Favourite demo(s)

[oddech_wymarlych_swiatow]

Releasing demos is a dying art nowadays but back in the day demos/shareware suff were ubiquitous. What's your favourite ones? Do ya miss them? Did you happen to spend more time on a demo than on complete version? Do you know any of them with exclusive content?


Unreal Tournament - my personal no.1, definately. It has so much content that would easily surpass many of current 'full' games (DLC included): maps, gunz, game modes and bunch of mutators, all of these made diz demo infinetaly replayable. Damn, it's so good that I have never felt a need to check full UT 11/10


GTA1 - I didn't even care about doing quests, just driving 'round the city shootin' things... until timelimit ended.

Target - a few levels for sp/mp, all classes and main feature - split screen deathmatch! It made full ver. useless.

Daikatana - multiplayer demo from '99 was pretty cool, I didn't expect such terrible game after that.

Red Faction - essence of the geam without boring shit, it includes famous scene on the bridge when player can shoot down soldiers/tank or just destroy the bridge which just blew everyone's mind. Since comlete version of RF hadn't IMHO much more to offer beyond destructible environment so demo was enough.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2

Sharewarez of Diablo, Shadow Warrior, Jack Jackabbit 2

Otchłań - for potato bros, text-based rpg, anyone?

 

[dbx]

And here i hoped you people were talking about the real demoscene...

 

[Unkillable Cat]

James Pond 2: Robocod.

While the demo only allowed access to two levels, the cheat code could still be entered which would unlock ALL the levels.

So I got a free game from a coverdisk! :D

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

The demo had multiplayer, so nobody bothered with the full version.

Diablo beta, which was diffrent from the final build.




Most of the early FPS releases had shareware episodes so you could test them in a longer time period.
Gta demo with time limit turned off

 

[markec]

Sierra always had bunch of demos with their games and often they alone provided with lots of entertainment.

I remember playing Quest for Glory 5 demo and diving in water only to hear this music:



Needles to say I couldnt wait to get the game.



Probably my favorite demo was for Fallout, after tearing apart everyone with a minigun I knew this game will be something special.





Many strategy games in late 90s got demos which had one or more skirmish maps to play with full features, as a strategy fan this made me extremely happy. Demo for Cave Wars I probably replayed 50 times.

 

[Jick Magger]

MGS2 - The Tanker Chapter

MGS3 - Virtuous Mission

 

[Luka-boy]

For me it's Fallout's by far. I must have played it dozens of times back in the day.

After that one, it's a tie between Diablo's and Tyrian's.

 

[pippin]

Thief. Even if it was just the first level. It was (is) something completely unique, a true jump in quality from Doom and Quake. It was sad to realize no game could be as good as this.
Also I really loved the Magic & Mayhem demo. I never got to play the full game, which was sad. I don't know if you can run it on modern systems, though. I wish GoG sold it, it would be an instabuy for me.

 

[Zdzisiu]

Jagged Alliance 2 demo, with that one map with underground part, and preselected mercs with gear. It still managed to entertain me for days, trying different approaches to the main building, trying for stealth kills, or learning how to explode the barrels by shotting them, or killing the shopkeeper to get free stuff, that demo was perfect, short enough so you could finish it many times yet with enough options that you could try something new every time you played it.

 

[SerratedBiz]

Took me a while before I found this one. It wasn't until a few years ago that I actually played the full game, but I used to have a blast playing the demo as a kid (and I was a little bit in love with Lt. Velasquez).

 

[skacky]

Thief 2's demo which features an alpha version of Life of the Party called The Unwelcome Guest. The cityscape is bigger and a bit different, it is stylistically closer to Thief 1, there is another way to Angelwatch through a building near the greenhouse to the north that bypasses Lady Louisa's suite, Angelwatch has a creepier ambient soundtrack than in the final game, you can get to Angelwatch's rooftops, and while Angelwatch doesn't have any lower floors it has an access to the ballroom through an open window outside.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Took me a while before I found this one [Traffic Department 2192]. It wasn't until a few years ago that I actually played the full game, but I used to have a blast playing the demo as a kid (and I was a little bit in love with Lt. Velasquez).

Man, I remember this game. The writing was the highpoint of the game, the game itself sucked ass, but I wanted to know what became of Lt. Velasquez as well.

 

[Invictus]

I would have to agree on the Thief demo beign simply awesome and got me running out the Door to get the game, that also happened with the original Call of Duty demo and with Splinter Cell. Nowadays the only demo worth its salt would be the Grimoire Super Demo

 

[CryptRat]

I add The Settlers 1. I have played solo, and with some friends a large amount of times.

 

[Ellef]

I can't recall the game but there was an old PS1 demo with fighting robots that I played endlessly, even had multiplayer iirc.

Unfortunately demos are just a bad idea in a business sense, so they're mostly dead. Utorrent is the new demo distributor.

 

[e-mailio estevez]

OMF, Exile 3, Tyrian, Unreal Tournament and Overkill were probably my most played and favorite.

Oh, and the FF7 demo that came with my Voodoo 3. Just because I found the graphics impressive at the time.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Cossacks: European Wars. Good looking Age of Empires with all the units available in skirmish maps. Hours of fun.

Unfortunately demos are just a bad idea in a business sense, so they're mostly dead. Utorrent is the new demo distributor.

It's a good idea. If people can actually experiment the game themselves they are less likely to just run straight to Totalbiscuit for guidance, and the fate of your game isn't decided by something out of your control. The industry thinks that 3-minute-long trailers are a good substitute but that's just their fascination with big brother movie industry. If they don't go full retard and get the law to forbid Let's Plays, I expect these to become the main form of publicity.

 

[Ellef]

Cossacks: European Wars. Good looking Age of Empires with all the units available in skirmish maps. Hours of fun.

Unfortunately demos are just a bad idea in a business sense, so they're mostly dead. Utorrent is the new demo distributor.

It's a good idea. If people can actually experiment the game themselves they are less likely to just run straight to Totalbiscuit for guidance, and the fate of your game isn't decided by something out of your control. The industry thinks that 3-minute-long trailers are a good substitute but that's just their fascination with big brother movie industry.

I'm afraid they are exactly right, teaser trailers and marketing hype sell way better than demos. A great percentage of people will buy a game to try it out, and you would lose half of those sales if they realised they would be bored in an hour. Have you seen how most games a huge chunk of people don't get the achievement for basically getting past the tutorial level?

 

[Siobhan]

Jagged Alliance 2 demo, with that one map with underground part, and preselected mercs with gear.

100% agree. It's not just a perfect demo, it is even better than most sectors in the full game. I was so happy when I saw that the Arulco Revisited mod makes the demo map a playable sector and I could finally find out what it plays like with different mercs and equipment (answer: pure bliss).

I also liked Albion's demo, which is simply the first two chapters of the full game (Toronto and first island); not a lot of work for the developers --- so much for "demos are teh hard!" --- and they picked the right cut-off point seeing how the second island is a little bland and requires a lot of grinding initially. But that also means the demo lacks the Sira-Melthas makeout scene, which would be unthinkable in this exciting new age of Biowarian game design where RPG = Romance and Pork the Gal/Guy.

 

[laclongquan]

Curse of Monkey Island~

 

[Owl]

My favorite demo is Half-Life: Uplink, it was a level cut from HL1, later revised and released by Valve as a standalone demo.

 

[DemonKing]

The Prey demo was good in that if you bought the full game you could take up from where the demo left off.

The Medal of Honor Allied Assault demos were also very good (both single and multi). I don't know how many times I played "The Hunt" objective map in the demo for that game...

 

[grudgebringer]

Pretty much every demo back in 90s was exciting and an instant hook up. I was fired up by Grim Fandango and Sin demos that came on CD with a game magazine, for instance.

Daikatana - multiplayer demo from '99 was pretty cool, I didn't expect such terrible game after that.

MP in Daikatana is still good today and MP client is free.

 

[dunno lah]

MGSV Ground Zeroes, of course.

 

[Surf Solar]

Definitely the JA2 demo. I must have played it for dozens of hours and grew to love Bubba.
Also it was what introduced me to isometric RPGs, so it holds a special place in my heart.