The Greatest Game Demos

[Timmo]

Resident Evil 4

 

 

 

I think we can lump both together here, as they are essentially the same chunk of gameplay. It opens with a few, relatively relaxed few minutes, for you to get your bearings and get used to the controls. Then it throws you into one of the most intense and brilliant set pieces in gaming history.

 

A special mention goes to the new version for its secrets. It's pretty much a perfect demo.

 

Grand Theft Auto

 

 

In terms of number of times played, I think this takes the crown for me. The demo gave you free reign for 5 minutes, and in a way the limit there only helped fuel your imagination. How far could you make it before the time ran out? Each run you'd stretch the game a bit further in each direction. Funnily enough I don't think I ended up playing the final game as much as the demo.

 

Dead Rising

 

 

Along the same lines as GTA, Dead Rising was a demo you could play again and again. For me, too, it stands out as being one of the biggest new gen jumps. I'd seen crowds before in Dynasty Warriors or State of Emergency but never had they felt so dynamic and realistic. Graphically this absolutely blew my cock off.

 

Doom, Quake, Duke Nukem etc shareware versions

 

 

Ok, I'm going to group these together as they are almost too good for what this topic is about. id software were ridiculously generous with their demos, some would say to a fault. Many who downloaded the shareware version had their fill from each game.

 

What are yours?

[Girth Certificate]

Skate 1 had a fantastic demo that did a great job of teaching the new controls and then let you play around in the school (and glitch yourself beyond) for ages. It even let you upload videos of sick tricks years before the share button became a thing.

 

Die Hard Trilogy on one of the original PS1 demo discs had a big chunk of the on-rails airport shooter level, with hilarious violence. We played it over and over.

 

MGS2 wowed everyone, I definitely spent more time in it than Zone of the Enders. But it was a double edged sword as the rest of the game couldn't live up to it cos of shitty Raiden and the shitty oil rig.

 

The free web version of Vampire Survivors is better than 90% of all full games.

 

[milko]

I remember Worms and Micro Machines 2 being a bit too good, in that me and my mates were so hooked on them that by the time we got the full game it felt a bit flat.

[Opinionated Ham Scarecrow]

Tony Hawk's Pro Sk8r 2. I'd just moved back in with my mum after Uni, was broke, unemployed and depressed, so for a good week or so I just hammered this all day whilst listening to Rated R on repeat. It gave you the whole Marseille skate park to eff around in and just ate up the hours. Never played the full game.

 

[Nick R]

Tony Hawk's Skateboarding

I never played this demo myself - only the full game. But so many people have said over the years how much they played that one small level over and over again.

 

Skies of Arcadia

An extremely generous section of the game.

 

Metal Gear Solid 2

The whole Tanker chapter, which was, as @Girth Certificate says,  the best part of the game.

 

Christmas NiGHTS

A bonus to go alongside the full game rather than a demo, but I'm mentioning it because it originally came out cover-mounted on a magazine, and in addition to the winter/Xmas variants it also includes the standard version of a full level from the main game. That's good enough to qualify it as a demo for me! EDIT: Correction! Sega Retro sez that the Sega Saturn Magazine cover disc wasn't how it was originally released in the UK:

 

Quote

50,000 copies were distributed by Sega Europe[6] as part of special console bundles[7][8], or with the purchase of two select Saturn titles[9], and also as a gift with the first 200 subscriptions to UK's Sega Saturn Magazine during the month of December[10]. According to the then editor of Sega Saturn Magazine, Richard Leadbetter, despite being a free disc Sega Europe still had to pay royalties to Sega of Japan,[11] which is why they initially decided against giving it away as a straight cover disc.[12] However, it would eventually become a cover disc in the December 1997 issue of Sega Saturn Magazine.

 

[Isaac]

This one for me:

 

 

It included a number of modes (Deathmatch, Capture The Flag, Assault and Domination), and online multiplayer (on PC).

 

Me and my friends rinsed it during one summer. It basically felt like a full game, except you only had a limited number of maps.

[Qazimod]

I remember there were some old PC demos that you could break open with downloaded mods and ini tweaks and things. I think one of the Midtown Madness demos allowed you to disable barriers in free-roam mode, or install custom vehicles that worked in the demo. So that was fun.

 

Also the THPS warehouse demo for endless high score competition. And the Elden Ring beta if it counts.

[Paulando]

16 minutes ago, Timmo said:

Grand Theft Auto

 

 

In terms of number of times played, I think this takes the crown for me. The demo gave you free reign for 5 minutes, and in a way the limit there only helped fuel your imagination. How far could you make it before the time ran out? Each run you'd stretch the game a bit further in each direction. Funnily enough I don't think I ended up playing the final game as much as the demo.

Yeah, this is a great one. Took my PlayStation round to an N64-owning friend’s house and this is all we played. We managed 6 Gourangas in a single run once!

[Nick R]

Both the Xbox and PC demos of Halo included the entire Silent Cartographer level. (The PC trial also included online multiplayer on Blood Gulch.)

[Siri]

Definitely agree with UT and THPS1. Others:

 

Tekken 3 - there was something special about that black jewel case demo back in the day. Constantly played with friends up until the full thing came out.

 

Crackdown - great timed demo that really sold the game concept.

 

Neon White - Super generous, was basically the entire first chapter to sell you on the premise, and then threw little message of 'hey, you're done, but here's some more', presenting a handful of the levels that are much later on in the game just to show you how crazy it got.

[BitterToad]

A huge shoutout to the OPM that had both the Metal Gear Solid demo and all of the Net Yaroze games that OPM had given out to that point. I absolutely hammered both much more than most full games I'd have gotten that year. 

 

Demos were the best. 

[Calashnikov]

Did we get the Gamecube Resi 4 demo in the UK? American podcasters bang on about it like fuck, but if it came out here then it completely passed me by. 

[Calashnikov]

Did I dream that the first disc of Panzer Dragoon Saga was once given away with an issue of Sega Saturn Magazine? 

[Andy_Why]

Weirdly Overboard! is the one that sticks in my head. I played that demo so much that I never got around to buying the actual game.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overboard!

 

Tekken 3 was another big one too

[Benny]

Shareware feels a bit like cheating as it was often a third of the whole game

 

Showed a lot of confidence in selling what they made to be fair.

[Down by Law]

8 minutes ago, Calashnikov said:

Did I dream that the first disc of Panzer Dragoon Saga was once given away with an issue of Sega Saturn Magazine? 

 

This is true. The demo disc fetches around £20-£30 on it's own now as that is the most affordable way to try out this legendary game legit.

[Gotters]

Just Cause 2 - gave you a decent chunk of environment to mess about in and really get a feel for the sandbox whilst getting to grips with the controls

 

I went from no interest in that game to putting over 100h into it off the back of the demo. 

[ZOK]

Don’t forget Command & Conquer time limited first level, that came on a disc from a PS1 mag or something. Was it ten minutes of gameplay?

 

Me and my mate would play that for hours, we’d hand over the controller every two minutes to get a fair share!

[Benny]

Tomb Raider

 

 

This demo was from what I remember a completely custom map of a considerable size. It had atmosphere in spades and got me to buy the full game.

[Don Rosco]

The Burnout 3 demo was outrageously good. I racked up hours on it. So chaotic and shiny.

 

 

[Fry Crayola]

48 minutes ago, Timmo said:

id software were ridiculously generous with their demos, some would say to a fault.

 

Probably not id or Apogee though, given how well the model worked for them!

 

Two nominations for me. The first is Syphon Filter. The demo on the PlayStation just gave you the first level, as I recall, but as Gabe has his immolation-inducing tazer right from the start, you very quickly get to have a lot of fun running and diving around the streets. It doesn't showcase any of the stealthy aspects that'd come up later in the game, which is a shame, and it feels very janky, but it sold me immediately on the game.

The other is ISS Pro '98, not so much for the generosity on offer (one half, France v Brazil, fixed duration, but crucially the option for two-player) but for, even then, showing a game of football that was leagues ahead of any of its contemporaries. Once I played that, full football games fell by the wayside until I got my hands on the full thing.

[Fargo]

The Resident Evil 2 demo and the original Metal Gear demo are two that really stick out. 
 

also the original silent hill as they changed the enemies in the final game 

[PaB]

Stranglehold. The very definition of a game where the demo was the best bit.

[Thor]

The original Metal Gear Solid demo. Hands down for me. 

[dino_jr]

Helicopter game demo (Thunderblade?) for the Mega-CD... 1st time I saw mode7 type terrain on a SEGA machine.

[Paulando]

Just now, dino_jr said:

Helicopter game demo (Thunderblade?) for the Mega-CD... 1st time I saw mode7 type terrain on a SEGA machine.

Thunderhawk 😄

[Majora]

Bioshock - I still remember when this demo went live. It was about 4/5am in the UK, weirdly, and I was working night-shifts at the time so I was still awake. It pretty much crashed Xbox Live and the demo downloaded at an absolute crawl. I don't think I've ever been so blown away by a demo. The music, the bit where you're floating in the sea after the plane crash and it looked so good that I assumed it was a cutscene and didn't move for about 30 seconds. The reveal of Rapture.

 

I don't think the game would ever have been so successful had the demo not been so good. I was practically salivating for the full game, which promptly revealed that the demo was by far the best bit of the game. Still have incredibly fond memories of the experience though.

[Mike1812]

Screamer 2. Had loads of fun time trialling with a friend from school on the one track. 

 

Think this is the one:

 

https://youtu.be/6JTuuKP5C-E

[Jg15]

Ps1 Demos were the best, bought many games off the back of them only to find the full games themselves were never as good as that little slice you were getting with the demo (Duke Nukem: Time to Kill springs to mind).

 

Also, fave Shareware game was Monster Bash. Never played the full version but many hours were spent destroying zombies over and over with a catapult!

 

 

[Shimmyhill]

Crackdown, Sure we all bought it for the Halo 3 beta but it turned out to be a brilliant game and the demo sold the game.