Just Outta Beta - Just Out of Beta
Zoinks!
Release: Late '95
Ah, finally - a videogame that captures the spirit of the classic late-1960s and early-1970s cartoon Scooby-Doo from Hanna-Barbera Productions.
The game designers could've taken the lazy route (like so many before them) and thrown together yet another crappy run-and-jump game. Instead, they deliver a point-and-click adventure that has every feature a Scooby-Doo fan could want. There's a rendition of the cartoon's theme song. (Of course, "Scooby, Scooby-Doo, where are you?" is the only lyric I can ever recall.) There's the purple-and-orange Mystery Machine. And, naturally, there's that goatee-sportin', marijuana-smokin' - oh, c'mon, you just know he does - dude, Shaggy.
The puzzles aren't particularly challenging, but the game makes up for this by giving you not one, but two complete adventures. A double dose of Scooby-Doo? I'm in retro heaven. - Zach Meston
Scooby-Doo Mystery: Sega Genesis US$49.95, Super NES $59.95. Acclaim Entertainment: +1 (516) 656 5000.
Indigo Boom
Release: Late '95
Next time you're in a high-end computer graphics store, brush aside the drooling 3-D graphic artists and game creators and check out SGI's newest graphics wundertool, the Indigo2 Impact. These machines - responsible for more than half of SGI's annual revenue - now run three to five times faster and offer up to 100 times the visualization power. SGI: +1 (415) 960 1980.
Navigating for Dollars
Release: December
Can you imagine the stress hovering over Netscape Communications Corporation? The company is little more than a year and a half old, growing faster than it can keep up with, and burdened with an inflated stock price - while all of Wall Street awaits its next move. What should it do?
Well, it could try turning its Web browser into a worldwide operating system and lining up thousands of developers to write for it.
That's the plan, anyway, with the latest release of Netscape products. By allowing its browser to accept inline plug-ins (modular additions to the program that enhance function), the company is positioning itself to become the platform in the rapidly changing world of Web development. Add to the mix a handful of experimental additions to HTML and compatibility with Sun's Java language, and it becomes clear that Netscape is doing to the Web in the '90s what Microsoft did to personal computing in the '80s.
Still not convinced you should hold onto your shares? What if Netscape added real-time editing capability to the browser? Or created server tools that could interact with databases? The new Navigator Gold and LiveWire Pro products round out the company's plan for world domination by doing just that.
While it remains to be seen whether Netscape can keep up over the long haul, so far, the young company has a death grip on the industry. - Jeffrey Veen
Netscape Navigator 2.0: US$49. Navigator Gold 2.0: $79. LiveWire Pro: approximately $1,000. Netscape Communications Corporation: +1 (415) 528 2555, or via the Web at .
Embracing Embarc
Release: December
Motorola's Embarc worldwide paging network has been around for four sleepy years. But it's shaking things up with two big-name alliances - with ESPN and CNBC - to provide information services. Stock quotes, CNBC biz news headlines, or sports scores can be sent every quarter-hour. Who knows - smart moves like this may help the dying network survive PCS. Embarc: +1 (407) 739 3151.
Mind Over Matter
Release: Late '95
Though I still can't use the power of my thoughts to silence barking dogs in the middle of the night or transport myself to Europe for dinner, I can control a computer or play a videogame using my thoughts alone - and MindDrive.
The brainchild of former Atari executive Ron Gordon and his team of 40 programmers in Siberia, this input device taps into your thoughts to move objects on a computer screen. Sci-fi as it may sound, MindDrive reads physiological signals with a sensor sleeve connected to your finger.
As you think "right" or "left" and become calm or agitated, your mind sends out different patterns of brain-wave frequencies, which pass through your skin and can be interpreted by the sensor.
How precise is MindDrive? Well, it's definitely not as easy to use as a mouse. But it's a natch for the entertainment and educational software that Gordon's company has cooked up. Those attuned to higher frequencies: wire up and take a peek behind the doors of perception. - Lynn Ginsburg
MindDrive: From US$129. The Other 90 Percent Technologies: +1 (415) 332 0433.
Grave New World
Release: Late December
He's baa-ack! Terry Gilliam steps behind the camera again to make Twelve Monkeys. But this time he's not the drippy, whimsical filmmaker who brought us The Adventures of Baron Munchausen or the warm and cuddly creator of The Fisher King.
No sirree, Twelve Monkeys marks the return of the ranting, raving celluloid anarchist who hacked our nervous systems with Brazil and its darkly comic view of a future in which technology runs amok.
Putting a fresh spin on memory, dreams, and our precarious perch in space and time, Gilliam unfurls his tale in 2035, when survivors of a global holocaust inhabit a subterranean hell.
Moviegoers with a taste for the twisted will appreciate this gritty Orwellian nightmare crafted by screenwriters David and Janet Peoples (Blade Runner). The visual world of grotesque present-day cityscape and decaying future comes off rawer than Gilliam's past creations.
Frightening and funny, this fleshy sci-fi flick takes a high-tech dip in the primordial ooze. Catch an eyeful at www.mca.com/universal_pictures/12/index.html, or at cineplexes nationally. - Paula Parisi
Twelve Monkeys: Playing at select US theaters in December and January.
Release: Late '95
Miss it? Myst: you've played the CD-ROM, now read the book. While the world awaits the Myst sequel (due out next year), the Miller brothers try their hand at fiction in Myst: The Book of Atrus. The buzz is that Rand and Robyn should stick to new media. Hyperion: +1 (212) 633 4400.
Way Bad Mojo.
Release: Late '95
Picture this: you're a cockroach crawling through urinals, sewers, and decrepit kitchens in search of your human half. This is the scene of Bad Mojo, a new CD-ROM action-adventure. Who's to thank for this twisted scene? None other than Pulse Entertainment (formerly Drew Pictures), creators of the hit game Iron Helix. Pulse: +1 (415) 247 7600.
Sonic Revelations
Release: Late '95
If you've seen a movie in a theater equipped with Dolby Surround sound, you've experienced the roaring brilliance of digital multichannel audio. Now, Pioneer and Dolby AC-3 bring to home entertainment the same startling audio clarity that moviegoers have reveled in for years.
Forget stereo with a wimpy two channels of sound, or even Dolby Surround with four. AC-3 introduces a whopping 5.1 channels - one left, right, and center; two surround; and a bass-only channel (the 0.1).
The resulting channel separation, dynamic range, and overall fidelity to original soundtrack mixes are breathtaking. Hooked to my home setup (a laserdisc player with stereo speakers), Pioneer's top-of-the-line processor threw out the most astounding, transparently tangible 3-D sound field I've heard in my living room.
Keep your eyes peeled for more AC-3 in months to come. It's been chosen as the audio standard for the US HDTV format, as well as Toshiba's digital videodisc and future iterations of direct broadcast satellite TV systems.
You'd have to be deaf not to covet this like a mofo. - Corey Greenberg
Pioneer Elite SP99D: US$1,530. Pioneer Electronics: (800) 746 6337, +1 (310) 952 2002, fax +1 (310) 952 2821.
Release: December
Collegial Card: First it was the Net in classrooms, then campus smart cards. Now it's PSSI's keychain-sized personal security device. A student in distress activates one of these gizmos, which relays his or her ID over a spread-spectrum radio network to a monitoring facility where a color photo and location pops up on screen. PSSI: +1 (214) 739 0800.
No Way to Play Host
Release: December
Host, a near-future biomedical thriller by Peter James, has a plot Ralph Merkle would love. This novel details what happens when Jack, an artificial intelligence and cryonics expert, freezes the mind of Juliet - his beautiful, terminally ill research scientist - and then downloads it to his computer.
Host's focus on cryogenics arrives fresh on the scene (or at least fresh-frozen). Passages describing bodies being clinically chilled and thawed are among the best in the book.
But midway through this novel, as the computer becomes malevolent and starts threatening Jack's wife and child, Host falls into a string of predictable clichés, beginning with a garbage disposal that turns on its owner. Imagine Fatal Attraction crossed with Dark Seed.
At first the stuff of brilliant science fiction, James's tale of cryogenics, immortality, and artificial intelligence finally seems not only familiar but downright dull. - Marc Laidlaw
Host, by Peter James: US$24. Villard: (800) 793 2665, +1 (212) 572 2870.
Dali Does Disney
Release: December
Back in the '40s, '50s, and '60s, Disney began a slew of films that for one reason or another were never finished. Now you can read all about them in Charles Solomon's book The Disney That Never Was. Solomon uncovers wartime propaganda shorts and even an unlikely collaboration between Disney and Salvador Dali. Hyperion: +1 (212) 633 4400.
Release: December
Free E-Mail! Send all the e-mail you want without paying a dime. That's the offer of FreeMark and Juno Online. (See "Digital Shelf Space," page 56.)
The catch? Every e-mail comes with a cheesy promotional slogan. FreeMark Communications: +1 (617) 492 6600. Juno Online: +1 (212) 478 0800.
