03-02-2023, 02:27 AM
When I was a kid, my main source of gaming thrills were demo CDs and shareware copies of really popular games.
That's because I was firmly middle class and keeping up with the ever-growing gaming tendencies just wasn't on the cards for me, but I'm actually thankful for this, because those demos and sharewares made me appreciate just how much thought was put into showcasing the right parts of one's game in order for people to get hyped about it and eventually buy it. And I'm saying that because I can count the number of games whose full versions I actually liked from the demos I played with one hand.
Perhaps the most dramatic example of this was "Test Drive 4".
Boy, I LOVED the TD4 demo and I installed it on every computer I ever laid my hands on (own or otherwise) and I distinctly remember playing endless races against my sister on the ONE track the demo included, all whilst alternating between the TWO cars it let you use. But we didn't care about such limitations, because the game was showing enough promise that I just kept making mental notes about it and I was sure that I would, one day, own the full thing.
Fast forward to many, many, many years later when I actually landed a full version of the game and... ummm... something was not right. It could totally be that I was much older by that point and I had definitely seen better in the meantime, but that wasn't it - the game just didn't feel right the more I played it and something felt off about the whole thing, which led me to uninstall it after just a couple of days. The disappointment was immense for me and I'm still kind of bitter about it, because I had been looking forward to it since before I had turned 10.
What was wrong, exactly? I couldn't tell, really. The graphics looked really dated for sure, but I was expecting that and I wasn't about to hold that against an ancient game from my early childhood (and in fact, I liked the blocky, retro feel). The handling really pissed me off, but that wouldn't ruin the game for me on its own, either. Maybe it was not finding anything of note what dealt the killing blow for me... whatever the case, I had never been so disappointed with a game in my life and I'm only thankful that that experience with the whole thing couldn't really change the happy memories I had with its demo.
I'm not going to go into detail about them, but the same thing happen with the demos of "Virtua Fighter", "Tomb Raider" and a few other games: loved the demos, played each one a million times and a half on more than one system, couldn't stand the full thing.
Has something like that happened to you as well?
That's because I was firmly middle class and keeping up with the ever-growing gaming tendencies just wasn't on the cards for me, but I'm actually thankful for this, because those demos and sharewares made me appreciate just how much thought was put into showcasing the right parts of one's game in order for people to get hyped about it and eventually buy it. And I'm saying that because I can count the number of games whose full versions I actually liked from the demos I played with one hand.
Perhaps the most dramatic example of this was "Test Drive 4".
Boy, I LOVED the TD4 demo and I installed it on every computer I ever laid my hands on (own or otherwise) and I distinctly remember playing endless races against my sister on the ONE track the demo included, all whilst alternating between the TWO cars it let you use. But we didn't care about such limitations, because the game was showing enough promise that I just kept making mental notes about it and I was sure that I would, one day, own the full thing.
Fast forward to many, many, many years later when I actually landed a full version of the game and... ummm... something was not right. It could totally be that I was much older by that point and I had definitely seen better in the meantime, but that wasn't it - the game just didn't feel right the more I played it and something felt off about the whole thing, which led me to uninstall it after just a couple of days. The disappointment was immense for me and I'm still kind of bitter about it, because I had been looking forward to it since before I had turned 10.
What was wrong, exactly? I couldn't tell, really. The graphics looked really dated for sure, but I was expecting that and I wasn't about to hold that against an ancient game from my early childhood (and in fact, I liked the blocky, retro feel). The handling really pissed me off, but that wouldn't ruin the game for me on its own, either. Maybe it was not finding anything of note what dealt the killing blow for me... whatever the case, I had never been so disappointed with a game in my life and I'm only thankful that that experience with the whole thing couldn't really change the happy memories I had with its demo.
I'm not going to go into detail about them, but the same thing happen with the demos of "Virtua Fighter", "Tomb Raider" and a few other games: loved the demos, played each one a million times and a half on more than one system, couldn't stand the full thing.
Has something like that happened to you as well?
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