If you haven’t climbed aboard the game trading train yet, now’s the time. Goozex is giving a special limited time deal to Podtacular members: enter the code pod-hd-dvd when you sign up at Goozex and you’re entered to win a shiny new HD DVD player for your 360! This is just for Podtacular members, fans and listeners and the winner will be announced on October 3rd.

Goozex is a super-cool game trading community that will save you a ton of money. If you’ve ever traded games at Gamestop or Game Crazy or whatever you’ll know what I mean. You actually get the market value for the games you trade in at Goozex rather than HALF the market value at Gamestop. I’ve traded a bunch of games with them and have nothing but great things to say. It’s easy, free to sign up and just a dollar per trade, and they guarantee each transaction. What are you waiting for? Go sign up with that promo code!

Tyson “Ferrex” Green has written up the first part of a three-part series on working in Forge, Halo 3’s in-game editor. You’ll apparently be able to call on a startling variety of objects in the editor; although you won’t be able to change map geometry, you’ll be able to add objects so large that they will, effectively, change the flow of the map.

And, of course, it’s not just editing, it’s also a play mode:

Unlike that most famous of Monitors, 343 Guilty Spark, you’re still vulnerable to damage, but it takes a steady shot to hit a moving Monitor. Evasive maneuvers will serve you as well as a gun, but there’s a bit more to Editor Mode than simply dodging bullets. You see, Editor Mode is where the magic happens.

Check out the first part and be sure to watch for the rest coming soon!

Thanks for the heads-up to JawReich in #hbo.

Russ Pitts at the escapist has never preordered a game— until Halo 3, that is.

Gamesindustry.biz reports that Microsoft is expecting to sell out of the Legendary edition of Halo 3, in the US at least.

According to CVG, the Legendary edition has already sold out in the UK.

Frank Caron from Ars Technica had a chance to play through the game and will have a thorough writeup after the 23rd when the embargo ends.

Char Easter was invited to play Halo 3 at Bungie and wrote up his experience.

GamerMetrics says Halo 3’s launch means fewer sales of other titles. Fancy that.

Bungie says that a blue filter will be very helpful for those keen to get the most out of the Audio/Video calibration tool they’re providing with the Legendary Edition. They’ll be available in the Bungie store soon.

First of all, this page contains SPOILERS. Do NOT read it unless you want the ending of Halo 3 spoiled for you. This is not appearing on the front page unless you’ve selected to view spoilers, and I’ve obscured the text by making it white on a white background; you’ll have to highlight it to read. That’s as much protection as I can give you.

As far as I can determine, this is the legitimate and true summary of Halo 3’s plot; but I’ll admit, I have not read it in its entirety myself, so if it’s wrong, blame the author. It was posted by imKryptonite on the the360Forum.com; for what it’s worth, he liked the game and felt it made up for Halo 2’s shortcomings.

Here’s an excerpt:

So, we start off with Cortana telling us why she picked John 117, and what he had that no one but her saw: Luck. We then witness our dear Spartan crashlanding into a jungle. Sergeant Major what’s-his-name (the cool black dude everyone’s so fond of) and his squad pick John up and bring him back to normal, at which point he also gets to see the Arbiter again, and find out that “they’re with us now”. You then fight yourself back to base, where Master Chief barely gets briefed before the whole place is overrun by Covenant forces. You get to shoot some guns and throw some ‘nades and before you know it you’ve armed a bomb that’s gonna blow the whole place to smithereens. Enter: Level 3, where you’re going hog wild with the Warthog, racing down highways, beating stuff up, et cetera. You do a bunch of semi-important “oh and btw uhh new objective” stuff such as taking down an Anti Air cannon, while the Covenant is still digging happily into whatever the hell it is that’s buried deep under Africa.

And then they light it. Now, the general theory is that, duh, that’s The Ark, and it’s here on Earth, and goddamn did the Prophet of Truth just fire all the goddamn rings in the entire universe from The Ark? But fuck us, we were all wrong. Turns out that wasn’t really The Ark after all! Instead, it lighted up the sky, and brought upon us a motherfuckin black hole teleport portal, which some Covenant ships dive into to figure out just what the fuck is going on. However, there’s a ship coming out of the portal as well …

If you really want the rest, check out the forum thread.