The latest edition of Social Blend features discussion on the coverage and news coming out from E3, along with a look into Slayer getting its own annual holiday celebrated among fans – among many other issues. Click here to listen to the latest episode.

During the episode we discuss some of the news and trailers that came out from E3 last week, including details about the new Lara Croft / Tomb Raider reboot, plus we debate how Halo 4 might turn out, following Microsoft‘s announcement they are starting a new trilogy of the game.

Additionally, being a bit of a group of metalheads, we belatedly celebrate International Day of Slayer – which initially began on 06/06/06. Geeks of Doom had some coverage of the big day right here too.

Finally, we also bring up the AMAZING PR commercial created by the Alamo Drafthouse made with the angry voicemail from a woman who got kicked out of the movie theater for texting during the film. You can check out the video ad below.

The 2011 E3 convention is already well underway, and some huge announcements have been dropped early on.

To start things off, Microsoft took the stage with bombs in pockets. The first of which was a confirmation of two big E3 rumors: one being that the original Halo: Combat Evolved would be getting a makeover to enhance the visuals with today’s technologies, and the other even bigger announcement being that Halo 4 was indeed on the way, and that it would start a brand new trilogy in the series.

Last we had heard of the series, Halo: Reach was coming out and it was to be the last that developer Bungie made. Obviously Microsoft would have been silly to just end it there, though, and they immediately got to work on new and exciting stories for Master Chief.

You can see a brief but exciting teaser for Halo 4, which will be released during the holiday season in 2012, by heading below now!

The video game deal of the day over at Amazon today is Halo Reach – Limited Edition for Xbox 360 for $39.99 (that’s 50% off the list price of $79.99) and Halo Reach – Legendary Edition for Xbox 360 for $59.99 (that’s 60% off the list price of $149.99).

Note, this deal is valid only for today, Thursday, February 24, 2011, until midnight PST, while supplies last.

Microsoft announced that another map pack will be released for Halo: Reach, called the Defiant map pack. This map pack costs 800 Microsoft points (or $10) and will be released in March.

A video trailer was also released that you can peep at here below.

The maps look pretty good, and the footage, especially at the beginning showing Firefight on Unearthed, makes me want to go play right now!

Let’s break down the three maps.

Game publisher EA hit the twitterverse the other day to release a new video titled “Last Call” from game designer Epic Games’ new game, Bulletstorm. The video is a spoof of the Halo 3 ad titled “Believe,” using action figures a la Robot Chicken to show characters from the game.

At first I thought Epic was being tongue-in-cheek, poking fun at the ads they had made for the Gears of War games. Which I thought was weird since they have one more game to go. Then I realized that I’ve seen that advertising style before, in Halo. Now if they were making fun of Halo with a Gears ad it would make sense. They are both Microsoft Game Studio published games and Xbox exclusives, however Bulletstorm is being released by EA for Xbox, PlayStation, and PC. I wonder what Microsoft thinks of all this? Both videos are embedded below for your viewing pleasure.