The December issue of EGM should be arriving at the house of subscribers any day now, with the cover story this month being brand new Halo 3 details from actual hands-on time with the game.

Fortunately the mag's online presence, 1UP.com, has dished a few of those details early. They include:

• What are these new Brutish weapons? What's a Spike Rifle...or a Spike Grenade?
• The Mongoose (the once-scrapped ATV from Halo/Halo 2) is back: Who wants to ride Brokeback?
• Halo 3 will have three retail SKUs: standard, collector's edition, and Legendary. Guess which one comes with a helmet and four discs of content?
• Adding bumpers to the 360 controller means there's some extra real estate for Bungie to play with. Now the left bumper reloads your dual-wielded weapon and the right bumper is the normal reload. What does X do, though? Mum.
• Starting weapon: Bungie thinks they have the "perfect" starting weapon in Halo 3. It's not the pistol, the battle rifle, or the SMG...and it's pretty familiar. How does the new Assault Rifle play?
• One of the new maps, Valhalla, is being called "the new Blood Gulch" -- but this isn't another coat of new paint on the Combat Evolved classic. This is, from-the-ground-up, a brand-new map. How is it?
• What if you could save your own movies from Halo 3's single- and multiplayer gameplay and then rewatch them? In Halo 3, you can.

Some juicy info there. New weapons, a replay system, three SKUs including one that just seems way over the top...Microsoft certainly has big plans for next year's premiere title.

In other news from the magazine, the front cover teases "Metal Gear Solid 4 on Xbox 360?". We don't know yet what that's all about, whether it's speculation or an actual scoop, but we'll keep a solid eye on the situation for ya.

Source: 1UP.com