R) and Wild West Gunslinger(R). Jasman products are available at toy, hobby, gift, mass merchant and department stores throughout the United States and abroad. For more information about Jasman Toys visit the company website at http://www.jasmantoys.com

Ee hee hee! I like the headline "Shortage of Blue Lasers". It makes me feel like I'm living in the neon-grit future that I crave, instead of this obese, mooing present.

Anyway, now that everyone is making or planning to make HD-DVD and Blu-ray drives, the laser supply is taking a strain. Blue laser diodes, which both HD DVD and Blu-ray use, are difficult to manufacture. The yield rates for the things are not increasing much, even though the demand for them is. But Sony's got our back!

This puts Sony in particular in quite a bind. Sony has obviously invested quite a bit in the Blu-ray format and the company would very much like consumers to pick up a Blu-ray player and not an HD DVD player or the HD DVD peripheral for Microsoft's Xbox 360. In order to make sure that the Blu-ray enabled PlayStation 3 does not run into any further problems, Sony has actually suspended shipments of blue laser diodes to other customers so that the components can be used for PS3 manufacturing first.

Hoarding all the blue lasers for the gamers, eh Sony? That's the girl I married! Eliza Gauger

Report: Blue Laser Shortage May Affect Blu-ray/HD DVD Battle [GameDaily BIZ]

Microsoft's sharp-eyed John Porcaro points us to the seemingly non-game related Saturday Night Live Digital Short entitled Laser Cats. The skit is about a world where cats have mutated to shoot lasers from their mouths and are used as weapons.

The best part though, as Porcaro points out, is that the lead is using an Xbox 360 Live headset to communicate with home base. Sweet, I guess those SNL folks really are gamers after all.

Props for SNL Digital Short "Laser Cats" [Gamerscore Blog]

Unfortunately, X-Com's a bitch to get running on today's systems. We've been dreaming of an X-Com port for a while... the more portable, the better! So we were delighted to find an intrepid team of Russian developers release a complete X-Com port for the Pocket PC called Pocket UFO. Everything you loved about X-Com is here: the night battles, the base building, the geoscape, the UFOpedia. It's as free as it is a gross infringement on copyright. So if you love X-Com and have a Pocket PC, do yourself a favor and go pick it up.

Pocket UFO: X-Com for Pocket PCs [SMK Software]