Games don’t really do demos in the way they used to, do they?
I wonder if early access has something to do with it - I suppose it must do.
Wasn’t it funny how for some games, a demo was all you ever needed?
Over and over you’d play it, never really wanting anything more.
Which are the demos you remember, though?
And which are the memories that come bubbling up when you remember them?
Let’s take a collective trip down memory lane.
Quake 3 Test
I’ve only just learned the backstory behind Q3Test.
I didn’t know that.
I didn’t really know much aboutQuake 3, to be honest, apart from that I lovedQuake 2.
More specifically, I loved playing multiplayer Quake 2.
More specifically still, I loved shooting people with the railgun while playing multiplayer Quake 2.
Anything instagib was absolutely my jam.
A jump that effectively made you a clay pigeon for everyone else as you attempted it.
I loved it so much, in fact, I didn’t want to play anything else.
So when other people moved to Quake 3 Arena proper, I stayed put.
I stayed with my little slice of Quake and began to perfect it.
In time, I memorised every inch of it.
And I loved the thrill of being good at it.
I loved winning online games there.
And I wiped the floor with them - I can’t tell you how good it felt.
It’s all here.
It’s so good that the rest of the game struggled to live up to it.
Oh yes, and the menus, which were very stylish.
-Donlan
Crackdown
Hear me out: Crackdown itself is a demo.
Just one really big demo.
It’s a demo for how all open-world video games could be made.
You spill across the city driven purely by whim and your growing powers.
The demo added to the fun, I think, by massively boosting the speed at which you levelled.
It’s a testament to what a joyful thing Crackdown is that it survived such a generous demo outing.
It was 2015 and I was at EGX, and HTC Vive had this huge area there.
And it happened almost the moment I put the headset on.
And I distinctly remember my brain telling me this wasn’t okay.
“you’re free to’t breathe underwater,” it was saying.
I don’t remember.
Whatever I was doing, I wasn’t looking at what was coming towards me at the same time.
So when I eventually looked up, the thing was already there.
Right next to me.
A whale within touching distance of me.
It felt like that.
I nearly threw that headset off.
I remember my hands instinctively going up to get me out of there.
And it was the first time any VR demonstration had made me feel like that.
But I didn’t throw it off.
Instead, I froze.
It didn’t do any damage, of course, because it wasn’t real.
But for a brief moment, I was utterly convinced.
If memory serves, Stranglehold itself was actually prototyped in the Psi-Ops engine.
And you’re able to tell.
In demos, a game level becomes an isolated sandbox.
What brilliant, generous demo making.
Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge
Gosh, this was a generous demo.
Most of all I was just dazzled by how much there was in this demo.
