I’ve never thought I’d have to say this, but demos of games are becoming more like complete games every single day. Strange though, isn’t it? But, after some time, you will have to agree with me. Ever since Doom came out with it’s shareware version, the entire demo world has been trying to out-do each other in an attempt to garner more customers to their wares.
The humble "Demo" was originally thought to be made as a marketing tool by the publishers of the games as a way to entice the players to buy and play the final game itself. The best examples of the "old-school" demos would be games like Monkey Island 3, which are usually just a single level, puzzle or section from the game, pretty easy to complete and only give a tiny bitesize morsel of what was to come.
The thing that probably changed the state of play in the world of demos was Doom Shareware. This gave players the chance to play many levels from the finished game, in fact, an entire episode from it! Thanks to the immense playability and size of the demo, it has got the world record (Readable in the Guiness Book of Records, no less!) of around 15 million installations! After this rather impressive performance from id Software, other devellopers have taken note, and have produced their own "Doom Sharewares" of their own.
Of course, many demos out there are still like the old days (You’ll see that modern examples like Monkey Island 3 and Sydney 2000 and many others, still stay with the original Demo philosophy of "Give them a bit, let them take a bite, reel them in", and although quite useless compared to the superb demos out there in the world, they still get the job done) but thereare still many shining examples of demos worthy of becoming a game in their own right. For example…
Half-Life
Instead of just giving a training level and one of the earlier maps for the player to play with, Valve created a completely new mini-episode of the game, which was not featured at all in the actual game! That’s kind of them!
The demo starts 48 hours after the original accident (Those who’ve bought the game will know about it), where you, still playing Gordon Freeman (Who at this time really needs a bath. 48 hours without a shower is unbearable!), must complete a mission told to him by a scientist, to save the compound from destruction. It is a must-play for anyone who loved the actual game, or for someone who wants the HL experience without ruining any parts of the game at all before playing it.
Deus Ex
Ok, ok, so it DOES give you the training level to play at first, but there’s a huge difference between the training level here, and the training level in HL. This one is Huge! Immense even! It is probably twice the size of HL’s equivalent. And it’s much more thorough than HL too! For example, you haven’t felt suspense and fear properly until you face the proximity mine area! The thought of defusing them, with the high chance of mucking it up and getting hurt is scary to say the least. Even getting through the "Sneak past the guards to the exit without being seen" bit is tough as well, and I can’t believe I’ve had so much fear of doing things on a training level quite like that ever!
Quake 3 Arena "Test"
If you have been longing the long awaited game Quake 3 Arena ever since it’s announcement, then you’ll know about the "Leaks" from id Software. The story (Which is still not cleared up yet, because we don’t know if it’s a lie or not) was that someone had put a test version of Q3A on the internet for anyone to download. This was supposedly stolen from the offices by a dastardly insider, so was not officially distributed by the normal demo means (i.e. most top rated games sites and all the magazines). Since there was no actual demo for Q3A at that time, people downloaded it and enjoyed the gameplay. The actual demo didn’t come out until the full game was in the shops, which was a bit pathetic really, but the "Test" did work to id’s advantage.
Clever and shrewd marketing lies, or a security problem that was lucky for us? You decide!
These are exceptional demos, where the content is better than any normal one. These are the "Creme-de-la-creme" of the things you can get from cover disks from magazines, or even off the internet, if you’re up for the download.
My arguement is this: Why bother to buy full games from the shops any more? The demos are good enough to use as if they WERE the full priced title, with many of them having near full functionality, so you could probably do most of what you wanted to do in the full game without having to pay for it. Also the demos usually don’t take up as much room on your hard disk as the actual games either. An obvious example would be Half-Life, which installs at a whopping 400mb, whereas the demo is much smaller. This small space saving could allow for other demos to be installed at the same time. And the main reason for living off demos? The fact that you have so much variety for such little cost. Once you get bored of a demo, just delete it and install a new one, something that is difficult to do when you have a full game. A single copy of PC Gamer is only £5, and….
[At this point, the sedatives kicked in and Malcolm was unable to finish the article]
