Support NeoGAF

[Sho Nuff]

With Riddick having a demo unsurpassed in its craptacularity, I was wondering if anyone else cares to remember demos that were completely and totally unrepresentative of the final product (in terms of the demo being exponentially better or worse than the finished game).

I remember Destruction Derby on the PC having a 5-minute timed demolition derby... I ran out to buy it after a month of saving and discovered that the game was much more palatable in five-minute bites.

 

[spangler]

This one is a bit more obscure but I recall playing a Secret Weapons Over Normandy demo on an old OPM demo disc that left me totally cold. I remember the graphics being terrible and the demo seemed to run really slow. Due to this vague memory, I hesitated to pick up the full game at the Circuit City sale yesterday but I bought it anyway. To my surprise, the full game has been great. Probably the best of the fairly large bunch I picked up yesterday.

 

[chespace]

i think people are finding the sudeki demo pretty fun. i guess i'm kind of waiting for them to play the full game to see if they agree with me about how un-fun it actually is.

----

http://chespace.1up.com

 

[Soul4ger]

The Otogi demo was terrible.

 

[Die Squirrel Die]

I'm going to highjack this thread because I can't think of any examples, but I do want to make a general point about bad demos.

There are just things that strike me as being really bad practice for a demo, and probably counter productive to selling the game. The biggest offender, imo, is demos that time out. Nothing dreads resentment, like getting into a demo only to be wrenched from it by a 'coming soon' screen.

I find the best demos and the ones that most sell me on a game are the ones that give a definite limit but do not limit my ability to explore those limits. Say give me a level, but let me spend as much time in that level as I want, or as the gameplay demands. A good demo should have a beginning, some sort of training, a middle, a decent sized romp through the game world and an end, some sort of mission, or boss fight, or something that can be completed. Then you can say, buy the full game.

 

[ravingloon]

MotoGP for Xbox.

 

[MetatronM]

SPLINTER CELL

 

[=W=]

I loved the XIII demo, but that game turned out to be a lesson in mediocrity.

 

[buck naked]

Kind of a stretch of the definitions being used here, but the Diakatana demo_totally_and completley destroyed any hype or consumer interest in the game. The frogs and insects were a laughing stock.

Deus Ex 2 is another example of a game being totally crushed by negative hype surrounding the demo.

 

[User 406]

I played that Secret Weapons Over Normandy demo, and what turned me off was the complete lack of sensation of flight. If I turned the nose of my plane in a direction, it would turn at a steady rate until I let off the stick, at which point it would instantly stop and hold steady as a rock. I hated that. I need the feeling of resistance and momentum that good flight games have. Now if it turns out the final game has it, I'll pick it up in a heartbeat.

I also had a reverse situation of the topic with XIII and Firewarrior. Both demos featured mouse support. The released games did not. Bastards. >:|

 

[dark10x]

Heh, you know I'm a framerate whore so this should make sense...

First of all, Prince of Persia SoT on XBOX. The demo was 60 fps, though not necessarily constant. I wish they would have just tweaked it a bit more and kept it at 60. Would have made a big difference.

Same for Freedom Fighters XB. The demo was a near perfect 60 fps, but in the full version, only realtime cutscenes are 60 fps. The rest of the game is locked at 30 fps.