Master Chief and Commander, it's Halo 3 with boats and a battle against a Scarab

Who knows where some mods get their inspiration from, but I can make a wild guess with, ahem Pimps at Sea: "What if Halo 3 with boats?" What if?

Pimps at Sea, available now on Steam Workshop, lets you use the Halo 3 Toolbox to complete a co-op missions set in tropical islands infested by Covenant. The twist is that two large boats are sailing around and in between these islands in big loops, and any enterprising Spartan could hop on.

It's not complicated, but it's a lot of fun. You can ride around while a very good impersonator of Sergeant Johnson barks out commands, climb the mast to take pot-shots and fire cannons, or hop off the ship and engage the Covenant with a variety of vehicles. The ship has 20 cannons, three turrets and two Boathogs that can be deployed on either side. These are Warthogs, but boats.

The Covenant scuttle around the island, and some engage on the waves, with Ghosts that can now float in water, along with all the land forces. After battling different waves (b'dumtsh), the mod's climax comes with the appearance of a Scarab, the giant purple death machine at the center of one of Halo 3’s greatest setpieces.

Even a Scarab cannot do much to stop the cannon fire that brings back memories of the Royal Navy. It killed me a couple of times. But like the heroic admirals from old, Master Chief emerged from the brine to cannon the big bastard till it exploded.

This is a great mod. Even the ships have ropes that you can climb up on if it falls off. Boathogs, however, are the real stars: I could bounce them across the deep all day. InfernoPlus, the mod's creator, says that it started as a Big Team Battle Mod where two teams battled across two ships and could ultimately sink them, before pivoting into this more self contained and dare I even say beautiful form.

Pimps at Sea is available for download here. It supports up to four players co-op. InfernoPlus mentions a few minor bugs. The mod does, however, have checkpoints to allow for easy restarts. To be honest, some of these sound like features: "Enemies often end up yeeting into the ocean and float around."