Halo 1 maps remade for Halo 2

The Halo 2 maps Bungie promised everybody back when it announced the public beta test for game number three will materialise on 17th April - and you'll be able to buy and download them using either an Xbox or Xbox 360.

The maps are called Tombstone and Desolation (screenshots lurk on the other side of the links), but are actually tweaked remakes of Hang 'Em High and Derelict - maps that ought to be familiar to fans of the very first Halo.

You'll have to hand over US$ 4.00 for both, and in order to ensure maximum availability, they will be sold via the in-game downloader, rather than Xbox Live Marketplace. "It was originally scheduled to be a 360-only [download], but it just wasn't going to work out," Bungie's Frank O'Connor explained in this week's website update. "Number one, there are a lot of Xbox players out there who can't afford a 360, or are waiting for a birthday or holiday gift - so they wouldn't be able to play. Worse still, we'd have to split the matchmaking playlists differently and that wouldn't have been fair either. So in the interests of fairness and an easy life, it's on Xbox and Xbox 360." In other words, dust off the credit card.

For more on the maps, which promise "all-new graphics, features and a few hidden surprises" and have been put together by Certain Affinity, check in with Bungie's weekly website update, which picks through the changes made since we last saw them.