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This game (for PC; $54.99) was five years in the making, and every minute appears to have been well spent. The graphics and physics of how objects move in Half-Life 2's world are by far the most realistic ever to grace a computer screen. As you wander the streets of City 17, the alien-controlled police state your character Gordon Freeman is attempting to subvert, you have to rub your eyes to realize you're not actually visiting an East European capital. And check out the mayhem you can cause with Gordon's gravity gun, which sucks in any metal object, then fires it out at will. The only catch: you will need a pretty powerful PC (one with a 2-GHz processor) to enjoy Half-Life 2's full experience.
IDEAL FOR: Trigger-happy adventure seekers
4 KATAMARI DAMACY Just roll with it. This quirky Japanese masterpiece is a giant ball of fun
From the moment you see the Monty Pythonesque title sequence--all flying pandas and singing geese set against the annoyingly catchy title music--you know you're dealing with the most unusual and original game to hit the PlayStation2. You play a pint-size cosmic prince frantically rolling his Katamari (a sticky ball) around a landscape filled with household objects. At first, the Katamari can pick up only thumbtacks and other small items. But the larger it gets, the more it can pick up, until eventually you've got a ridiculous giant ball of junk that can successfully spear skyscrapers. This is the game that the phrase "fun for kids of all ages" was made for--and it doesn't hurt that, at $19.88, it's less than half the price of a regular video game.
IDEAL FOR: Young kids, Japanophiles
5 GRAND THEFT AUTO: SAN ANDREAS Hang with your homies, or explore an open-ended gangsta's paradise
Yes, it's violent, amoral and laced with profanity--just like the Boyz N the Hood--era gangsta films to which it pays homage. But what really draws players back to this latest installment (for PlayStation2; $49.99) in the controversial Grand Theft Auto series is just how open-ended it is. Sure, you can take your homies on that drive-by shooting raid on a rival gang, or you can grab a car at random and simply explore the state of San Andreas. The designers at Rockstar have packed the cities of Los Santos and San Fiero (a.k.a. Los Angeles and San Francisco) with hundreds of Easter egg--like surprises for many happy days of hunting. You can get your head shaved at the barber's, pump up your muscles at a gym, grab a bucket of wings at the Clucking Bell drive-through and go watch the sun set over Verona Beach. How much crime you commit along the way is entirely up to you.
IDEAL FOR: 18-and-over hip-hop fans
6 BATTLEFIELD: VIETNAM Revisit the past century's most controversial war with friends online