Next Season's Hot Games.(Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles)

Recently the videogame industry showed off its latest wares at the annual Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles. Microsoft revealed add-ons that will transform your Xbox into a DJ mixer and a karaoke machine. Nintendo unveiled a nifty remake of Pac-Man: up to three of your friends play as the ghosts who hunt you down through maze after maze. Sony topped its rivals by announcing plans to make a portable game machine to compete with Nintendo's un challenged Game Boy. Still, it's all about the games. Here are our faves from E3 2003:

If you're a History Channel obsessive, LucasArts' Secret Weapons Over Normandy lets you take to the skies with dozens of the Axis's and the Allies' most advanced planes. Most flight sims are too hard for beginners, but this one deftly eases you into the wild blue yonder. If you prefer ground combat, Activision's first-person shooter Call of Duty puts you in the boots of U.S., British and Russian soldiers for a multifaceted look at World War II. And when you finally tire of the Greatest Generation's exploits, Vivendi Universal's Men of Valor will take you to Vietnam for a tour of duty in hell with an opening helicopter-attack sequence that leaves most games in the dust.

For sci-fi buffs, the game to beat is Microsoft's Halo 2. Once again, you're the one-man army known as Master Chief, trying to protect Earth from an invading alien horde. The game's AI is so slick, you'll swear that your computer-controlled squadmates are alive and butt-kicking. Its chief competition: Vivendi Universal's Half-Life 2, whose highly realistic physics engine lets you use anything in your environment-- barrels, crates, logs--as weapons to defeat yet another invading alien horde.

Last Christmas, Electronic Arts' Lord of the Rings games ruled the competition even though you could play only as Aragorn, Legolas or Gimli. This year it has added Gandalf, Frodo and Sam to the list in an epic adventure that brings the film's massive scale to your living ...