NEWS - Friday, November 16, 2001

Next On Xbox
If Microsofts Xbox game system is going to be the big success that the half-billion-dollar hype machine wants the world to believe, its going to need games that attract a fickle game-buying public--consisting mainly of males in their teens and 20s--that knows what it likes and disparages what it doesnt.So now that the videogame console is on the market, heres a rundown on a few games debuting alongside it, each of which costs $50.Halo
A first-person shooter game involving futuristic combat against aliens, the game involves fighting aliens, in vehicles and on foot, in lots of different settings and situations, with various weapons, alien and otherwise. Your mission is to defend humankind by killing as many members of an alien race called the Covenant as you can, and discover the dreadful secret of Halo. Perhaps the real secret is that there arent many original ideas for videogames these days.Oddworld: Munchs Oddysee
After killing aliens in Halo, you can turn the other cheek and relate to them. This is the latest in a series, the first of which focused on a reptilian janitor named Abe saving his oppressed race from becoming snack food. For this journey to Oddworld, you become Munch, a character who maneuvers awkwardly about on a single fin but sometimes needs a wheelchair to move faster. Hes the last survivor of a race of beings that have been turned into cans of caviar, and hes in a desperate race to prevent the auctioning off of the last can of said caviar. Okay, maybe there are some original ideas in videogaming after all.NFL Fever 2002