I have just spent the past couple of hours playing around on the DLC Slayer playlist, and I have to say I am pleasantly surprised with the maps.

I am a bit of a cynic, and when I see phrases like re-made and re-imagined, I get a chill up my spine. Maybe its nostalgia, or maybe I just do not like change, but I have never listened to a remixed song, or watched a remake of a movie that I have enjoyed more than the original.

However the new maps in the Legendary DLC are fantastic.

Avalanche

Sidewinder was my favourite Halo: CE map. While the rest of the world seemed to love Blood Gulch, there was something about Sidewinder that kept my friends and I spent coming back to spend hours playing slayer with the vehicles enabled.

Avalanche despite having a similar basic design to Sidewinder, feels like it is a very different map. Everything that was great about Sidewinder is their, but it is just slightly off in comparison to the original. Despite this I find that it plays so much like its inspiration that I find myself getting all nostalgic for the old days. I cannot get enough of this map.

Blackout

Blackout is Bungie throwing a bone to the die-hard Halo 2 players who have been crying out for this map since September 25th. In the event that you have not heard of Blackout, it is a direct port of Lockout from Halo 2, re-skinned to look like a Human oilrig in the Antarctic.

According to my regular Halo 3 teammate Rob 077, a man who considered Lockout his second home in Halo 2 says that it plays really similar to Lockout. He felt that the detailing on the walls were distracting at first compared to the crisp, clean environment of Lockout. Though he soon got back into the swing of things, and proceeded to make me look mediocre in comparison. Though despite Rob’s deep love for Lockout, and his appreciation for it’s dizygotic twin, my favourite thing about this map is not the map at all. What I appreciate the most about this map is the Skybox.

That moon, an eldritch orb of silver ringed ethereal with light foreboding. Those dancing colours of the aurorae polares, entrancing me like the na fir-chlis of Gaelic lore. It is so beautifully distracting during gameplay that I sometimes forget about those Spartans and Elites looking to kill me, sorry team, my bad.

Ghost Town

Ghost Town is Bungie’s newest map, and if you will pardon my enthusiasm, it is fraking fantastic! It’s small and in slayer plays fast and chaotic. The enemy can come at you from any direction but can easily be overcome if you keep your head together and work with your teammate. I have not been in the Objective DLC hopper yet; I’m saving that for the weekend. If it is anywhere near as good in Assault and CTF as it is in Team Slayer that will be sufficient to cement this map as my favourite Halo map ever.

My only grouch with these maps is the release day. Tuesday some of us have to go to work tomorrow and cannot stay up to all hours enjoying this feast of content. Damn you I say for making me choose between being awake for work tomorrow or enjoying myself online.

To close here are a couple of screenshots from Avalanche for your enjoyment.

Rob meet Rocket, Rocket meet ROB! Krakaboom!

I love how the Security helmet makes me look like a Marine pilot.

I hope to hit the theatre mode in the next few days and should have a few more screenshots up by the weekend if you would like to see them feel free to return at that point. Though for now I bid thee farewell.

For the first time in a while I went into the theatre mode on Halo 3 purely on a whim.

You see normally I only go in when I have done something spectacular, well spectacular for me anyway, and I wish to create a clip of that particular moment. Though today I had a different purpose in mind, inspired by this screenshot, I was going to wander aimlessly around the map as the game played and see what I could see.

I find that with the frenetic pace of some of the fire-fights you sometimes fail to notice the beauty that can be seen in some of the, quite frankly, epic vistas that the environment artists at Bungie have created. We get so caught up in the kill or be killed gameplay that we forget that there is a vast world created for our viewing pleasure.

Sierra 117 is the training level of Halo 3 and much of it takes place in the jungle. The environment is absolutely amazing as these five screenshots show.

While playing through the video a grenade happened to explode where I had the camera positioned, the effect was astounding so I couldn’t help but tear myself away from the landscapes I was taking, and instead take a couple of arty combat shots of Mr 117 himself.

While swinging the camera here and there I came across this shot from right at the start of the level.

Now I am sure that this marine is only turning to face the Chief due to an AI command, but that is a bit soulless for me. I would rather pretend that this is the action of a marine, who in the presence of the living legend that is any Spartan cannot help but stare, as she begins to entertain the hope that with the Chief on their side, Humanity might just survive this war. Maybe I am just reading to much into this image but still it sounds good does it not?

After playing around with Sierra 117 in theatre mode I fired up the saved game of one of my recent Rumble Pit matches while running through this in camera mode I noticed something I had not seen before on Epitaph.

The outside of this map shows that the building in which you are fighting has this fantastic blue stained glass windows that dwarf the Spartan and Elite combatants such is their size. Now according to Halo3.Junk.ws I have played 41 matches on Epitath and while you cannot miss these windows from inside the structure, not once have I noticed this site while outside on one of the walkways. It makes me wonder what sights I am missing in the other multiplayer maps.

One final screenshot for you, while in Epitaph I couldn’t resist attempting a dramatic/arty screenshot.

Not to shabby in my humble opinion.