Game Demos - A retrospective

KKLEIN wrote:The Resident Evil 2 10 minute demo was quite good. There was a clock at the top of the screen counting down & you had to try & get as far as possible before it hit zero. I wouldn't mind knowing where the theoretical stopping point of the demo was.

The RE2 demo that came with RE: Directors Cut was better for me, it actually differed from the main game. For instance in the demo you meet Ada in the STARS office, and there were even different keys to use.

PostRe: Game Demos - A retrospective by KK » Thu Dec 03, 2009 2:47 pm

Some demos had a horrible habit of timing out far too quickly though. The first Driver demo was completely redundant (they ran an improved one a few months later). Or on an early edition of OPM, there was some pinball game that lasted all of 30 seconds. Compared to now, where you get 2 full races (DiRT) or both halves of a football match, things have certainly improved for the better.

Talking of the Resident Evil 2 demo, OPM seemed to think the game had been given a toned down 15 rating specially for the disc, & that the retail copy was an 18. When readers wrote in to explain that, actually, Resident Evil 2 was a 15, OPM calimed that those writing in were wrong! They then did the exact same thing with Resident Evil 3 in the magazine two years later! It boggles the mind, really. Did they never venture in to a shop?

I remember that. I'm sure a similar thing happened with Silent Hill too, where they claimed it was an 18, when it blatantly wasn't.

PostRe: Game Demos - A retrospective by **Carlos** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 3:12 pm

I always remember the Soul Reaver demo with much fondness. Not only did the game just come out of nowhere but they reviewed the game about 4 months before release, meaning the game changed quite a bit from the demo. I played it to death though.

PostRe: Game Demos - A retrospective by **SEP** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 3:13 pm

KKLEIN wrote:The Resident Evil 2 10 minute demo was quite good. There was a clock at the top of the screen counting down & you had to try & get as far as possible before it hit zero. I wouldn't mind knowing where the theoretical stopping point of the demo was.

Timed demos always leave me wondering that.

One of the demos that had the greatest impact on me was the original Gran Turismo 3 demo given away in the Official PS2 Magazine. The graphics were just amazing, the way the light reflected off the car in that bit in Trial Mountain was stunning and showed me why I got a PS2.

A few years later with even better graphics the full game was released.

PostRe: Game Demos - A retrospective by **Glowy69** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 5:42 pm

The whole first disc of Panzer Saga. :wub:

4

And xmas nights. :wub:

I have the first 50 OPM and demos (as anybody that followed my thread in RG knows :shifty:

). I also have the 2 other demo discs which had Yaroze comps on, so I have every Yaroze game released through OPM, I believe.

There was nothing like waiting for the release of that magazine. About half of my 100 strong PS1 collection was bought on the strength of a demo. It's a real shame the demo disc culture is over, what with electronic media nowadays.

I could write a book on how amazing the OPM demos are.

PostRe: Game Demos - A retrospective by **Lotus** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 6:18 pm

Back in the day (i.e. before downloads) getting demos was great, especially finding one that you got addicted to. So many good demos on the PlayStation, PS2 and Xbox.

These days they're better for discovering games I wouldn't have otherwise considered or bought. For example, Crackdown. Knew nothing about it, played the demo and got addicted. Same with Stranglehold - yeah, it's not amazing or on the same level as Crackdown, but I bought it for £7 and it's great fun. Would have completely ignored it if it hadn't been for the demo.

PostRe: Game Demos - A retrospective by **Frank** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 6:27 pm

That Final Fantasy X demo disc you got with Final Fantasy... 9 (I think) was pretty immense. It was weird when I started playing FFX for real, and I discovered that the demo actually started about half an hour or more into the full game.

PostRe: Game Demos - A retrospective by **Alpha eX** » Thu Dec 03, 2009 6:45 pm

I think demo discs were more effective than downloadable demos. A user will only download a demo of a game they know about or have interest in, with the demo disc, you will try everything and find some great games. For instance, I didn't think I would like Bust-A-Grove and I loved it, this goes for a lot of games I wouldn't have bothered going out of my way to try.

Game Demos - A retrospective

Who is online

Affiliates