The annual Consumer Electronics Show brings more than 100,000 geeks to Sin City (the overlapping Adult Entertainment Expo helps, too). Here’s the music tech you should be bumping this year. – Damon Brown

*iPhone (June, $499 for 4 GB and $599 for 8 GB) – Apple blew away the show (as usual) with its tiny smartphone. The device is all screen: 3.5” of full-color touchscreen goodness, complete iPod compatibility and Blackberry-like keyboard functionality. The Safari web browser keeps you online, while Visual Voicemail allows message organization without listening to every saved voicemail. The quad-band GSM format provides extensive coverage worldwide. The 2 megapixel camera flows into iPhoto. At press time Cingular was the only provider. We suggest you get in line now.

*Boynq Vase USB Speaker (Available now, $29 and up) – Don’t give your compact laptop some clunky speakers. Try the Boynq line of sleek sounds, the best looking being the curvy vase design. It’s USB powered, so no AC plug is required, and emits a pink or amber glow when on.

*Altec Lansing inMotion iMV712 (Available now, $349.95) – Video iPods are great, but suck battery life quicker than an episode of Scrubs. The iMotion station has an 8.5” high resolution LCD panel, neodymium (e.g. powerful) speakers and a built-in subwoofer. The small size fits easily into any crib.

*Altec Lansing PT7031 (Available now, $599.95) – If these speakers are any indication, regular surround sound is officially old-school. One slim wireless bar, carrying the left, right and center speakers, fits on your TV. The other bar goes behind your head. The whole package is clean, efficient and powerful.

*Repose Wireless Sound Seat (Available now, $599) – Entertainment seats come a dime a dozen, but this one supports your music and your video games. Five 2.1 surround sound speakers, including a subwoofer below, and a USB and iPod connector come standard. The velvety cover and cup holders complete the laziness.

*Atlantic EGO Waterproof iPod Case (Available now, $199.99) – Take your iPod to the beach or in the shower with this fully self-contained package. Batteries keep the four embedded speakers running for about 30 hours. And the sturdy case is actually made of bulletproof glass, which might help if you get shot at.

*MOTOMING (Availability and price TBD) – Looks like the iPhone has a little competition. This thin bad boy is all touch-screen operated – no keys – and sports FM radio, Real Player and multiple music format support. A removable microSD memory card makes storing additional tunes easy.

*Coby PMP-4330 (Available now, price TBD) – The PMP should be renamed the P.I.M.P. The small device plays almost any media, including text documents and FM radio, connects to home theater systems and packs a 30 GB hard drive. The 4.3” widescreen LCD doesn’t hurt, either, and data management is a snap.

*Sonos Digital Music System (Available now, $999.00 and up) – Pump your favorite Internet, PC or Mac music throughout the house without drilling holes or running wires. Mix and match the ZonePlayer 80 and ZonePlayer 100 speakers, wirelessly connect them throughout and control it all via remote.

*Delphi SkyFi 3 XM Satellite Radio (Available now, $220) – Miss your favorite XM program? The portable SkyFi 3 TiVos your satellite radio shows as you listen and can rewind them up to 30 minutes. It also holds up to 600 songs on its microSD card – the first satellite radio to pack removable memory.

F.E.A.R.
Vivendi Universal – PS3 and XBOX 360
Gears of War, Resistance: Fall of Man and the upcoming Halo 2 are making the first-person genre crowded, but F.E.A.R. is worth a look because a) it’s the next-gen version of, according to many, 2005 PC game of the year and b) F.E.A.R. will scare the hell out of you. Best described as Silent Hill meets Doom, F.E.A.R. puts you in charge of a paranormal S.W.A.T. team. Expect ugly first-person shooting against zombie soldiers, unnatural aliens and one creepy little girl that makes Samara from The Ring look cute. Not exactly a normal person yourself, your soldier can employ slow motion and other Jedi mind tricks to get the job done. The visuals are crazy crisp on the powerful PS3, and both the PS3 and the XBox 360 versions sport new weapons and levels. If you’re burnt out on shooters, F.E.A.R. will definitely not change your mind. However, the hot graphics, 16-player deathmatch and unique storyline make it a great FPS. Definitely a PS3 launch title worth considering – as long as you have a strong stomach.

4 out of 5 stars

From Buckner & Garcia’s “Pac-Man Fever” to Lil’ Flip’s “Game Over,” gaming culture has inspired its share of hit songs. So why are there so few music videos that crib their style from classic arcade and console titles? Keith Schofield doesn’t know, but he’s perfectly happy to be thought of as the first director to indulge his digital-gaming obsessions in his work. “I’m fascinated by how our whole generation has a sentimental attachment to these electronic toys,” says the 27-year old filmmaker.

An NYU film school alum, Schofield first caught the music industry’s attention with a 2005 clip for DJ Format’s “3 Feet Deep,” centered on Konami’s Dance Dance Revolution, in which MCs Abdominal and D-Sisive earn points with microphones in place of the game’s familiar, goofy exercise pads.

It was Schofield’s video for “When I Wake Up,” by the Los Angeles indie-rock quartet Wintergreen, that earned him a permanent place on hard-core gamers’ high-score tables: Mixing some well-chosen stock footage with scenes of the band playing a vintage Atari 2600, the short retells the notorious tale of the video game version of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. In 1982, Atari rushed millions of copies of the genuinely awful game into stores, only to see it fail on an epic level. Urban myth has it that Atari buried its unsold E.T. inventory in the New Mexico desert, so the video accordingly ends with Wintergreen digging up those lost cartridges. “We were worried at first that the audience wouldn’t get it,” says Schofield. “But then we thought ‘Hey, if they don’t, they don’t.”

But plenty of joystick pushers spoke Schofield’s language: When the director posted the video on keithschofield.com, the clip received more than 100,000 hits. Though Schofield’s next video, for Death Cab For Cutie’s “Jealousy Rides With Me,” won’t feature any game-related imagery, he’s still looking for musicians he can surround with pixilated visuals. “I’d love to work with The Beastie Boys,” says Schofield. “And Rilo Kiley – wasn’t Jenny Lewis in The Wizard?”

beatmania
KONAMI – PS2
Straight from the makers of Dance Dance Revolution comes Beatmania, a proving ground for wannabe DJs. Konami’s done an excellent job of replicating the full-sized turntables in the arcade version. Because of its focus on electronica, the music here seems more obscure – even the cut from Moby would probably only be well known by New York club regulars. Still, the quirkiness of the included turntable and keyboard make it a more interesting diversion than the average Simon clone. And if you’ve got the cash, buy an extra turntable and have a scratch-off against a friend. You’ve been served! B-

Black
EA – PS2, XBOX
EA gets props for releasing a first-person shooter in a post-Halo world. The photo-realistic graphics push the limits of the XBox and Playstation, making this hot Eastern European espionage tale seem that much more exciting. Below the surface though, it’s the same standard search-and-destroy missions we’ve been playing for years. Also, while sparse music can add to suspense, Black’s lack of a soundtrack forces you to come up with your own blasting tunes. Blowing stuff up has rarely looked this good, but it offers nothing we haven’t seen before. C

State of Emergency 2
Southpeak – PS2
The original State of Emergency was essentially a looting simulator with as much depth as an episode of Friends. Destruction, terror and mayhem are still the motives in this oft-delayed sequel, but here there is a solid storyline about an evil corporation pushing a crack-like drug into the Ghetto (that’s the name of the city: The Ghetto). The wonky camera angles and long levels are forgivable – especially after you start blowing up stuff – but the gameplay is too narrow for its own good. While the original had no structure, this sequel is too linear for any Grand Theft Auto gamer to enjoy it. C

Final Fight: Streetwise
CAPCOM – PS2, XBOX
Like the movie business, video games are learning the power of the remake. An extension of the venerable ‘90s arcade beat-‘em-up, Streetwise takes the franchise into pseudo-RPG territory with Grand Theft Auto-style missions and a new 3D perspective. The graphics and fighting are solid, and the storyline holds up enough to make the scummy locales reasonable (porn theater, pawn shop, etc.). The problems come with the preponderance of derivative mini-games and a wonky camera angle that keeps the fighting askew. It’s fairly fun, but we would have appreciated a rock-‘em, sock-‘em adventure closer to the original game. C

Crime Life
KONAMI – PS2, XBOX
Gang simulators are so 2005. This oft-delayed title features a nameless chap out to make a name for himself, battling random bullies to show his loyalty to his gang. The open-ended city actually looks like The Bronx. Unfortunately, the characters themselves are ill-formed, poorly animated and sometimes just plain weird looking. Combat is 85 percent of the game, but mastering the odd controls is the real battle here. The world music selection of hip-hop is innovative, but even guest appearances from D12 can’t save this game. With Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, The Warriors and other better gang simulators, there’s no reason to play Crime Life. D

Jaws: Unleashed
MAJESCO – PS2, XBOX
Majesco was perceptive enough to realize that nobody wants to play Roy Schneider, but that cranky, carnivorous shark. The game combines Grand Theft Auto-style freedom with certain area objectives. The graphics are beautiful, with complex underwater environments and realistic movements. Chomping on your first human is exhilarating (wiggle the left thumstick to chew!), but the level goals themselves become a little dull after a while. However, any game that allows you to rip off individual body parts can’t be that bad. Gamers afraid of crimson water should stay far, far away. B-

Tales of Legendia
NAMCO – PS2
The visual package in the latest Tales game is truly amazing, eking out XBox-level graphics from the aging Playstation 2. It helps that the animation is done by Kazuto Nakazawa, the mastermind behind the Kill Bill: Vol 1 anime sequences. Unfortunately, the game itself turns to the same RPG clichés: overacting characters, boring “talk to the townspeople” sequences, and, worse, odd, nonsensical humor. Really, do we have to battle it out with an Elvis impersonator? The risks that Namco does take, such as the Street Fighter II style battle sequences, fail. Without the nice presentation, this game would be strictly average. C+

The Sims 2
EA – PS2, XBOX, GAMECUBE
How do you reinvent the wheel? Improvements include an easier interface and much better graphics than its predecessors. There is also an added search element, allowing you to explore objects for hidden treasure. But with all the expansion packs and spin-offs (Bustin’ Out, The Urbz, etc.), having an official sequel to The Sims seems… anti-climactic. This is especially frustrating if you’ve played the more complex PC version. On the console the game is virtually the same as before. If you’re a casual fan, The Sims 2 doesn’t warrant 50 bucks. C