GAMES (PC)
Resident Evil Outbreak
The latest entry in this horror franchise lets up to four players meet online to combat zombies. It has all the scary, atmospheric visual effects you'd expect, but what's really spooky is the way your character can now improvise like a B-movie actor - press the Ad-Lib button as you're firing into a crowd of undead, and you'll automatically spout appropriate dialogue, screaming for help or shouting advice or beseeching teammates to hurry up and unlock the damn exit. - Tim Rogers
GAMES (PS2)
Painkiller
There's a story to this first-person shooter - something about fighting Satan's hordes to reach heaven. But it all boils down to blasting the hell out of wave after wave of gruesome demons. Besides having access to nifty weapons like a stake gun that pins opponents to walls with giant logs and the titular painkiller, you can temporarily transform into a hulking demon and stomp enemies. You'll admire the detailed physics as bodies fly through the air - whole and in chunks. - Jon Gaudiosi
SCREEN (DVD)
Comic Party DVD 1: A New World
This is the ultimate one-two culture punch: an anime about manga. It's equal parts self-effacing satire (the probability of finding someone lost at a comic convention is "less than 0.00008 percent"), guide for aspiring artists (while photocopying is cheap, those in the know swear by offset printing for its professional look), and reverential manifesto (manga is the medium by which Japan will attain world cultural hegemony!). What's Japanese for "right on"? - Michelle Devereaux
SCREEN (THEATERS)
The United States of Leland
Of the many assholes that Kevin Spacey has played, he's at his most wonderfully snarly and offensive as the father of teenager Leland P. Fitzgerald. His more important role here, however, is as producer: Spacey's Trigger Street Productions, formed to help new talent get a leg up, backed writer-director Matthew Ryan Hoge's debut. Hoge fully succeeds in bringing to the screen the sensitive and spookily articulate Leland, who's serving time for murdering an autistic neighbor. - Beth Pinsker
MUSIC
El-P
High Water
El-P makes a noble attempt to blend jazz with hip hop, but High Water only occasionally settles into strong strokes. "Get Your Hand Off My Shoulder, Pig" works by setting a brass-piano duet against synthesizers and space-age sound effects, but the quiet instrumentation elsewhere weighs down El-P's blunted grooves. Despite an ambitious approach and some compelling rapping, not even talented guests like Matthew Shipp and William Parker can save High Water from going under. - Adrienne Day
MUSIC
Grant-Lee Phillips
Virginia Creeper
As frontman of Grant-Lee Buffalo, Phillips fused lyrics that delved into mythic Americana with a falsetto inspired by Bowie and echo effects swiped from the Edge. His first two solo albums were folksy fare, but on Virginia Creeper he returns to a land of lush soundscapes, layered with menace and populated by tragicomic characters like "Susanna Little" and "Calamity Jane." Imagine Huck Finn wandering through the apocalyptic America of The Postman. - Robert Levine
PRINT
Rhythm Science
Paul D Miller aka DJ Spooky That Subliminal Kid
Turning the turntablist's sample-happy ethos loose on the world, Miller offers a paean to open source art. The multimedia composer describes how to exploit the ever-changing library of sound and imagery available online to produce highly personal works. He delivers on this "changing same" idea on the book's accompanying CD - an expertly produced DJ mix of familiar drum loops layered with obscure record snippets and spoken word. - Eric Steuer
PRINT
Rats: Observations on the History & Habitat of the City's Most Unwanted Inhabitants
Robert Sullivan
There is no worse insult than to call someone a "rat" - aka cheat, tattletale, scumbag. But rats, it turns out, are wondrous animals. The brown rat, Rattus norvegicus, has endured disease and plague to colonize every continent. It often has sex 20 times a day - one pair of rats can spawn 15,000 descendants in a year. Such are the miracles explored in Sullivan's sublime book. - Thomas Goetz
PLAY
Paragon City Needs You!
The Secret Diaries of Hellboy
You're With the Band
Kraftwerk's Tour de States
New World Order & A Side of Fries
For an Airtight Alibi, Press 1 Now
In Pursuit of Pallor
Man of Steel
The Blender Files
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