Bestsellers > Music > Modern Postbebop

Cannon Fodder originally was released for the PC in 1993. This latest conversion to the Game Boy Color features new soldier and unit types, improved enemy artificial intelligence, enemy bosses, modernized gameplay, full-motion video, and cutscenes. The third-person shooter has 72 levels, some of which feature environments that are more than 20 times the size of the screen. Players use an arsenal of military hardware that includes bazookas, grenades, jeeps, tanks, and helicopters.

Battle a group of terrorist robots as one of seven characters from popular Capcom games, like Mega Man and Cammy. Other familiar characters include Charlie from Street Fighter, Arthur from Ghosts 'n' Goblins, and B.B. Hood from the DarkStalkers series. New characters include Shiva, an ex-snowboarding champion, and Simone, a fencing champion. The action-shooter gameplay contains both shooting and hand-to-hand combat, and features an isometric view. Players fly around by using "motor boots," and strategically avoid enemies' projectile attacks while counterattacking.

For saboteurs of records that sound good because of elements completely unrelated to the artist, Ashlee Simpson's sophomore effort, I Am Me, may well be a dream disc. The production is a tight-wrapped, A-type achievement and, with sounds running from hip-hop (the unstoppably infectious "L.O.V.E.") to vintage '80s (the lusty "Dancing Alone") to Synchronicity-era Sting (the energetic, pulsing "Boyfriend") to airwave-friendly ballads that sister Jessica might have choked her way through ("Catch Me When I Fall"), the music sucks you in more reliably than a bagless Dyson. But instead of Ashlee Simpson, credit for both those things - really, for the way this disc favorably insinuates itself into a listener's head overall - belongs to producer/keyboardist/bassist/guitarist John Shanks. Ardent Ashlee-ites, of course, will beg to differ, and they won't be without their points: In addition to co-writing each of these 11 songs, some of which ("Beautifully Broken," a response to her "Saturday Night Live" lip-synching debacle) are more sophisticated than others ("Burnin' Up," a Madonna-reminiscent, reggae-style romp), she sings in a voice as artfully burnished and appealing as it was on her 2004 debut. She makes you want to la la all over again, and for that, and for finding the right guy to orchestrate this acknowledgment-heavy jewel, you've got to like her. --Tammy La Gorce

You hear a lot of echoes throughout Ashlee Simpson's Autobiography, but her big-eyed, bright-smiled sister Jessica isn't behind a one of them. That'll come as no surprise to fans and anyone who has caught the "darker" Simpson sister on MTV, which is responsible for hurtling the hard-edged "Pieces of Me" onto radio playlists across the country and creating a mini frenzy over this CD's content. Stoking the gossip-fueled flames is track three, "Shadow." On it, 19-year-old Ashlee spills her childhood resentment over her sister's attention-gulping career, ending up on a conciliatory note that has the surprising effect of making the Simpson divas' drama seem believable ("Everything's cool now…and the past is in the past," she sings). But serious music fans ought not to dilly-dally with the celeb stuff and dive right in, because this disc dishes up more than a lot of us bargained for. "LaLa" revs up the unsuspecting by way of out-and-out lustiness, "Love for Me" lays on the lovelorn angst thick, and the title track is a take-no-prisoners, love-me-or-leave-me rock anthem. Rippling throughout are cunningly malleable vocals, bending here for a kittenish Gwen Stefani effect, stretching there to sound Christina Aguilera-cathartic. Sweeter moments call to mind the indie sensibilities of Jill Sobule. More than others of her reality-show insta-star ilk, Ashlee Simpson's is an autobiography that shouts, "bring on the sequel." --Tammy La Gorce