Your Demo Sucks

[Clemenstation]

Nice article Shamus. Agree wholeheartedly.

I find that a lot of demos try to front-load the game's entire opening cut scene, which is pretty ridiculous. Am I playing this demo to learn about the story, which will inevitably be truncated just as things start to get interesting? No. The Wolverine demo was the most recent offender. Big long intro movie, followed by obligatory tutorial level, followed by... that's it.

Tossing players into a mid-game level like the RE5 demo did isn't the answer, but neither is offering a 700 MB demo that's all introductory filler.

 

[chenry]

I think one of the better demos ever releases this generation was Crackdown. The demo was timed, you could go anywhere you wanted in the city w/in that time limit, and your character's skill development was accelerated to a ridiculous degree. While you started off as a zero, you got to see how the character's skills develop based on your combat style.

They neatly packaged the entire game experience into a short, 15 minute demo. Delivered everything critical about the game quickly and enticed your to buy the game.

 

[AmbrMerlinus]

"Question: What's the last demo you played that really made you want to run out and buy the game?"

World of Goo. You get to play the entire first level (which is bigger than it sounds) and as soon as I finished the demo I was hooked.

 

[nipsen]

"I'd buy that argument if this wasn't part of an overarching trend. I spent a weekend going through a lot of Xbox 360 demos and was amazed at how many of them were just a few minutes of chaotic action that made no effort to engage the player or make them want more. There were games I'd never heard about that just began with the assumption that I was already familiar with the series."

Uh, yeah. It's what happens with organised crime. First it's frowned upon, then it's not talked about any more, and then it becomes business as usual.

 

[Tdc2182]

Resident evil was one of the best game demos ive ever played. The story is for the game not the demo

 

[alf1985]

Mirrors Edge, I just had to get that game after the Demo. I played it for hours. Unfortunatly, the entire game was just the demo repeated over and over. Sometimes, the demo can fool you into thinking the game is better than it really is. The demo showed us good graphics in cut scenes, but the real game's cut scenes were some kind of paper cut out crap. The game was exciting but would have been more fun if the "bad guys" were only as tough as the ones in the demo. Point being, the demo can be bad for more than one reason. It can be an assuming douchbag that expects player awesomeness of a game, or it can fool you into thinking your getting something better than it really is.

 

[Nycto]

I say it was Company of Heroes, which was the last demo making me wanting more.

amen, also, sorry if this offends, but for me the new inFamous demo just really shined. it gave you a time limit with which to either complete the given "quests" or have fun at your own leasure after forcing you to go through a training-esque mission that was mostly on rails (which meant you could get a grip with the combat mechanic) but also sometimes forced you to either do a bit of climbing around or just going straight into a frantic battle on the ground so users became comfortable with that aspect aswell. after the "training" mission you were then given some background story mainly involving how the main character "cole" feels about the society around him (calling them "hypocrites" but also loving the attention) and setting up his dark brooding nature.
after that it let you play around with the sandbox style of play they teased you with so you became engrossed in this world only to be cut short by a warning telling you to do a mission or cya next time!

to me, this was a wonderful example of a demo. as you described a "good" demo, it taught me the core mechanics, it drew me into the story and it let me play around within a reasonable limitation so that i desired more and wanted to go and purchase it.

 

[DYin01]

The Red Faction demo is really drawing me in at the moment, but there's barely a story. The difference is however, that in Red Faction, the ultimate chaos and destruction of everything IS the selling point. The promise of a free roaming world (it gives you a good view of how big the world actually is at the end) and being able to manually destroy everything you come across is very appealing to me.

Before that, the best demo I played was Crackdown. The setting was explained immediately and you get a small sense of accomplishment throughout the demo because you can advance in several skills in the time you get. I bought Crackdown when it was released and I loved it. I hope I'll love Red Faction as well because I'm going to buy it!

 

[Goldeneye103X2]

Answer: inFamous, it showed the comic cutscenes which were intriging but I mostly just noticed the ace lightning powers and jumping around the city.

Seconded! I hate how if you spend too much time messing around then you get a 60 second timer asking you to start a mission. Still, that demo was enough to make me want to buy the full game as soon as i can.

 

[SilverKyo]

My last good Demo had to be Too Human, which took an hour, presented enough of the combat and story, and cut off right before an interesting fight. The Demo was literally about a fifth of the game. the problem is that the full game was much more bland. i played it co-op and i still found it a little dull, i couldn't bear it solo. The one before that had to be Bioshock, and every other demo has been crap on a stick.

 

[IgneusMaeror]

It must have been the demo of the first penny arcade episode. It was surprisingly long, so long I actually decided to go buy it without finishing the demo. I still haven't (bought the game), I may add, but I'm going to.

 

[Shamanic Enzan]

I don't really play demos anymore. The only really decent ones were for racing games. The only one I can remember that made me want the game in question was Audiosurf. Of course my memory is shot.

 

[KingParappa]

Answer: inFamous, it showed the comic cutscenes which were intriging but I mostly just noticed the ace lightning powers and jumping around the city.

Same here

 

[Computer-Noob]

I play Wow. Apparently in certain places on the internet I'm some sort of gibbering cannibalistic retard.

Someone once told me that if I played another MMO i'd immediately quit WoW.

So I did just that. I downloaded trials for LOTRO, WAR, AoC, and CoH. At different times, obviously not at once. So far, NOT ONE has worked on my computer. I made forum accounts and sent emails to ask for help, but...

-AOC's and WAR's forums require you to have made an existing character. The error I got was in the trial, and after wathcing videos, they're pretty much rip-offs of WoW anyways. I'm not missing anything.
-LOTRO has retarded-ly high system requirements. According to the trial downloader, I would have had to leave my computer on for a year for it to download. My computer lets me hold WoW, Guild Wars, WC3+Expansion, BFME2, Age of Empires 2, and Gears of War with no lag. I'm pretty sure this was an error with the trial, but just with that issue alone I really dont want to bother with a game that just looks like just another rip-off.
-I'm currently working on getting my CoH trial sorted out.

Having played WoW, I didn't find the trial to fun, considering you dont have access to zone-chat functions, but I found it easy to download and get working. Get a trial that doesnt require you to message support 3 times, and I'll buy it.

 

[MasterMuffinMan]

There were two about the same time that made me buy the game, but there hasn't really been any since: Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 and Uplink. THPS3 gave you a full level, which was pretty generous, given there's only about 10 in the whole game. I played that demo to death, so by the time I got the game, I could do Foundry in one go

Uplink let you get a fair way through, enough to get past the inevitable boring "AAA, all my stuff sucks" stage, but cut you off soon enough to get you to buy the full thing. Looked like Teletext, but made you feel like a pr0 h4xx0r.

 

[theultimateend]

Your Demo Sucks

Have developers forgotten the purpose of a demo?

Read Full Article

Demo's have gotten progressively worse while developers raise game prices and demand you take the risk while all the time reminding you that you can't return their game no matter how terrible it is.

Of course none of this in any way helps sustain software piracy, no no no, game makers are innocent victims in the whole ordeal.

 

[ultimatechance]

I dont know if you know this, but RE5 is one of the most downloaded, popular, and well-received demos over the world of XBL. It became a top selling game, and got shitloads of those people who have never touched and RE game before to buy it. It gave the player weapons that they dont even get yet at that point of the game, placed them in action packed areas, and even online co-op for replayability.

Narrative is not always the best part of a demo. Having a game that doesn't suck is the best part of a demo. If I wanted narrative, I will go to the game's main website for drop down menus on the story, and bios of the characters. For example, I was not a fan of the Bioshock demo's intro, because I already know that I crash into Rapture, so why the hell would I want to spend minutes swimming to shore, finding the wrench, then getting a power? I would rather just have whatever powers from the start, then run in and mindlessly kill people. Dont get me wrong, I think that story is one of the top things in a game. But in a demo? All you can do in a demo is offer a snippet, then leave a cliffhanger to piss the player off before you give out a spoiler in the full game.

In a demo, I want to jump in, kick some ass, and then get out. If the game fails at making that fun, then I wont get the game. That is how a demo should be looked at.

 

[maximara]

I agree the quality of standard demo vs the actual game has gone over a cliff but then I am on an mac, a platform that is in worst shape then getting a PC game in Oz. Demos are few and far between and a good many seem to be designed to make the game they are promoting as boring as possible.

 

[eelel]

i agree with u it is defenetly stupid

 

[marcjfarmer]

The only demos I've played recently that were any good were for sports games e.g. Fight Night Round 4, NHL 09 and UFC Undisputed 09. Probably the lack of any sort of story in those games helped. Other than that I can't think of one story based game demo I've enjoyed, or has made me want to play that game any more than I was originally going to.