The Greatest Game Demos

[Nick R]

6 hours ago, makkuwata said:

I probably had every issue of the official Dreamcast magazine just for the demos. You’d throw away the mag as it was painful late nineties ‘wipeout made gaming for grown ups’ dreck,

 

Boo, I won't stand for this ODM slander! 

 

It may have started off like that (that issue 0 cover... ), but after a few months it became more games-focused, and a great magazine. Probably the closest thing we got to a continuation of Sega Saturn Magazine and late-90s C&VG.

 

Ed Lomas posts on Reddit sometimes - a few years ago he talked about how ODM started off doing all that lifestyle photoshoot stuff and then moved away from that:

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/dreamcast/comments/4n5s7f/i_worked_on_a_dreamcast_magazine_back_in_the_day/

 

 

Quote

On the subject of Sega's perception of the Dreamcast community against the reality, I think their understanding changed a lot from the beginning to the end. You mention there about DC-UK being Future's pitch to be the official Dreamcast mag... I think Sega's idea about its audience at that point was wildly wrong.

 

I was working at Emap before the Dreamcast came out. Emap kind of started the whole 'official games magazine' thing in the early 90s with Nintendo Magazine System and then Sega Magazine, and they'd been running the official Sega Saturn Magazine brilliantly for years. The SSM team had done a great job of really hooking dedicated Saturn fans and keeping them reading long after Sega had given up on the console, and they were pretty confident they'd be given the official Dreamcast license too.

 

At that time, the biggest magazines in the UK were FHM and Loaded, and video game companies were desperate to be associated with 'lifestyle' brands like those. Sony had revolutionised the video game world by making the PlayStation genuinely cool - footballers, pop stars, models, TV personalities... they all played PlayStation and mentioned PlayStation in TV interviews and newspapers. People who would beat up 'nerds' for playing video games a few years earlier now had a PlayStation at home and obsessed about FIFA and Metal Gear Solid. They'd created a new breed of gamer and there were millions of them. Every games company wanted a piece of that action in the late 90s and was desperate to move away from the old image of 'nerdy' video gamers, and tap into the 'cool' world of casual gamers.

 

So it was known Sega wanted their new console to be seen as 'cool', and wanted its official magazine to be as much like a real 'lifestyle' magazine as possible. I saw Emap's dummy magazines and they did a nice redesign of what had worked in Sega Saturn Magazine and incorporated more lifestyle elements - photography, spacious design, content that went beyond game reviews and guides, etc. Future obviously did the same with what ended up becoming DC-UK. Dennis Publishing, however, dumped an absolute crapload of money on their mock-up and went even more 'lifestyle' - they even hired Rankin to do a Virtua Fighter-inspired photoshoot (I thought it was horrible but Rankin was and still is one of the most high-profile, trendy and expensive fashion photographers in the world).

 

Sega's European marketing team were going after that big new PlayStation audience - they spent something like 30% of their entire marketing budget sponsoring Arsenal, then didn't have the money (or the plan) to tell everybody what the word 'Dreamcast' on their shirts even meant. To them, an expensive, glossy magazine with trendy photoshoots, lifestyle features and interviews was the perfect thing to associate with their new brand, so that's the publisher they chose. The fact it also disassociated Dreamcast from PlayStation (Future) and Saturn (Emap) was also no doubt a factor.

 

I joined Official Dreamcast Magazine when they were finishing issue 1 and the realities of making a 100+ page video game magazine meant it was already less of a glossy lifestyle magazine than the mock-up. Not long after launch it became clear Dreamcast wasn't going to explode as a hip lifestyle brand and we were given free reign to make it more of the gaming magazine we wanted it to be - the not-very-interested-in-games launch editor also moved on, allowing a much more gaming-focused editor to take over. This 'high-end' start to the magazine's life was actually really helpful for us, as such an enormous budget had been allocated for the magazine each month that when we were running it more like a standard games mag, no matter how much we spent on nice photography, illustration, travel, etc, we still only ever spent a fraction of the budget. And as such, the bosses left us alone because on paper we were always making more money than they expected.

 

So, to bring it back to where I started, I think Sega believed they were going to have a trendy, adult audience playing Dreamcast when they in fact ended up with an audience of very appreciative, serious gamers. I think most of us in the industry expected that to be the case from the very beginning.

 

But Sega adapted well to it and allowed us to make the magazine we wanted. We were the most truthful and honest reviewers out of all the UK Dreamcast magazines - if Sega made a crap game, we told everybody and gave it a low score while the other magazines were trying to be nice to Sega and overrating them. Sega liked the lifestyle elements we retained in the magazine and we always kept the production values high, so the magazine looked and felt high quality. We featured Sega staff in interesting articles and they liked that. We aimed to make the most of our 'official' tag by using Sega to get access other magazines couldn't, and providing them with a magazine they could be proud of - they never interfered with our reviews and never complained particularly seriously about anything we did. I used to get annoyed at how much they would help out the unofficial magazines when they weren't supposed to, but as a big Sega fan - and a big Dreamcast fan - I wanted them to succeed so would let it slide.

 

It was a pleasantly surprising situation to get such freedom while working on an official title but it made that part of the job pretty easy. We loved games, we loved games magazines, and we had the money and freedom to make a magazine with the readers as the main focus. I think we ended up making a really good magazine out of it in the end.

 

[womblingfree]

Metal Gear Solid 2

 

Bioshock

 

Both just completely blew me away. Neither of them lived up to the demo though unfortunately.

[makkuwata]

@Nick R The memory is crystallised around that issue zero cover, in fairness. That and the smell of aftershave samples. I hope Ed still has his luscious locks. He must be among us, surely. Ed?

 

My stance depends on how well they rated forgotten masterpiece Fur Fighters, which I’m fairly certain had a demo.

[George Clooney]

19 hours ago, Popo said:

Citation needed. 

Note I’m talking specifically about Power Drift looking like ass now, but in my opinion this does not look good.  Especially the bigger tracks with more going on.

 

 

[smac]

The Terminal Velocity remaster topic reminded me that there was a bunch of great 3D demos in the 90s. Descent, Terminal Velocity, Magic Carpet. I'm sure the TV demo was one of those I rinsed multiple times.

[Popo]

1 hour ago, George Clooney said:

Note I’m talking specifically about Power Drift looking like ass now, but in my opinion this does not look good.  Especially the bigger tracks with more going on.

 

 

Looks amazing to me!

[George Clooney]

6 minutes ago, Popo said:

Looks amazing to me!

It did to me in 1990!

[Minion]

Rainbow six Vegas. I can't be the only person here who played this solidly until the release of the full game. It was just the casino level but that was enough for what was an amazing shooter. Also Battlefield 4, I'd played BF3 but wasn't a huge fan so when I played the demo of 4 I was amazed as it was truly a step up and this was on the 360 too, it sold me a PS4 at launch as I remember watching a Jack Frags video of PS4 footage and thinking how bloody amazing it looked, haven't owned an Xbox since....

[sofasurfer]

The Colin Mcrae PS1 demo that I think came from the Official Magazine was one that me and my best friend spent hours on. IIRC it was one stage that we used to play and try and beat each other's timings. Great days.

[Nick R]

Shadow of the Colossus had a really good demo. It was short - concluding after the first colossus fight - but it showed enough of the environment to give a good sense of what the full game's scale might be.

 

Naturally, The Community have put together a list of how it differs from the final game:

https://teamico.fandom.com/wiki/Shadow_of_the_Colossus_(OPM_Demo)

 

[ZOK]

I was looking for the Die Hard Trilogy level on the PS1 demo disc and I came across this video that deserves more love…it’s only had 108 views!

 

Very nice, the guy spends most of it talking about his emulation set up, strangely relaxing.

[Darwock]

Three immediately jumped to mind for me, all oldies as I don’t really play demos any more.

 

1. Ivan Ironman Stewart’s Super Off Road Racer, demo on a cover tape of one of the Spectrum magazines. It was just one track but my friends and I had so much fun with it, fun that never carried over to the full game. I don’t think we bought it, the demo was enough.

 

2. Lords of Chaos. Again on a cover tape for the spectrum. I think you got 15 turns. As a big fan of Chaos this sequel was the best thing I could ever imagine, but I couldn’t afford it. I played it over and over trying to get as far up the map as I could within the turn limit. 
 

3. Die Hard Trilogy - the airport shoot-out on PlayStation that was already mentioned. Amazing times.

[Benny]

Ah Lords of Chaos. To this day one of my favourite ever games.

[Orion]

On 16/03/2023 at 21:40, Number 28 said:

I forgot this little beauty;

Like most people I spent far, far longer playing the demo than the actual game.

 

The full game came with our PC. I basically only played the free roam mode, pissing about going for huge tricks and crazy crashes. Was the demo that ?

 

I remember not really liking the racing and point to point stuff. I remember it being brutally hard.

[wev]

Wouldn't it be great if the publishers and console manufacturers would team up and do a monthly "demo download" thing. Just a launcher that goes up and showcases a handful of games from big triple a titles to the more obscure novelties. That was what I loved about the PlayStation demo's, you had the big name on the front cover but then stuff like Motorhead

[Popo]

I spent this afternoon playing the demos of the new Kirby game, Bayonetta Origins and The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow on my Switch - lovely stuff!

[cassidy]

Wipeout demo on the ps1 disc. That was me heading to Game the Monday after getting the console. 

 

£60 too. 

 

RE demo was also another that convinced me to spend £60 

[Number 28]

9 hours ago, Orion said:

The full game came with our PC. I basically only played the free roam mode, pissing about going for huge tricks and crazy crashes. Was the demo that ?

I think so, yeah. It was a huge (for the time) area of blurry brown dunes, bumps, trenches. The camera would zoom out when you reached top speed (or was launched by the boundary) and it reminded me more of a flight sim. I think the other levels in the full game were much the same but with slightly different colours which was somewhat disappointing.

[dumpster]

I remember the Datel Dreamcast disk that let you play imports, and the Bubble Bobble demo where they gave you the full game by mistake.

 

I put hours and hours into Merv the Merciless from issue 1 of Zero magazine. It was a remake of a spectrum game called Splat.  Brilliant, with loads of jokes and amazing music.

[Qazimod]

18 hours ago, wev said:

Wouldn't it be great if the publishers and console manufacturers would team up and do a monthly "demo download" thing. Just a launcher that goes up and showcases a handful of games from big triple a titles to the more obscure novelties. That was what I loved about the PlayStation demo's, you had the big name on the front cover but then stuff like Motorhead

I feel like that’s how people use their Game Pass subs.  

 

10 hours ago, Popo said:

Bayonetta Origins

 

Which reminds me - the Bayonetta 1 demo was pretty spectacular. I remember creating a throwaway overseas account just to get it early.  It was the first real look at the gameplay that would be the foundation for Platinum’s character action games, and at the time it felt totally different compared to DMC.  

[alex3d]

Silver on the Dreamcast had a great demo too.

[smac]

I seem to recall many hours playing on generous early builds and the base version of the Pickfords' 'Magnetic Billiards'/'Sticky Balls' back in the day.

[elyuw]

I remember playing the Official Playstation Magazine Disc Demo of Gran Turismo 2 for ages (https://tcrf.net/Proto:Gran_Turismo_2/Demo_Discs#Euro_Demo_53). It came out at the same time as William Orbit's - Barber's Adagio For Strings which had a fantastic Ferry Corsten Remix on the CD Single, so I used to play the demo whilst listening to that.

 

[PikaStu]

On 15/03/2023 at 20:30, barkbat said:

Yes! Hidden & Dangerous! What a demo that was. Thanks guys.

I came to post the same thing. That demo, set in the rain, with the railway bridge. So atmospheric! Great earlyish example of a sniper rifle done right too (1998/99?) I played the hell out of this demo, and like you found the full game to be pretty underwhelming and buggy.

 

The Outrun 2 demo that you got when pre-ordering it with Game. Fiver deposit, brilliant demo of the first three areas of the easiest route. 
I immediately ordered it from somewhere else though as it was a great deal cheaper online, even though I’d already paid a fiver towards it with Game.

 

In the early 90s one of the PC magazines had a demo for James Pond 2: Robocod. Sure, it’s a fairly shit game truth be told, but at the time it was one of the first PC platform games with smooth scrolling. Anyways, turns out you had access to the full game. It definitely said “demo” on the floppy disk, but it’s the most generous demo I’ve ever played!