With the plethora of great games and great content XBL has kept us busy with lately, guess it’s finally time to dust off our Assault Rifles and check out what’s been happening in the world of Master Chief these past few months.

If you’re like me and chose to skip the three Halo 3 maps known as the Heroic Map Pack last December, rejoice. As Bungie is about to release the next round of downloadable maps, they’re turning the Heroic Map Pack into a free download. We’ll be able to get the three maps, previously costing a whopping 800MS Points, free of charge next Tuesday, March 25th. Here’s a little reminder of what the maps are all about:

Standoff’s symmetrical valley, with its entrenched bases and fields of boulders is ideal for mid-sized objective and Slayer game types, while Rat’s Nest’s vast, labyrinthine passages bring something quite new to the Halo multiplayer experience – an indoor vehicle paradise, strongly influenced by the Campaign mode ideal for big team battles. Finally, Foundry is the ultimate Forge map – players can edit every single object in this voluminous industrial warehouse, place stairways, walls, bridges and tunnels to create an entirely new play space and build almost any kind of map they can think of.

As for the new Legendary maps - Bungie has been revealing them one by one and will blow the lid off the third one, called Moonlight Sonata, on Tuesday as well.

[See also: Halo 3 gallery]