It's in the Game
Where Forge really shines is when it is used in tandem with the extensive gametype customization options available in Halo 3. Multiplayer fans of Halo and Halo 2 (as well as Bungie's past games for those whose gaming memories extend further back than the current millenium) know that the studio has always prided itself on offering a variety of multiplayer gametypes and options. Halo 3 represents the most dramatic implementation of that philosophy yet.

You can change an enormous number of properties regarding the world, such as its gravity and spawn settings; players, such as the properties described in the custom powerup section above; win conditions and how points are awarded; and a huge number of gametype-specific options. Listing all of the submenus upon submenus would simply require too much space for this article, but suffice to say there is no shortage of choice.

In addition to standby gametypes such as Slayer, King of the Hill, Capture the Flag, Oddball, Assault, Territories, Juggernaut, and VIP, Bungie has listened to its community and added Infection--commonly known in Halo 2 friend circles as "Zombie," the unofficial gametype that converts "human" players to "zombie" players when killed by a zombie, until the last human is killed.

Each of these gametypes has a whole ream of options that can be tweaked, and if the type has geographical objectives, they can be adjusted and placed on any map through Forge. Capture zones can be placed and sized for Territories, hill zones can be placed in King of the Hill, go-to points can be placed in VIP games, and so on.

It Wasn't in the Game (But Now it Is)

By combining Forge and the gametype editor, you can craft new types of games unlike anything offered in the default lineup. One player came up with a mode that, in some ways, shares more in common with land-and-air games like Battlefield than with the Halo series.

In this mode, customized in Forge for a large outdoor map, each team has a randomly-assigned VIP player and an indestructible flying vehicle with room for two passengers. The two VIPs, who cannot pilot the vehicles themselves, must reach airborne checkpoints before the other team does, chaufferred by another teammate. Meanwhile, other teammates on the ground attempt to disrupt their enemies' checkpoint-grabbing progress by sniping the VIPs out of their passenger seats and protect their own VIPs by assaulting enemy ground troops.

With the baseball mode as an example, one could also imagine recreations of other sports, based on modes such as Oddball or VIP. By modifying maps and gametype objectives in Forge, the already-powerful gametype editor becomes all that more formidable.

Jump In

An impressive technical aspect of Forge is that other players can play around in your map as you edit it in real time, via Xbox Live; you can choose to let them join in the editing or remain as regular players. Creating very unusual and complex gametypes tends to require a lot of iteration, as developers and modders know, so having a group with whom you can jump in and out of games and serve as a live body of testers is invaluable for balance purposes.

Show the World

Of course you can share your creations with your friends through custom games, but Bungie wants to encourage polish and creativity by highlighting the best user-made content for the Halo community at large. You can recommend any content, whether it was made by you or others, to your friends, and Bungie will also be monitoring the content with the best user reaction and most recommendations, as well as content highlighted on community sites online, for its own "Bungie Recommends" website feature.

"Bungie Recommends" will showcase the best of user-generated Halo 3 content on a regular basis, and it will be part of what Bungie describes as its most extensive and ambitious game-to-website integration yet. The company has yet to fully unveil what all that entails (although we're promised the big reveal is coming soon), but in addition to the already-known screenshot and video sharing features it will also allow you to "tag" featured content you'd like to download. Impressively, that content will then download automatically to your Xbox 360.

Here for the Long Haul

Just as Halo 2 provided the crucial showcase Xbox Live needed, with its elegant lobby system and website integration, so does Bungie plan for Halo 3 to demonsrate how Xbox Live can be taken to the next level with Xbox 360. The franchise is already known for its online multiplayer longevity, but with Forge and a formidable gametype editor, not to mention promised downloadable content, Halo 3 will clearly have enough on the multiplayer side to stay fresh for the rest of this generation if not beyond.