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[Krathoon]

I have been looking at the old demo discs for PlayStation Underground.

Man, I missed out. What was neat about them is that they had developer interviews and behind the scenes stuff.

It makes you realize at the time that a lot of the developers back then were college kids or teenagers.

David Jaffe was absurdly young when he did Twisted Metal 2.



Share your demo disc experiences.

 

[Kiya's Guard]

All I remember was the ps1 demo discs that one contained the famous t-rex showcase, and some pc demos. I discovered morrowind and a 2D Duke nukem

 

[Dacvak]

Just swinging by to say I’m a big fan of Game Sack. Thanks for posting, OP!

 

[Unknown?]

This is how I discovered Crash Bandicoot and Einhander.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

That reminds me I once made my own demo discs for pc lol, I would just install a bunch of demos and then burn the entire install folder to a disc, and they worked just fine, just loaded a bit longer; distributed them amongst my friends in school who had shit internet.

 

[midnightAI]

 

[Krathoon]

The Underground demo discs are on archive.org.

I have been running them in Duckstation.

 

[ReyBrujo]

In before any Tommy Tallarico reference.

 

[GymWolf]

The official playstation magazine included a new net yaroze game in every demo disc...

I still remember the banging music

 

[SHA]

I like black discs.

 

[Krathoon]

They also crammed a lot of demos on the discs. That amazed me. They would also include an import game.

Demos were more of a thing back then.

 

[SHA]

I didn't even knew what’s exclusive, all psone games to me belonged to PlayStation.

 

[Bert Big Balls]

I used to play the shit out of the PS1 "Demo One" discs. Crash bandicoot, Tekken 3, kula world etc. So damn good.

 

[Badlucktroll]

i played the codename tenka underground demo

then bought the preowned disc at blockbuster

 

[Krathoon]

There is also a young Cerny on the demo discs.

Mark Cerny - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[DownLikeBCPowder]

I loooove demo discs. I still have all of mine from the 90s and whatnot. Probably well over a hundred or more between all systems, mostly PSX and PC. Some for Saturn etc too.

Come to think of it, a demo is how I first played Daggerfall. I loved that demo to death. I'll never forget the full game install took up most of my 1 gig HDD. The install was like 650 megs. After OS and other stuff, basically couldn't install much else. Great game.

 

[mansoor1980]

i played the codename tenka underground demo

then bought the preowned disc at blockbuster

loved this game back in the day

 

[Demigod Mac]

Raw 90's energy: the Pizza Hut demo disc for Playstation 1:

 

[ManaByte]

The greatest demo disc of ALL TIME:

 

[Badlucktroll]

Raw 90's energy: the Pizza Hut demo disc for Playstation 1:

I am going to order some pizza hut tonight now because of this

 

[saintjules]

I remember one of the PSU discs I got had the Chrono Cross Trailer. I would watch that trailer every day up until release with excitement.

Then I played it.

 

[t_wilson01]

I loved demo discs during the 32-bit era. I was able to collect a few of them for both PS1 and SS. Any gaming magazine that had one was an instant purchase.

 

[Perfo]

Internet in general and especially platforms like YouTube really robbed the world of the sense of discovery. I'm sorry for people that are born after internet was already a thing... you missed out on what meant waking up everyday and seek out a new adventure! Now there's really nothing to discover anymore because everyone else already did it for you. Fuck the world we live in today, seriously :__

 

[DownLikeBCPowder]

Internet in general and especially platforms like YouTube really robbed the world of the sense of discovery. I'm sorry for people that are born after internet was already a thing... you missed out on what meant waking up everyday and seek out a new adventure! Now there's really nothing to discover anymore because everyone else already did it for you. Fuck the world we live in today, seriously :__

It has its benefits but I totally understand what you mean. I'm grateful for growing up before the internet was in cultural use and being there as it was adopted, but yeah the other side of that trip is certainly... Something.

 

[Krathoon]

It was really benificial to get the official magazine for a console so you would know what was coming out.

I had Nintendo Power back in the day.

 

[GymWolf]

The greatest demo disc of ALL TIME:

I had this thing, the other playable games were athlete kings and sega world soccer 97.

 

[DownLikeBCPowder]

The greatest demo disc of ALL TIME:

I don't think either my Japanese or American version disc looks like this.. but I'll have to double check.

I used to boot up Christmas NiGHTS every year but stopped some years ago when life got too busy. Maybe this year!

 

[nush]

The greatest demo disc of ALL TIME:

They actually sold that as a discount title in Japan.

 

[Krathoon]

Not to derail the thread, but they still have not made a fully working emulator for the CDi.

 

[nush]

they still have not made a full working emulator for the CDi.

 

[Soodanim]

In that era demo discs were incredible. Gameplay, trailers, extras... all with a magazine you got to read through. The 90s were a simpler time.

I think demos still have a place in the market. I've seen people say it's too much work, but I guarantee it did Capcom favours with the REmakes of 2/3/4 and they will continue to put out demos. Actually as a company they're pretty good across a few of their franchises, with DD2 getting that character creator demo.

 

[DownLikeBCPowder]

In that era demo discs were incredible. Gameplay, trailers, extras... all with a magazine you got to read through. The 90s were a simpler time.

I think demos still have a place in the market. I've seen people say it's too much work, but I guarantee it did Capcom favours with the REmakes of 2/3/4 and they will continue to put out demos. Actually as a company they're pretty good across a few of their franchises, with DD2 getting that character creator demo.

Demos definitely still serve a purpose, at least for me. There have been many games I was compelled after trying the demo in modern times which I'm on the fence about. I wish there were even more demos being that it's easier than ever to distribute them to the public. Switch seems to often have demos.

 

[Beechos]

I remembering playing the hell out of the original demo disc that came with the og Playstation. I vaguely remember only having ridge racer and ace combat and using it for jumping flash and toshiden.

 

[FrankWza]

There was a time that they even put maps for Socom on the disc that came with Official Playstation Magazine to install on the PS2 HDD

 

[Krathoon]

The PlayStation Underground Number 2 Disc 1 has an interview with the creator of Final Fantasy 7.

 

[EverydayBeast]

Game demo discs were cool it’s incredible they fit so many demos on 1 disc

 

[West Texas CEO]

I remember the demo disc for ff8.
It was fantastic.

 

[Rheon]

A PS2 demo disc that my friend at the time had was how I discovered Tekken 4, and Tekken has been my favourite game series ever since.

 

[Quasicat]

Raw 90's energy: the Pizza Hut demo disc for Playstation 1:

This is how I discovered Metal Gear Solid. There were a couple of typos in the translation that was fixed in the retail release, but I had never plays such an amazing piece of storytelling at that time…based on the demo.

I had a couple of friends over from out of state when I got the disc and we fired it up that night. The next day, the three of us went to Toys R Us and each picked up a copy from the demo.

 

[DownLikeBCPowder]

I remember the demo disc for ff8.
It was fantastic.

Had special music arrangement too.

 

[Krathoon]

Was the FF8 disc straight from Squaresoft? I think I got all of the ones they made.

 

[drganon]

The demo discs I mainly remember were the ones that came with magazines like opm, store kiosks and ones that came with the system itself. I remember being bummed out as a kid that the ps2 didn't come with a demo disc like my ps1 did.

 

[Bond007]

God i loved demo discs as a kid.
Sometimes id play certain demos about as much as a full damn game. MSGS2 and Tomb Raider games would have me by the balls.

 

[Krathoon]

Why did the PlayStation play FMV better than the PC? I guess it had a special chip for that.

 

[DownLikeBCPowder]

Here's a huge stack of OPM demo discs.

 

[LavitzSlambert]

Here's a huge stack of OPM demo discs.

Is that a movie trailer for FF Spirits Within?

 

[DownLikeBCPowder]

Is that a movie trailer for FF Spirits Within?

Pretty sure that's what it is. Not sure because it's unopened but I have an opened one somewhere. I'll try to boot it up later to verify.

Pretty crazy though basically almost exclusively a Square demo disc that month. Lots of good previews.

 

[LavitzSlambert]

PS1 Jampack Vol 7 was my shit back in the day. I played the hell out of Einhander and Tomba (which felt like the longest demo ever, at the time).

 

[cireza]

Loved Saturn and Dreamcast demos. Even the Mega CD had some demos.

 

[Mattyp]

Have about 100 of these from the offical magazine and the offical demo discs PlayStation would mail out to you for the PSX was shattered when that stopped.

When you didn't have internet and received one of those in the mail randomly was mind blowing