Our 10 Best Software Award winners.

Nothing less than our picks for the best demo material of the past year.

Sex and Drugs Sold Separately

The missus and I have never been what one would call large-scale entertainers. Parties at our house are few and far between; our modest media room seating has rarely been strained—until last year, that is, when we found ourselves the host of biweekly Rock Band parties.

Since then, every other Saturday night our home is packed with rockers-in-waiting, champing at the bit for their turn at a microphone or faux instrument.

Suffice it to say, Rock Band 2 has been hotly awaited.

Public Humiliation… Now Private!

I don't claim to have my finger on the pulse of the entire video game industry, but I know what I know. I recall first seeing Guitar Hero at RedOctane's booth on the floor of a trade show in New York City. Cool idea, I thought, but no one really wants to play this game with a standard PS2 controller, you really need a big plastic guitar with buttons, but who's going to go for that?

Everyone in the civilized world, apparently.

The Not-so-Incredible Hulk

Our friends over at Gamervision.com have done a review of the Incredible Hulk game, available for seemingly every platform except the SNES.

What the designers apparently forgot to do while they were writing and re-writing all the code for every console, is design a decent game.

Sadly, our green friend doesn’t fair well in this movie-tie in game.

Go left! Ok, now keep going left…

As much as we love gaming here at HE, there are only so many hours in the day (I'm told, 24). So we've partnered with the folks at Gamervision.com to bring us the latest game reviews. This epic collaboration will allow them to do what they do best, and leave us playing with all the TVs, speakers, amps, media distribution products, and the like.

To be honest, I'm not sure who's getting the better deal there.

Larynx Hero

We have become a nation of legendary guitar players and rock bands, if only in our imaginations, or at least in our living rooms. But long before plastic Stratocasters became a videogame staple, karaoke (Japanese for "empty orchestra") was a popular techno-pastime, and not just for inebriated Asian businessmen.

"So, you like racing games." That's generally the first thing most new guests say the first time they enter my media room and spy the Sparco GT Racing Cockpit tucked behind my theater seating. I love the looks on their faces when I answer, quite truthfully, "I cannot stand the things. The cockpit is for Gran Turismo and Gran Turismo alone. And don't you dare call it a 'racing game'."

What’s the biggest mistake that so many theater designers make these days? It isn’t improper speaker placement. It isn’t improper display calibration. Nor is it subpar acoustics. No, the biggest mistake I see so many theater or media room designers make is the relegation of video game systems to the kids’ room.