One of the nicest things about the editors is the ability to hop right in and walk around on your map at the press of a button. Want to see how long it takes you to stroll from one end of your domain to the other? Just enter first-person mode and find out for yourself. It's pretty amazing how quickly you can jump from editor to action, allowing you to make tons of little changes in a short period of time. Although you won't get to see any action while you're actually editing the map, Pariah does support multiplayer bots, allowing you to see how the map plays with a group of people. Hopefully, Far Cry Instincts will offer the same.

It still remains to be seen how much of a splash this will make on Live, given that Pariah isn't on many radars, which generally translates to low sales numbers and few players online at any given moments. However, there's no doubt that this is a simply a taste of things to come. Judging by its popularity on the PC, you can be sure that Far Cry Instincts will be one of the big games of 2005, and will probably end up having a strong online community. If a highly anticipated game like Halo 3 ships with a map editor, one can only imagine what kind of creations we'll be seeing in the future.

The Latest on Live

The big Live news from the past few weeks has undoubtedly been the Halo 2 maps that became available for download. There are two maps, Containment and Warlock, that you can get for free, as well as two that you have to pay for (at least until the next batch comes out in June). If the random players I meet and chat with on Live are any idication, it seems that most people have gotten the free ones and around half have paid for the others. Hopefully that number will rise in the coming weeks, as both are excellent maps, with Turf being especially good for the seldom-played Territories gametype. If there's anyone who wants to get together for some late night matches on these new maps, send me an e-mail! We'll try to get some big groups together for a little CTF action on the massive Containment.

Anyone feel like spending some quality time relaxing in this Sanctuary?

As if getting new Halo 2 maps wasn't enough to keep you on Live for hours, there have also been a few high profile multiplayer games released recently. Unreal Championship 2: The Liandri Conflict hit shelves two weeks ago, and its mix of first-person shooting and third-person melee combat has made it one of the hottest Live games of the year. For those of you who abhor fighting (doesn't seem to be many people like that on Live), you'll be happy to hear that a new driving game was released this week that features one of the smoothest online experiences you'll find. Even though Forza Motorsport isn't as arcade-like as Burnout or Project Gotham Racing 2, it's still a gorgeously good time.

[My So-Called Live is written by Will Tuttle, who likes creating maps that force his opponents to walk through long canyons to get to their objective. Like shooting fish in a barrel...]

Have any questions? Feel like challenging me to a game online? Any topics you'd like to suggest for future columns? Drop me a line! I'm on Live just about every night, and I'm always looking to play with cool, fun people.