Xbox

Halo delivers as Bungie's and Microsoft's showcase release for the Xbox. It is technically sound and manages to incorporate most of the innovative ideas that drew praise from audiences at its debut. The vehicle-based combat, huge outdoor environments and complexity of the AI—though old hat for PC gamers—are quite groundbreaking in a console video game.

Game Description: The power-packing Xbox hardware delivers the third Oddworld title in one of the most brilliantly realized settings to grace any gaming system. Blending unique gameplay, humorous characters and interactions, and the aforementioned graphics, Munch's Oddysee simply feels unlike any other game in the 2001 console gaming lineup. Players control two characters in the game: Munch, a wheelchair-bound hero, and Abe, a character some gamers will recognize from previous Oddworld games. Their goal is to find and free the Mudokon queen, keeper of the remaining eggs of an endangered species.

I really had high hopes for Munch's Oddysee, as I feel that the Oddworld series is one of the most unique and beautifully realized game concepts of the past few years.

Innovation is not the end-all and be-all that turns dirt into gold. A great example of this is Oddworld: Munchs Oddysee, a game that combines its own original, undercooked ideas with redundant elements culled from many different genres to form an innovative, uneven, tedious mess.

According to ESRB, this game contains: Comic Mischief, Violence

Game Description: You've been betrayed and left for dead. Now you're taking revenge, unless the city gets you first. Mob bosses need a favor, crooked cops need help, and street gangs want you dead. You'll have to rob, steal, and kill just to stay out of serious trouble. Anything can happen out here. Grand Theft Auto III features a fully 3D living city, a combination of narrative-driven and nonlinear gameplay, and a completely open environment.

To say that GTA3 has been critically well received is an understatement of gargantuan proportions. Since the short time of its release, the game is already being heralded not only as the game-of-the-year, but also a groundbreaking artistic masterpiece that qualifies for the ever-diminishing title of "greatest game of all-time."

As the years go by, video games constantly strive for higher levels of realism. The line between the real world and the video game world is starting to blur with the current level of technology in today's gaming hardware. The advancements in AI, heightened graphics, the ultimate switch to 3D, and the medium on which the data is carried are just some of the things that allow the video game industry to not just create games, but simulations.

According to ESRB, this game contains: Blood, Strong Language, Violence

According to ESRB, this game contains: Mild Violence