Corresponding with my blog entry, I'm trying to think of games where I played the demo and then bought the game, or played the demo and DIDN'T. It threatens to be a long list if I remember everything, or short one if I exhaust myself before I manage to think of too many.
One of the first shareware titles we bought. I loved this game. In some ways I liked it more than Doom, just because, at the time, the World War II theme (and weird science underpinnings) weren't played into the bloody ground back then. I also liked that the levels had a portion of mastery to them, such that you could guess where secrets were by how big a wall section might be. No guarantee, though, of course.
Was fun to upgrade to the full and see new enemies, new textures, that sort of thing. No new items, though. Not in the version I played.
Upgrading in this engine was a lot more dramatic than for Wolf 3D. You got energy weapons, new enemies (including my fave, the Cacodemon), and the levels tripped out something fierce. Playing the game now I realize a lot of the traps are pretty cheap, but it's still a fun game after all this time, and well worth it to upgrade. Hell, I think they're STILL selling this game after all this time. Never played much multiplayer. I wonder if it's even possible.
Upgrading this actually taught me that not all upgrades can feel right. The demo only allowed 7 species (instead of the full complement) with a very limited time to make contact and develop your tech in a set star cluster before the clock ran out. It became an art to see just how you could optimize your colony's growth. With the full version, the game's size tended to overwhelm the building of colonies, as with many 4X games. I still loved it, and I was ultimately glad we got the full version, but there was something about the micro-managing efficiency of the demo that I wound up missing.
In the demo you got free reign on a tiny island, where you could run around and get quests in, and be a jerk to your ancestors via looting graveyards. I think even the demo was buggy, but not as much as the full title. Without the main quest, though, it probably didn't have a whole lot to go on. I pretty much only played the full version, since this was back when I was still intimidated by RPGs.
I think I'm better now at pinball than I ever was. I never got close to making that android live, but at the time it was one of the best pinball simulations I played. Never upgraded, but I kinda wish we had.
Another "kinda wish we had" would be the action adventure trading space game Solar Winds, also from Epic Megagames. The shareware version ended on a cliffhanger and I liked where the game was going, but when I think of how hard I found it to trust shareware releases to deliver more gameplay (instead of more of the same... play), I think of this Solar Winds. I never found out if my prejudice was justified.
A demo of this came packed in with another game, and I played it to completion. I remember enjoying my first playthrough, but when I tried to play it again recently, all I was was annoyed. I guess I found it charming that they referenced all these movies, had cute, lewd little cartoony characters getting brutalized, and... I dunno, chocolate for health? It wasn't interesting enough to complete when I tried it again.
Another XBox demo, Republic Commando impressed me. It was probably the only time where those stupid droid troopers actually felt menacing. When I tried to dive in later on I found there were too many options and not enough tutorial, so I put it aside. The demo isn't very long, I think there might be two complete mission segments, but I think it had a lot of cool features and a nice science fantasy patina over the usual drab shooter stuff. I guess it also had some innovations copied by shooters that came after it, which is neat at least from a historical perspective. I heard the game was short, though, so I don't know if I would have bought it given a chance. Probably back then. Not so sure now unless it was cheap.
This was actually pretty fun. Like Commander Keen, it seemed that some of the items were just for points, so it didn't seem as interesting as collecting something that would have gameplay impact. The game was also pretty difficult, with some traps that were a bit sinister. Was really fun to shoot the hell out of zombies with that slingshot, though. Never bought the full one, but it's one of the shareware games where I wonder whether buying a full game would upgrade the experience at all.
Given that I've played this demo a LOT, and actually now customized the deck quite a bit, I have to say I like this game WAY more than I was expecting. All the little stats are no longer intimidating to me. It took me diving in rather than being intimidated, but I find myself actually playing a game now that not only has hexes, but has air strikes, ground support, anti-aircraft fire, a ton of things that I used to find irritating that kept me from playing strategy games, just because one had to keep all these picky interactions in mind when moving from one place to another. It's even got lines of supply and I've adapted, and although I don't always keep things straight in my head and forget to check if a unit is in supply before setting up a remote base, I don't curse the game gods about it anymore. All of that past me now, I can enjoy the bleak, high-tech wasteland war, with its many surprises hidden in the crags and ruins. The randomness of the deck can be dispiriting, though. What perhaps endangers a purchase for me is that, right now at least, I seem to have a fairly high rate of success in the demo's thirty day time limit; I've managed to take out the enemy headquarters quite a bit before the time limit expired. It makes me a bit wary of getting the full game, although the addition of those extra factions and not worrying about a time limit might make things a bit less constricted, I also wonder if the time limit actually increases my enjoyment, because it forces me to be efficient and not take forever...
Infiltrating a Mechanist gathering, you navigate across rooftops to the Mechanist complex, pickpocketing, dodging guards, overhearing conversations, breaking into a wizard's tower, and then there's the complex itself with its guards, guests, and mechanical monstrosities. An ENTIRE level, one of the most complicated in the game, absolutely generous and a perfect encapsulation of what Thief had to offer. And on top of all this, the game itself was biblical awesome.
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