There aren't a ton of multiplayer maps, but at the same time, the maps that come with the game have been meticulously designed for maximum carnage. For example, Narrows is a map that works ideally for capture the flag because it's designed around a long bridge. It's supposed to be some kind of coolant facility or something, but all we cared about was getting to the other team's flag which was a long, perilous trot across the bridge. Fortunately, you can use Halo 3's new man-cannon to propel you through the air across the yawning canyon below. It's exhilarating and the whole map functions as the perfect venue for heated capture the flag exchanges.
Each map is extremely well-tuned, and we found that Sand Trap (with its several vehicles and huge, wide-open dunes) was best suited for slayer or team slayer matches. Meanwhile, another level (that we can't remember the name of because our brains were addled by terror) similar to Halo 2's Lockout consisting of a large central area with multi-tiered corridors surrounding it was perfect for a custom game type that Bungie's Frank O'Connor (he's some kind of Community Manager for Bungie.net, but his official job title is "Content Monkey") showed us called Spooky.
In Spooky, all players' motion sensors are turned off, all players are granted unlimited active camouflage (making everybody invisible unless attacking or being damaged) and only shotguns and pistols are allowed. As you can imagine, there is a lot of running backwards and looking over your shoulder occurring during Spooky matches, but it perfectly exemplifies the versatility of Halo 3's custom game type controls. Beyond the standard kit restrictions featured in most multiplayer games, every single aspect of the game can be tweaked and altered, including the speed at which characters travel and even the pull of gravity.
But custom game types are just the beginning...
Hephaestus is Jealous
The Forge is a special addition to Halo 3 that essentially enables unlimited replayability and the creation of completely new games. It's basically a map editor where you can place weapons, items and equipment around existing maps. You can't edit terrain, but you can change player spawn locations and adjust the respawn timers for weapons and just about every other item in the game. This may not sound that exciting, and we'll admit that we didn't fully comprehend the number of uses that The Forge could be put to at first.
Messing around in The Forge with IGN's Hilary Goldstein and Team Xbox's Will Tuttle, we began as so many Halo 3 testers did before us by blowing stuff up. See, we discovered that if you create a combustible item (like a plasma core or explosive barrel) in midair and then shoot it as it falls, it would respawn in the place where it was shot and subsequently fall to the ground and explode. That was fun for a couple of seconds, but then we started piling up every explosive item we could find into a big volatile pile directly below the falling barrel. The result was a recurring flaming apocalypse in the middle of the map that would obliterate anything within a 30 yard radius every ten seconds -- how fun would it be to try to play team slayer around that?
