Remember a few days ago when we told you that Microsoft's huge marketing campaign would kick off with several live action shorts for Halo Reach?

The first of the bunch has arrived, and you can find it embedded after the break. It features some of planet Reach's inhabitants making decisions to stay or leave just prior to the Covenant's invasion. While it's not entirely action packed (ok, so there's NO action in it), it is certainly setting up the next batch of shorts for some massive action moments.

We haven't been one of the lucky few to receive a playable preview of the campaign yet, but that doesn't mean we're going to keep the info from you. Joystiq just put up this hands-on preview of some time those lucky dogs got to spend with the campaign.

Be warned, there is some stuff you might find minorly spoilerly in there. Here's one spoiler for you though: it's AWESOME!

For Bungie's last Halo game, the developers are determined to go out with a bang in terms of game quality. Never one to fall far behind, Microsoft wants to make sure they go out with a bang in sales as well, and they're going to help the game (which already sells itself) with the biggest marketing budget videogames have ever seen, and it all starts tomorrow.

Check out the details of what this massive marketing campaign will include after the break.

It looks like Bungie has revealed that bonus for Halo:CE PC players we told you about last week, and it will come in the form of an additional icon on your player banner.

What Bungie didn't mention last week though is that there will also be other icons that unlock for doing various things in older Halo games as well. We've got the whole list of them, as well as screenshots of the icons and how to get them, after the break.

So here's the story. Rather than ship out review discs of Halo Reach to the major gaming sites via, you know, the mail, Bungie decided that the future was now and the review copies should be distributed instead. To do this, they simply put the entire game up on Xbox Live in downloadable form, and required a code (that they would then send out to the review sites) to download. Savvy?

Of course, the internet loves a good challenge and it took only a matter of days for modders to find a way to trick the XBox Live servers and download the code.

We don't support piracy so we're not going to tell you how to get your hands on it here, but the internet is out there for you if you so please. Someone has already taken it and posted a video of three new Halo Reach maps, Boardwalk, Countdown, and Glacier.

Bungie seems intent on making things up to Halo 2 fans after shutting off their servers earlier this year. First they gave them free beta invites, then they gave them a slew of map remakes. Now, they're expanding on that last mentality a bit with yet another Halo 2 map remake.

Pinnacle, which you can see in glorious high def video form after the break, is a remake of the Halo 2 map Ascension. If you watch the video after the break you'll not only see this new map, but also see some extensive use of the Hologram armor ability, which you'll notice has a surprisingly short cooldown.

This map should play quite a bit differently with the inclusion of jetpacks. Like the rest of you, we can't wait to find out for ourselves.

If you're lucky enough to have the spare cash to spring for the special Halo Reach themed Xbox 360 that will launch alongside the game on September 14th, in addition to a custom paintjob you'll also get an Xbox that replaces the original Xbox's sound effects with sound effects from the Halo series.

We have those sounds for you. Just click here to hear what the system will sound like when you hit the power button, and click here to hear what the disc tray opening up will sound like.

If you want to get your hands on one of these custom Halo Reach 360's, remember that you can pre-order one here.

In a move that surprises absolutely no one, Best Buy will be doing a midnight release event for Halo Reach. We've got the full list of stores that will be open at midnight for you to get that early copy of Halo Reach after the break.

I'm sure Gamestop and other retailers will be following suit with this, so we'll get you those lists as soon as they become available as well.

There wasn't as much Halo Reach news at this year's Gamescom event as we might have liked, but there still was some good stuff to come out of it. The latest of these is the reveal of the newest Firefight map for Halo Reach.

Bungie describes the map, titled Corvette, as a small and intimate Firefight map. They say its small and closed in nature will lead to the most intense Firefight moments of any of the maps. It will also be the only map to feature the Engineer, ODST's covenant shield boosting support unit that packs a mighty big death explosion for such a small and seemingly harmless unit.

Check the video after the break.

We're becoming quite the video amalgam as of late, but I guess that's what happens when Halo Reach goes gold.

Bungie's latest ViDoc/trailer mish-mash brings us a cool introduction to Noble Team, the team tasked with helping stop the unstoppable covenant force that has found Reach.

Make sure you watch all the way to the end, where you'll catch an oddly familiar face.