PC Games Best Bet Black & White You create an avatar from a normal animal, nurture it with spells and training, and send it forth to enforce your will. This avatar's behavior determines how the little people in the game world worship you, and their worship, be it fear or adulation, translates to power. You don't control the little worshippers, however, and you don't directly control your avatar either.

Playstation Best Bet Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear In Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Rogue Spear, the sequel to the popular Rainbow Six series of games for the PC and other platforms, players assume command of an elite counterterrorist group and guide it through a dynamic campaign filled with 16 nerve-racking missions, such as rescuing hostages.

Playstation2 Best Bet Gran Turismo 3 When the PlayStation2 was announced, the first title Sony officially mentioned for the system was Gran Turismo 3. If you have played Gran Turismo 2, then you already know what to expect from the gameplay, since GT3 is basically an enhanced version of it at this point.

Nintendo64 Best Bet Golden Eye 007 GoldenEye 007 has been a huge success for Rareware, and it's easy to see why. More than a simple movie translation, this has earned its top-seller status on its own. Fans of Doom and Quake will recognize the first-person shooter perspective, but there the similarity ends. James Bond 007 has too much style to simply blast everything in sight and move to the next level. No, as 007, the player has a variety of different missions to perform, each with its own specific objectives. Each mission follows the film closely, and so James must use stealth and cunning as much as brute force. But if you see a Kalashnikov rifle lying around, by all means pick it up.

X-Box Best Bet Coming Fall 2001 Are you ready for Xbox? Microsoft's exciting new game system won't be released until the fall of 2001, but already we're working on bringing you exclusive news and previews of this incredible machine.

Macintosh Games Best Bet Oni Imagine if you could marry the adventure and acrobatics of the Tomb Raider games to the martial-arts action found in pure fighting games like Tekken. If you have a clear picture of what that would be like, you've got a handle on Oni from Bungie Studios. It's a third-person-perspective action-adventure fighting game, but with a distinct Japanese animation flavor.

Sega Dreamcast Best Bet Resident Evil: Code Veronica The fourth chapter in the dark Resident Evil epic, Code: Veronica delves further into the machinations of the sinister Umbrella Corporation, once again pitting players against zombies and other horrifying mutations created by Umbrella's biotechnological viruses. Players begin the game as Claire Redfield, Resident Evil 2's college-girl-turned-zombie-killer, and later control Chris Redfield, the beefcake cop from the original game. There's more strategy required here than in the previous games, as Claire's actions have a direct impact on Chris. For example, playing a trigger-happy Claire that uses every health-restoring item in sight will call for some fancy footwork on the part of brother Chris.