games
PS2
The Getaway This game blends the carjacking thrill of Grand Theft Auto III with the production gloss of an action flick. Sony�s team captured the voices and expressions of real people and wrote its own facial animation software to give every scream and scowl a human feel. The game is set in a 25-square-mile reproduction of the city of London, and it�s accurate down to the street names. Walk into any building to pull off jobs for the crime boss and save your kidnapped son, then run over pedestrians just for fun.
� John Gaudiosi
CUBE
Metroid Prime Intergalactic bounty hunter Samus Aran is back and better than before. After being confined to 2-D for nearly a decade, the popular protagonist returns as a 3-D gunslinger you can control in first-person. While the perspective has changed, the core gameplay of fighting and solving puzzles remains the same: You hunt down space pirates on the unexplored planet of Tallon IV using your freeze beam to kill the swarms of aliens. When battle gets too tight, morph into a ball and roll by your enemies.
� Chris Kohler
screen
THEATERS
Personal Velocity This digitally shot drama tracks three women as they deal with bad situations through flight, infidelity, and introspection. Writer-director Rebecca Miller (Arthur�s daughter) transforms the private conversations of her short-story collection into in-your-face cinema. The camera work, so unassuming it makes you feel like you�re eavesdropping, garnered the cinematography award at Sundance. Never mind that Parker Posey, Fairuza Balk, and Kyra Sedgwick give stellar performances.
DVD
Spider-Man Spidey senses tingling? Blame this two-disc set, which packs a whopping eight hours of bonus content. Outtakes, documentaries, comic archives, and pop-up factoids (such as Tobey Maguire is a vegetarian) join more featurettes than Doc Oc can shake a tentacle at. The topper: a record-your-own-commentary option. Boost Maguire�s superheroic mojo as he swoops in to rescue Mary Jane by dubbing in a few choice lines like �Wanna lift?�
� Scott Steinberg
music
Amon Tobin
Out From Out Where
Ready for electronic music without the dance floor-ready party beats? Tobin offers up haunting minor-key strings that float alongside clashing industrial percussion, as if he were scoring a tense slasher film. �Verbal,� the only song with lyrics, pairs MC Decimal R�s indecipherably chopped and sped up vocals with staccato guitar licks and sharp drum claps. It�s an untried take on hip hop that flaunts Tobin�s technical versatility.
� Tamara Palmer
Fussible
No One Over 21
DJs from Argentina, Japan, Mexico, the UK, and the US collaborate with Fussible, the founding duo of the Nortec Collective. The result is a collision of norte�o, house, reggae, and �80s-flavored grooves. The syncopated title track, about suburban American teens border-hopping for drinking sprees, burns rhythmically down a series of starkly contrasting remixes and hits you like a flaming tequila shooter: hard, then sweet.
� Xeni Jardin
print
The Dinner Club: How the Masters of the Internet Universe Rode the Rise and Fall of the Greatest Boom in History
Shannon Henry
When this Washington Post reporter sat in on a dozen monthly dinner meetings of an elite group of tech execs, she was privy to more than a little caviar and chitchat. She saw how the relationships among members like AOL cofounder Steve Case and WorldCom CEO John Sidgmore drove DC�s tech boom as much as any VC firm. Henry�s even-handed approach showcases not just the money and the glamour, but the human foibles behind the boom and bust.
� Pete Babb
Dark Fiber: Tracking Critical Internet Culture
Geert Lovink
In what amounts to a Cluetrain Manifesto for intellectuals rather than marketers, media theorist (and Net critic) Geert Lovink warns that governments and corporations are shutting down the culture of dissent that is the Net�s true value. Capitalists may tire of his crabby progressive politics, but Lovink unravels the euphoric claims for broadband and P2P as capably as he skewered push technology five years ago. Is your favorite music source gone? Don�t say he didn�t warn you.
� Paul Boutin
PLAY
Boys Will Be Girls
Gettin� Jiggly Wit It
Arcade Aerobics
Schooled in Design
Machinimania!
Drilling Into The Core
Built for Sound
Hit Machine
As Heard on TV
DAVID "BROON" BROWN Swayzak
Earth Angels
A Fine Balance, by Rohinton Mistry
reviews
Fetish
Rough Riders
Light and Loaded
Sharper Imagery
Easy on the Eyes
