Favorite classic game demo?

amill007

Banned
Back before the days of xbox live and PSN, the only way to enjoy a snip of upcoming games in the comfort of your own home was to own a demo disc.
And when we were younger, this was sometimes as good as owning a full game.
So, what game demo did you play the most?

I think mine was the first Sonic Adventure. I must have gone through that first level 100's of times. ( That whale was so freaking amazing! )
 
The two that stick in my mind the most:

Final Fantasy VII - I got this from the Playstation Underground. This got me so hyped for the game.

Metal Gear Solid - Amazing demo. Never played anything like it. I would go trough the demo challenging myself like stealth killing everyone with out being seen.
 
[quote name='Rodimus']The two that stick in my mind the most:

Final Fantasy VII - I got this from the Playstation Underground. This got me so hyped for the game.

Metal Gear Solid - Amazing demo. Never played anything like it. I would go trough the demo challenging myself like stealth killing everyone with out being seen.[/QUOTE]

I agree with these completely. The fact that the Metal Gear demo was in Japanese made it so much cooler. Ah, high school! I also remember playing the Silent Hill demo with my friends until 6am. Damn piano puzzle. Also I played the Resident Evil 2 demo from Director's Cut nonstop. And I watched the Resident Evil 2 (Now 1.5) video on the first Playstation Undergound disc nonstop. Those were my favorite days of gaming!
 
Bah, I can go even further back than that. One of my favorite game demos was the demo for Space Quest VI. It came on several of the discs released for other Sierra On-Line games. Instead of giving you a chunk of the actual game to play, they constructed a little mini-scenario using art assets from the final game. It felt like playing through a particularly wacky episode of Star Trek.

PC Gamers got into the game demo scene long before console gamers started getting demo discs in magazines. PC Games didn't require a separate disc for game demos, the companies would usually just squeeze them on the same disc as the game. I don't remember seeing too many demos in the floppy days. But back then you needed every once of spare room you could get just for the game itself. Earlier CD games provided most developers with more room than they knew what to do with. And demos filled up that extra room.
 
The two that are most prominent for me were Crash Bandicoot and Bug for the Saturn. Crash Bandicoot was a Greatest Hit before I ended up buying it.
 
I remember when Return to Castle Wolfenstein came out, PC Gamer gave out a demo CD that had that demo on it, as well as the full version of Wolfenstein 3D. Not having played it before, I spent A LOT of time with it that summer.

They also gave a demo of the PC version of Tony Hawk 4, which was memorable only because my gimped computer at the time couldn't run it properly, so everything was rendered in gray. I still can't play the foundry level proper.
 
I'd guess either Shadow of Colossus or God of War, played both many times and bought the game. I remember making my friends play the Colossus demo, just to see that "oh shit" face when the first guy comes along and you realize you're looking at a monstrous, screen-filling foot. That was a great moment.
 
The first 'Virtua Tennis' for the Dreamcast. Came on a Official Dreamcast Magazine disc. Didn't matter if it only had two playable characters, I've literally played that demo for more time than probably 50% (more, likely) of the full games I own.
 
I can't believe Tony Hawk Pro Skater (PS1) hasn't been mentioned. My friends & I were all skateboarders who loved games, so maybe I got more enjoyment out of it than most, I thought the demo was universally appreciated though. There was a long period of time where our days consisted exclusively of skating the neighborhood and our nights consisted exclusively of taking turns in the THPS demo trying to top each others scores. You got to play The Hangar, the best level of the game, with all the moves of the real game... I think the clock was 1 minute instead of 2, not sure, but it didn't really matter because the point was to just get an epic combo then pass the controller. I had more fun with that demo than any other full blown game before it, and when the full game of THPS came out I only enjoyed it slightly more than the demo.
 
Hi Folks,
I just love Video Games.....playing them is my favorite pass time.
Since I have great passion for playing games so it gets a bit tough listing names of favorite demo games.But still taking a chance to list I would select super Mario 64,Missile Command,Dig Dug and Curve Ball 2.
 
Probably the demo disc that came packed with my Playstation... I remember it was the first system I ever pre-ordered (actually I'm not sure there were pre-order programs setup before the PSX... I'm probably off though...) It was the black disc? All I know is that the console was so expensive for my younger self that I couldn't afford a game to go with it! So I was stuck playing the demo disc for a few weeks before I could save enough for an actual game!

Also the Metal Gear Solid demo was SOLID! Loved that guy! ;)
 
^ I forgot about that one. That's the one that had Toshinden, Jumping Flash, Xtreme Games & Tekken as demos right? I wonder if I still have that laying around somewhere. God I must've played that Jumping Flash demo a hundred times. Same as you I couldn't afford many games so that demo disk was like a full blown game for me.

I remember all my friends would come over and I'd pop in that demo to show them all the cool new games. We'd even place bets by watching the AI in Tekken demo. Memories....
 
I love demos. Back in the day I subscribed to the Official Playstation mag and PC Gamer just for the demo discs.

Nowadays I download and play almost every demo on 360 and PS3. I even try out all the community games on the 360.
 
The original Half-life deme, titled Uplink, was amazing. It demoed alot of the weapons and the character AI, while using environments cut from the final game, so it was a unqiue experience on its own. Even now, I would recommend giving it a spin.
 
MX 2002 on the PS2. I couldn't afford any games for the system after I got it (I think I was 7?), but I did buy one of the Jampack demo disks. I played that MX 2002 demo more than I've played any full game on the PS2.
 
Quick answer - FF VII demo, those summons blew me away.

Maybe related but did anyone here ever get the Quake shareware that came on the disc? The disc contained pretty much all of ID's games up through Quake but they were locked on the disc. You had to pay (online? can't remember now) to unlock them but someone figured out a way to get the games off the disc. All my friends had the $10 demo of Quake and with it came like 12 games, it was awesome.

EDIT - I actually remember our trip to Best Buy to buy the demos. Once we knew that the crack worked, like 5 of us piled into my Mom's Volvo and I took us to Best Buy. They must've thought we really loved the first episode of Quake.
 
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