The image you see above is a side-by-side shot of Halo 4 and Halo: Reach.  We took the Halo 4 shot from the just-released Halo 4 gameplay video. We wanted to take a closer look at Halo 4's HUD. To get an insider perspective on the differences between the games' heads-up-displays, we talked to pro gamer Tom "TSquared" Taylor to get his impressions of the HUD differences.

"This little shot is pretty interesting because there's a couple of things that are different that I'm seeing," Tsquared said. "It looks like a king of the hill game but it says 'Slayer.' And the score is so high. It looks like it says 399 to 139. And it has a wolf on the right hand side and what looks like a unicorn."  

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X-Play is celebrating Bungie Day on the house that Halo built's 20th birthday in this video, hosted by the ever-lovable Morgan Webb. Watch the evolution of Bungie as a company as well as the "giant, ravenous fanbase" that has supported them throughout the years below. Also: Flaming blue helmets, as modeled in the video by none other than yours truly.

Sadly Bungie Day has come and gone, taking the ability to procure blue flames and steaks with it, but Bungie's legacy as a community-focused development studio will soldier on. So pour yourself a toast, pick up a controller, and let's get to it.

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Just arrived home after a whirlwind of a weekend at the Major League Gaming tournament in Dallas. The best word I can use to describe the event is epic. Over the past three weeks, between Blizzcon and MLG, I've spent a lot of time with my fellow gamers. I can't even begin to express how awesome everyone has been. Especially at MLG and SixJax Gaming. With MLG, where the gamers are competing for huge prizes, they are all so humble and appreciative of fans, and congratulate one another whether they win or lose. "GG" is often seen as an insult in gaming nowadays, something along the lines of "pwned n00b, gg." But at MLG, it was always said with respect, sometimes even with a "well played" afterwards too. I love that about professional gaming. So, with that said, here's a recap of all the fun from Championship Sunday at MLG Dallas 2010.

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MLG Dallas's National Championship Sunday has begun at Major League Gaming's 2010 tournament!

Click here for the Halo 3 stream.

Click here for the StarCraft 2 stream.

The early matches of the tournaments began late Friday evening and kept rolling along Saturday. There were definitely some major upsets in the StarCraft 2 scene, but zerglings weren't the only thing to keep me occupied at MLG Dallas. There was also a huge Halo 3 tournament going on, and the brackets there were absolutely intense. Things will keep rolling along today, but here's my wrap up of the hottest Halo 3 and StarCraft 2 happenings from Saturday of at MLG Dallas.

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The 2010 Major League Gaming Pro Circuit is hitting Dallas this weekend. With it will surely come some of the most exciting championships for the world's greatest competitive games, including Halo 3, StarCraft 2, Tekken 6, and Super Smash Bros. Brawl. The event is being advertised as "the pinnacle of pro gaming" and I'll be there to give you extensive coverage on some of the best tournament matches happening.

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Shocking but true: I've never drank a Mountain Dew before in my life. My mom never approved of neon yellow soda, and though I'm a full fledged adult now, the rule still applies...unless it's got the Halo: Reach logo plastered all over it.

Yesterday, we received a mysterious Halo: Reach Honor the Code kit courtesy of Mountain Dew and Doritos holding just that: six different flavors of the go-to drink for gamers attempting to pull an all-nighter of Firefight and two bags of chips to round up a healthy, nutritious meal. If that wasn't enough to make us feel special, the kit also included special "Honor the Code" cards of each new Halo: Reach character, describing their positions, background and birth date. (Did you know Commander Carter was a Leo? That means he's super charismatic and positive thinking!)

As fans of Halo: Reach, we thought it appropriate to don our Mark V helmets, reload the assault rifles and take these drinks out for a taste test ride on the company Warthog. We met back at base camp to compile our thoughts and here's what we found.

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Halo: Reach came out a year after Halo 3: ODST, and there was even less of a gap between Halo: Wars and ODST. Look for this trend to continue.

According to Corporate Vice President for Microsoft Game Studios Phil Spencer, "There's no explicit strategy that says we're to ship a Halo game every year. I will say I think one Halo game every three years -- which was kind of our old cadence – is probably not frequent enough."

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It’s a rare and gutsy move for a franchise to shift its focus away from an iconic – and more importantly, marketable – protagonist in favor of exploring some tangental element of the gameworld. Before the unique aesthetic or hallmark location that identifies titles like Fallout or BioShock, an identifiable hero can make or break a franchise. Certainly, games such as Halo or God War or Devil May Cry would somehow be made lesser by the absence of Master Chief, Kratos or Dante...Without their familiar brand of blood-letting, the series would inevitably stumble and falter, right?

Or would they?

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I know! You thought it couldn't be done! That it would never happen! That this game absolutely, positively would not have Master Chief in it at all! Well, that's not entirely true. We've confirmed at Gamescom 2010 that Master Chief will be in Halo: Reach ... just not in the way you're probably expecting. 

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Well this is sort of random, but anything Halo-related is extremely welcome, especially considering we’re all suffering from Halo: Reach Beta Fever! The DJ duo known as Tritonal have remixed Michael Salvatori’s “Never Forget” from Halo 3 into an utterly delicious trance groove. Even better is that they are offering it up as a free download! Grab a glowstick and an Unggoy dance partner and come inside for a listen.

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You need to hurry: G4 is giving away early Halo: Reach Beta keys, and here's your chance to get yours. We're dropping twenty codes for Halo: Reach fans who want early access to the multiplayer beta. This will let you enter the fight this weekend, before the May 3rd beta release. And all you need to do to win is enter our sweepstakes and be lucky enough to be chosen.  Easy, right? But you need to be quick.

The entry period ends at 3:00PM PT on April 29, 2010, that's only a few hours away! So visit our sweepstakes page now.

Activision and Bungie dropped a bombshell surprise on the video game industry early this morning when the two announced a 10-year partnership for a brand-new intellectual property (Bungie, Microsoft and Sony have all since issued statements). In this case, however, Bungie will own their next project, while Activision's signed up to publish.

Bungie is about to move into a post-Halo world.

So far, Bungie's been mum about specifics. They're willing to say it's an "action game," but that's about it. I spent some time on the phone with Bungie community and franchise director Brian Jarrard this morning to discuss the post-Halo future of Bungie, a future now tied to Activision.

Brian Jarrard: Sorry, I'm a few minutes late.

G4: It's okay. I expect you guys are a little busy today.

Jarrard: Yeah, been making calls for a while now.

G4: Well, you guys are just calling and individually giving out Halo: Reach codes.

Jarrard: I thought that's what you wanted to talk about. Here, let me read your code to you. B-Y...

G4: Give me the sense of what you're feeling right now. Is it relief? You guys said this was a nine-month deal, so where is your head at? Where's Bungie's head at?

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This morning, Sterling McGarvey, G4's reviews and previews editor, found a mysterious suitcase on his desk, sent from Bungie:

What could be inside? Click the cut to find out!

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If you haven't heard, Activision and Bungie are working together. As part of the new deal, Bungie said it's expanding into mulit-platform development. So far, the studio hasn't named which platforms it's looking at, but given the company's tech-happy games, PlayStation 3 seems very likely.

Obviously, this news makes Sony very happy. The company was quick to issue a statement to me this morning about the Bungie and Activision news, praising the deal as "great for all gamers."

Read the full statement below.

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