The newest Gamepro magazine issue has more than a dozen preview pages showing off Halo 3's updated weapons, vehicles, equipment, beta maps, and the levels Shrine, Epitaph, and Last Resort. The most exciting new feature they reveal is the ability to extensively customize your player armor:

"Tired of staring at Master Chief's mug? Halo 3's online mode offers new armor permutations that allow players to customize their personas from head to toe. Will the Covenenat Elite player models be eligible for similar upgrades? Only Bungie knows."  

Create-A-Spartan opens up many questions, none of which Bungie is willing to talk about yet. Will the armor permutations affect your online health meter? Do different sets of armor portray different ranks of any sort? Or is it all just for a fun change of appearance to visually set Halo 3 apart from Halo 2? We'll have to wait and see, Bungie doesn't want to spoil all their secrets, but it's obvious they've still got at least a few more they're keeping from us. Check out the high quality scans from Arrogantics below.

GamePro got the opportunity to talk to the Hideo Kojima at great length about his upcoming Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots game. He doesn't reveal anything new, but does hint and allude to several interesting things. He starts off by covering the settings, which does start in the Middle East, and is influenced by current events, but he stresses that it's a global game full of traveling from one country to another - more like an "espionage on the battlefield" World War III game. The enemies should act according to their surrounding atmosphere - when things are calm they might just hide and fight back, but when already panicked they'll run away in fear. Snake himself has been aged and is not as bright as he was in previous games, but Hideo didn't want to put the stress on the players, and mentions that Snake wears a muscle suit to keep up to his old ways. 

Kojima won't say whether the game is linear or non-linear, but he does mention some interesting things about weapons and countries. He won't say whether or not mechs will show up, but he says there's more gun modification than ever before, and won't say how the player received the special guns. He does say that gameplay will let you take sides with a country of your choosing and pick which other country to target, allowing for backstabbing. The better your side does the further you can go faster through the game. He makes it seem like weapons will pave the course of the game from one country to another, so it wouldn't be surprising if the "Guns of the Patriots" game revolves around corrupt arms deals between nations.

He also mentioned that making it for the PS3 was difficult, but said PS2 wasn't easy either. Along with that, he said he wants rumble feature back, and actually isn't excited about 1080p gaming. After MGS4 he plans to not only get involved with the Wii and possibly Xbox 360, but also PC gaming. His game team isn't a big fan of going down the path but he mentions the desire for making a worldwide game.

It'll still be a while before the game comes out this year, so for more reading on Metal Gear Solid 4, you can read the full GamePro interview here.