Halo Custom Edition

Halo Custom Edition, sometimes abbreviated Halo CE (which is not generally accepted as an abbreviation for Halo: Combat Evolved), is a free stand-alone expansion for Halo: Combat Evolved by Bungie Studios, which was ported to the PC by Gearbox Software. Halo CE was released by Gearbox as an unsupported add-on, which requires the original game.

Features
Halo Custom Edition has the ability to load and play user-created content and maps created with the Halo Editing Kit. Many custom levels have been created by dedicated members of the modding community and have been posted for download at a plethora of websites. One of these is a mapping team that calls themselves "CMT"(custom mapping team), which has made weapons, hud, and vehicles that greatly exceed what bungie origonally added in. There are currently about 1,400 custom maps avalible for download.

Custom maps may contain entirely new content, including:
 * Level geometry
 * Weapons
 * Vehicles
 * Player character
 * Sounds
 * Game interfaces
 * Level scripts & interactivity
 * Objects
 * Special effects
 * Animations
 * HUDs
 * Single player modifications

An arguably better netcode was put into Halo: Custom Edition, as well. It noticeably reduced lagging for some, but for others it made it more erratic. Also, a Rules feature can be activated by pressing the F2 button by default. It displays all of the specifics for the gametype currently being played on the server. By pressing F3 you are able to toggle whether your teammates' names will be displayed above them or not.

With the Halo Editing Kit, AI Covenant, Marines, and Flood can also be added. This has allowed some map makers to create their own mods that play like a campaign mission, with checkpoints and objectives. People can also make "teams" of AI that will fight each other. The player can fight alongside elites and grunts against marines, or vice versa.

Halo: Custom Edtion has also allowed you to pilot vehicles previously not drivable, such as pelicans, longswords, phantoms, and even the pillar of autumn. Some custom weapons include a battle rifle that has a grenade launcher equipped, a rough replica of a spartan laser, and a rocker launcher that fires nukes.

Community
Several modding communities have emerged since the advent of Halo CE. One of the most prominent communities is Halomaps.org which has multiplayer custom maps. Modders use the Halo Editing Kit to incorporate custom models, images, physics, and data into an easily distributed .MAP file.

Unfortunately, the level of creativity in most new maps has gone down, almost every map is made my a person/team trying to replicate halo 2 or halo 3 weapons.

Halo Editing Kit
Halo Editing Kit, commonly referred to by its acronym, HEK, is a repackaging of the development tools that Bungie created and used in the development process of Halo. The Halo Editing Kit was released for the creation of custom content for Halo Custom Edition. It is a free, unsupported add-on released by Gearbox Software.

This editing kit includes Guerilla, a game resource and tag editor, in addition to Sapien, a mapping and object placement editor, and Tool, a map resource compiler. Most original content must first be modeled in 3ds max (or Gmax) and then converted to a HEK friendly format using the Blitzkrieg exporter and Tool to be edited or added to a custom map.

Related Links

 * Halo Editing Kit
 * Halomaps.org

Other
There are also 'cheats' for Halo CE, called Developer Mode, more commonly called dev mode, or also known as dev. It is used by map designers to test out maps they make. It can also be used to cheat in single-player maps that can be downloaded. However they can only be used in single-player maps because when dev is activated, the host can only start a server through LAN. The only way for it to work in multiplayer is to download a small application which allows you to enable or disable devmode without restarting the game, thus allowing you to enable it within a multiplayer game. Even then most of the cheats can only be used by the host. To Play Halo Custom Edition you must download it and have the Halo PC/ Halo Custom Edition Key and CD Rom.