Gameplay types

As we stated in our review on Sunday you are not limited to those default gameplay types. Bungie has given players a way to alter the game in near limitless ways. You can adjust any of the gameplay types to suit your need just by calling up a menu screen and clicking on the Xbox 360 controller to switch between menu choices for things like winning scores, what weapons and items can appear, time limits, what kinds of damage can the weapons dish out, how much respawn time will the game type have and so on. If Bungie had just released Halo 3 with just this kind of customization fans o the game would have been ecstatic that they had that much control over the multiplayer aspect.

However, Bungie went one step further with their Forge editor. As we explained in our Sunday review, the Forge editor allows even more customization over Halo 3. While you can't actually alter the level design itself of any of the 11 maps, Forge basically lets you alter pretty much anything else that isn't nailed down. You can move spawn points, put in weapons and vehicles (mostly) where ever you want in the level. Moreover, the Forge isn't designed as a solitary effort; players can team up online to use the Forge editor to make sports games, racing games and...well, stuf that no one else has even dreamed of. Forge is a powerful took that is extremely easy to use and you can bet that budding game designers will be using it to make the games of their dreams.


And that's still not all. The file sharing aspect of Halo 3 will allow you to upload your gameplay variants and your Forge map editing abilities for anyone to download and check out and of course you are also free to download anything that other Halo 3 players have created. Usually this kind of service is made possible not by the developer but by third parties via wep sites as they offer up mods to games. The fact that Halo 3 offers this kind of service within the game itself is a massive achievement and something that all first person shooter games, console or PC, should now try to strive for.