• 23Sep 09

  Game Demos.....

  I've noticed a growing trend that's been getting worse, Game Demos and their time limits. I remember playing real demos back in 1997, id software most of you might have heard of them.....

  They released a demo for their game Doom in the demo was the first episode of the game uncut intact with all secrets and multiplayer to boot, upon completing "Knee Deep In The Dead" players were asked to fork over cash to buy the full game and many of us did, then a few years later a small game came along from id called Quake it also contained it's full first episode with multiplayer features in fact I worked for a computer store and we hosted a small tourniment with Quake as the game, prize if I remember was a copy of Shadow Warrior and another game....

  After the huge success of Quake id released Quake II in the same manner as their other games, in that same year the Playstation was going strong and they were releasing demos of new and upcoming games for players to check out, all of those demos were short maybe a level or two but nothing to give a glimpse into what a game is.....

  This trend has continued and most don't see it but almost every demo released shows anly a fraction of a fraction of a game, It's easy to show off a racing game because all you need to do is allow a player maybe 3 races and experience the game's engine after 3 races it's obvious if the game can hold water or not.....Shooters and action games really anything else needs more content to show off what a game can do and I'm sorry but these tutorials in the beginning of a demo is insane...

  I don't need to be treated like an idiot just show me the controls and let me study them a little and while I'm in the field shooting enemies go ahead and say Oh yeah this button does that or the context buttons like when you walk up to a usable object something pops up, thats good, I want more than just This is the game, here take this one crappy rifle now shoot those bad guys, protect this guy shoot from this truck as we drive out of here, help us return to base demo ends

  I'm sorry but that's a bad demo.....I wanna see and experience a few more things than just a rigid go here, do this routine, I want a choice of a few weapons and I want to possibly see an easy mission then a hard mission if you insist on such a short demo but tell me when you do it that the next mission comes way later......

  Red Faction's demo had a good idea, they allowed you to see something you don't see alot of in the game and still you understood what the game was about.....Shadow Complex also had a good "trial" as they call it.

  The thing I'd say to developers is I as a potential customer get it, you need something to show people but you don't want to give too much away as far as story is concerned, I don't mind if you take out some of the cut-scenes if the demo was just a little longer, did more, showed some flavour then everything would be cool ya know, that's all I'd like to see happen.....I'm just sick of hearing so many things about some new game but maybe I'm not usually into that kind of game so I pick up a demo and it's short it don't show anything that makes me want to buy it and I feel like I've wasted my time.....

  I know demos of games can be better, They were better so let's get to it, that's all I have to say for now......

  • Posted Sep 23, 2009 6:35 pm PT
  • Category: Games
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