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[Krathoon]

I got nostalgic and I have been looking through old PC Gamer demo discs.
The early Vol. 1 demo discs are meant to be run in MS DOS. You can use DOSBox-X to run them.
Vol 2 discs are for Win9X. They have a little adventure game through discs 2.1 to 2.6. Disc 2.7 has a surprise.
Up to Vol 6 seem to be Pentium II stuff in Win9X. After that it is more like Pentium III and WinXP.
Really, what you can do is use Win98 in 86Box and WinXP in VMware.
Share your demo disc experiences.

 

[UnravelKatharsis]

Back in the mid 90s I was a console gamer and had a PlayStation. I remember getting OPSM mags and some of them coming with demo discs. They would have all these cool hidden features and bonuses you could unlock with button combinations, like you were putting in a cheat code.

One of them played a hidden trailer for the original resident evil 2 before capcom scrapped it. Really felt like such a cool time to be into gaming. I still have that disc.

 

[CGNoire]

Playstation underground was the shit.

Also I used to call the number listed in Offical Playstation Magazine and request a replacement demo disc once a month even though I neved bought the magazine. Got quite the collection of discs doing that.

 

[MrTroubleMaker]

i miss those old demo discs

 

[amigastar]

I remember playing the Demo Disc for Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 on PS 1 all the time.

 

[Dithadder]

Coconut Monkey!

 

[Frayed Ends of Sanity]

Anyone else had those psx demo discs from pizza hut? First time seeing FFVIII.
Also that GameCube preview disc. The Viewtiful Joe demo on that made me want to get the full game. Now it's easily one of my favorites from that generation

 

[KuraiShidosha]

Such simpler times man. The world in the 90s and even early 00s feels so much... I don't know, human? Compared to today. I'm glad I was alive at just the right time to experience it.

 

[Robb]

I can’t remember any specific titles but I was always excited to get these. Had totally forgotten it used to be a thing.

 

[YCoCg]

This is now a Europe OPSM Demo Music rave!

 

[Soodanim]

Lol WTF is that video, OP? Strange demo.

I'm another PS1 90s kid, it was a fantastic era that carried into PS2. Read about games and news and play samples of all sorts of games to ask for for Christmas and birthdays all for £5 a month. Beautiful.

I was always fascinated by the Net Yaroze games that came on the demos. Not because they were good, because most of them were about as complex as Asteroid (except that one 3D game I loved, I believe it was Terra Incognito). It was because the PS1s people used to make them were black, and that was the best looking PS1 possible.

The king of demos was MGS2, and it's not even close. But beyond that, there were some memorable ones. Tekken 3 was exciting to get. MGS1 was obviously great and also came with gameplay video that I remember more than the demo itself. It was full of cheats - Snake running round with 999 of everything putting C4 all over the place and going wild. Very similar if not the same footage is somewhere in this video:


I wish I kept my old demos for the unique stuff, but I know you get hold of all the old PS1 demo discs for emulators. I can't imagine any company would be too mad that you downloaded a demo disc.

 

[Krathoon]

Yeah. You can find a lot of demo discs on archive.org. There is a large PC Gamer collection out there.

 

[Krathoon]

I am having a weird problem in 86Box in DOS mode where the files are not reading right from the CD. I am getting underscores instead of periods in filenames.

It is weird.

I have to use DOSBox-X for the DOS stuff. Be sure to set it to max cycles. I have ran into a few games were it was running too fast, but really that is the game's fault if it does that.

 

[EverydayBeast]

PS3 had demos away including this perfect game.

 

[KimDongHwan]

PS3 had demos away including this perfect game.

There was a game which now I don't remember if it was a full game for free or demo but about a rubber duck to test the Sixaxis, played a lot of that haha

 

[Krathoon]

Really, when running PC Gamer demo discs, it seems like it is better to just use VMware and WinXP for everything.

86Box runs kind of shitty. I finally had enough of it. It struggles just to run the stupid demo disc interface.

Still, DOSBox-X works great for the DOS games.

 

[drganon]

Anyone else had those psx demo discs from pizza hut? First time seeing FFVIII.
Also that GameCube preview disc. The Viewtiful Joe demo on that made me want to get the full game. Now it's easily one of my favorites from that generation

I didn't have one, but my friend got the pizza hut demo disc with the first Tony hawk on it and we played it at his house. The tv we played on was so old it used a dial to change channels.

 

[Krathoon]

I just discovered the Muppet Treasure Island video game.

 

[Dacvak]

You guys remember that brief period of time where PC board game CDs were included in cereal? That was dope.

 

[jcorb]

Something I remember VIVIDLY was some of those PC Gamer demo discs having some dope fucking music. I remember one in particular, I can remember the music almost perfectly, but I'm trying to remember if it was for a MechWarrior game or a Hitman game (possibly both?).

Man, there's just something about that era of gaming that I really miss.

 

[Soodanim]

PS3 had demos away including this perfect game.

PS3 was pretty good about demos for several years. I'd pop on the store every week to see what the new uploads were. I loved the old store layout. The one they replaced it with was poorly performing less usable shite.

 

[Krathoon]

Having a bunch of demos each month was a great way to sample the new games coming out. They really need to start doing that again.

Just make a demo section on the gaming website where they curate the demos for each month.

Developers would have to get in the habit of making them.

 

[Krathoon]

One really annoying thing about the PC Gamer 2.X demo discs is that installing the demos from the jukebox sometimes crashes Win98.

I have had to re-start 86Box way too many times. I think that is why on the 3.X discs, the interface is in a window.

 

[Papa_Wisdom]

I have the full set of demo disks from the official sega Saturn and Dreamcast magazines (u.k)

 

[mrmustard]

Don't remember 100%, but i think the first demo i got was some 1st person shooter like Doom/Wolf3d/Blake Stone on floppy disc for mit Penrium 90. After that i got lots of demos from print magazines and still have most of them somehwere in the house.

 

[Pagusas]

Coconut Monkey!!

 

[UnravelKatharsis]

Playstation underground was the shit.

Also I used to call the number listed in Offical Playstation Magazine and request a replacement demo disc once a month even though I neved bought the magazine. Got quite the collection of discs doing that.

Actually ya I think it was ps underground now that you mention it. One of them had the music video of "pony" by ginuwine on it that also had to be accessed via a code.

 

[UnravelKatharsis]

I didn't have one, but my friend got the pizza hut demo disc with the first Tony hawk on it and we played it at his house. The tv we played on was so old it used a dial to change channels.

Not my picture but I was playing on one of these. Before that I also had a TV with a dial. I sympathize.

It was stored in my garage in the early 00's and my girlfriend gave it to her friends kid. Needless to say we're no longer together.

 

[sachos]

I used to play soooo many PC demo discs back in the day, it was one of the only ways to get some games back when i was a kid. I remember a specific demo about a game were you pilot some kind of tank or vehicle and battle aliens in what seems to be a Mars like terrain. The aliens looked like the tripods from War of the Worlds. Never could i find that game. I don't know when did i play that game, must have been a demo disc from late 90s or really early 00s.

 

[Quasicat]

I remember visiting some friends in Jersey and they had a Funcoland. I had never seen a video game store before and was mesmerized by the TV in the store window showing off the opening trailers to a ton of games. We went inside and the employee was showing off a Japanese demo of FFVIII. We couldn’t understand what was going on, but I loved the Leviathan summons.
I bought several Square games and many of them had the same demo in English. I sold most of my collection years ago due to having so many of them digitally, but still have Brave Fencer Musashi with the included demo. I will never get rid of that.

 

[Krathoon]

So far, all of the Coconut Monkey games have been crashing my Win98 in 98Box.

So, I guess they were only for Win95. Yeesh.

 

[Krathoon]

I have also found that old games have a way higher volume. I have had to drop my volume by half sometimes.

 

[Krathoon]

I used to play soooo many PC demo discs back in the day, it was one of the only ways to get some games back when i was a kid. I remember a specific demo about a game were you pilot some kind of tank or vehicle and battle aliens in what seems to be a Mars like terrain. The aliens looked like the tripods from War of the Worlds. Never could i find that game. I don't know when did i play that game, must have been a demo disc from late 90s or really early 00s.

I have found some tank games on the PC Gamer discs, but not one with aliens.

 

[Elder Legend]

I remember back in the early 2000s I was getting monthly OXM (Official Xbox Magazine) and getting the new demo discs every month frlt like Xmas. I miss those days sometime...

 

[Puscifer]

PS3 had demos away including this perfect game.

Look while I love MGS can we just admit that Kojima was up his own ass with this title and move on? Which is saying something considering we got Mario Princess Beach like 15 years later.


Back on topic, I love demos because you can always see a games evolution. I have to admit myself though before Atari lost the rights to Time shift I loved the original direction of the game before the reboot, you can even find 7 levels of it on the Internet archive.

TIMESHIFT - ORIGINAL CONCEPT DEMOS : DJXavieRO : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

It was originally going to be published by Atari, but the publishing rights went to Sierra on April 20, 2006.TimeShift was significantly different, you can try...

archive.org

 

[Krathoon]

They really need to bring demos back. Just push out a group of them each month to be downloaded on PC and consoles.

Add a demo page to the consoles. Also, have some behind the scenes videos or joke videos.

 

[Knightime_X]

I just miss demos in general.
Gives games an opportunity to redeem themselves.
So many games I would never touch if it wasn't for demos.

 

[YCoCg]

I just miss demos in general.
Gives games an opportunity to redeem themselves.
So many games I would never touch if it wasn't for demos.

It's crazy to think that back then a 700MB CD could hold slices of multiple games all running on different engines.

 

[Krathoon]

Jesus. Those PC Gamer 2.x demo discs crash like crazy when you try to install games from the jukebox.

I am on the very last 2.x and then it is on to volume 3. Hopefully, those work better because the interface is in a window.

 

[HerjansEagleFeeder]

So many memories. Good times.

 

[sono]

You need a the latest 3dfx voodoo gfx driver update thou

 

[DownLikeBCPowder]

I still have all of mine, but the one I remember the most by far is the one that contained Daggerfall. I played the absolute hell out of that demo for a long while.

 

[Sub_Level]

Thats pretty awesome. I am used to PS1 and PS2 demo discs but it makes sense PC got some too, never even thought of that.

 

[rofif]

I have a ton of pc demo discs.
I have few 1997-1998 pc gamer and random magazines.
But I was collecting cd-action (polish magazine). I have all issues 1999 to 2008 + some 1998 issues. I just ordered a reprint of 04/1996 issue (first issue) and I am excited for it to get here.

Sadly, other 1996/7/8 issues are very hard to get.

Demo magazines were amazing. 10-20 demos each month, mods, software, full versions. Everything curated.
Now kids are thrown into the sea of games with no filter.

 

[Alex Anderson]

Realized Tony Hawk's Pro Skater was going to be huge after playing the demo.

 

[Krathoon]

Going through the demo discs is a great way to refresh you memory on old games.

I already found some that I forgot about.

 

[Krathoon]

Remember the Bethesda Terminator games?

 

[Krathoon]

You can find most of these old games on:
eXoDOS

...and gog games.

You can get Duke Nukem 3D and all the original addons here.
World Tour is neat, but, if you want all the original stuff this link has it:

Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition

Hail to the King, baby! The Duke is back! Considered one of the greatest games of all time, Duke Nukem 3D: Atomic Edition, will literally melt your face off! The third chapter in the series, and the first with a 3D perspective (the original Duke Nukem and the sequel, Duke Nukem II, are side...

www.zoom-platform.com

 

[badblue]

I loved those demo disks back in the day.

I'm pretty sure I still have the one that came with the full version of Deus Ex in my awesome CD binder.

 

[LiquidMetal14]

Miss those days. Maximum PC and PC Gamer.