Games (Xbox) Halo 2 Multiplayer Map Pack What's better than Halo 2? More Halo 2. Even though millions have already defeated the shooter's single-player mode, droves of fanatics continue to hit Xbox Live for online fragfests. Lucky for them, the battlefield is expanding: This map pack adds nine environments for more multiplayer mayhem and opens up entirely new kinds of gameplay. The narrow streets and cramped alleys of Turf provide a taste of urban �guerrilla warfare. Then there's Containment, a vast snowscape that's �ideally suited to �vehicle-based combat. You can download the maps to your console's hard drive for a nominal fee (games-on-demand rock!). But you may want to shell out a little extra for the hard copy. The store-bought version features exciting cinematic sequences and a documentary on developer Bungie Studios. – Will Tuttle
Music Missy Elliott The Cookbook The opening track, "Joy," tastes so good that most of the other tracks on Cookbook sit on your plate like warmed-over meat loaf. A scrumptious exception is the Neptunes-�produced "On and On," which pairs a thrilling horror-movie bass line with sound effects cribbed from a Bugs Bunny cartoon. And "We Run This" offers a lesson in cut-and-paste production: Missy stretches out the pauses in a break beat before a full-on drum corps storms the kitchen and blows the buttons off her sampler. -�Sean Cooper
Music Billy Corgan TheFutureEmbrace With the Smashing Pumpkins, Corgan sold shoe-gazer pop to the alt-rock set. His solo debut, a suite of dissonant atmospherics and My Bloody Valentine-style space anthems, is an experiment in niche marketing. The album's opening salvo, "All Things Change," is a declarative rocker enveloped in subdued electronics, while his moody take on the Bee Gees' "To Love Somebody" conjures the coiled angst, angular tone, and aching coolness of his old band at its very best. �- Ken Taylor
Screen (Theaters) November This Sixth Sense-style thriller proves that a low-budget film (shot in 15 days on miniDV) can be visually stunning. First-time director Greg Harrison's film about the mutability of memory won the cinematography award at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival. Its creepy lighting and special effects enhance this gripping story of a photographer (Courteney Cox) traumatized when her boyfriend (James Le Gros) is killed in a convenience-store robbery. – Beth Pinsker
Screen (Theaters) Murderball Wheelchair rugby may sound like a bad Jackass skit, but it's a real, sometimes brutal, sport. In this documentary, we see disabled athletes training as hard as Olympians and trading vicious knockdowns with their streamlined titanium rigs. Murderball – the players' name for the game – follows the US team as it prepares for a showdown against archrival Canada at the 2004 Paralympics. With all the ingredients of a great epic – sex, tragedy, suspense, heroism, and redemption – this is the best sports film since Hoop Dreams. – Jason Silverman
Print Blobjects and Beyond: The New Fluidity in Design Steven Skov Holt and Mara Holt Skov Blobjects avoids art book snobbishness by focusing its ivory tower analysis on the sensual side of everyday products. The iMac's "steamy shower" pearlescence fits into a larger discussion of transparency, while a bone-shaped vibrator provides an example of ergonomics gone strange. Other blobjectivist articles explore a nipple-capped shampoo bottle and a phallic gas lighter; together they make a compelling case for curvaceous design as a manifestation of our desires. – Suzanne Wu
Print Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash Elizabeth Royte Royte wanted to know where trash goes after you toss it, so she tracked garbage, recycling, compostables, and sewage from her Brooklyn apartment to their fetid destinations. The author's adventures in waste management provide a riveting travelog punctuated by a scathing indictment of American consumption. Citing overflowing landfills and waterways polluted by billions of gallons of raw sewage, Royte argues that humans are the ultimate bad neighbors. – Daniel Terdiman
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