Daryl Hannah ushers visitors into Rocktropolis, an interactive Net site devoted to the music world that includes areas focusing on artists such as Sting, Jim Morrison and the Doors. The Sting section provides information on his soundtrack for the Imax film The Living Sea, a downloadable interview and endless opportunities to purchase Sting paraphernalia. The Morrison area offers the singer's poems and stories. Rocktropolis also sponsors online interviews. At the moment, the site needs fine tuning. The producer hasn't struck the right balance between content and commercialism: for every area with valuable info, there's another peddling T-shirts and CDs. If Rocktropolis wants to live up to its claim of being "rock and roll's first virtual city," it shouldn't model itself after Las Vegas. URL: http://under-ground.net/rocktropolis

Carrie smothers a piece of cake in Michelle's face as frosting flies everywhere. Just another night at the Spot, one of the best of a growing genre, the online soap opera. The Spot follows five roommates in an L.A. beach house through journal entries and photographs posted daily. The writing is hilariously campy: "I believe in the adage 'fight frosting with frosting,' " Michelle muses. You'll never fall behind because all back episodes are available online. Written by employees of an advertising firm that sponsors the site, the Spot is Melrose Place in cyberspace. URL: http://www.thespot.com

Burn:Cycle plunges players into the world of Sol Cutter, a 21st-century thief who has just come down with a deadly virus (the Burn:Cycle). To cure himself, Cutter must confront a brazen terrorist, a lost love and his malevolent alter ego. Now being released on CD-ROM after coming out last year for the CD-i platform, the game combines action with a sophisticated filmlike story line. Burn:Cycle is so richly layered that it may take many sittings to make it to the end. Persevere, though, there's a payoff that makes the climax of The Crying Game look tame. (CD-ROM for MAC & PC. Trip Media/Philips Media, $49.98)

>Graham Deane

PRECOCIOUS PROGRAMMER

GRAHAM DEANE, THE TECHNICAL DIRECTOR of the hit game Burn:Cycle, found his calling at the ripe age of 12 when he first saw a computer at school in Cambridge, England. Almost immediately, he and his friends tried to program games. "We wrote a program for Atari's Space Invaders. It was literally the letter A coming down at you," Deane says with a laugh. After studying engineering at Leeds University, Deane joined Trip Media—a team of three young software developers—in their London quarters to develop the technical side of Burnr:Cycle. The complexity of the project was a far cry from programming in Deane's school days. "At first, the fact that you were actually controlling something on the screen was enough of a thrill for people," Deane says. "Today, you've got to test people's reaction skills. You've got to give them puzzles to figure out. And then you have to give the traditional video entertainment." Last October, Deane, 28, moved to L.A., where he oversaw production of the CD-ROM version of Burn:Cycle (see review). In his time off, he's a player. "I'm good at the game," Deane boasts. "I know all the short cuts."

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