As has been mentioned already some games just are not suited to demos. Demos for adventure games would be utterley pointless, If I’d ever played a demo for, say, Grim Fandango, it would have told me next to nothing. I might have got an idea of the general ambience of the game but little else.

However demos are important. If I am unsure about a game I will try the demo. The only way the demo will stop me buying the game is if I totally hate it. Clearly the demo has served a purpose there. If the demo is average or good, then I’ll probably buy the game based on reviews - or just how I feel on the day.

Demo’s however are rarely good. Especially demos based on random levels in a game and just giving you a slice of the action in a middle section of the game, with little intoduction of how to play and what is going on.

Take for example Darwinia (especially since I want to bring this game to people’s attention).

The original demo of the game was from about the third or fourth level of the game and just threw you in and let you play. I didn’t enjoy it that much and as such didn’t buy Darwinia until I bought it on impulse several months later after a positive special feature in PC Gamer (once again prooving that for me at least, reviews are what makes me buy games).

Recently there has been a new demo of Darwinia released - a level not featured in the game. In fact the level is set after the events in the game.

This is in my opinion a masterstroke for a demo. It allows the events of the game to be alluded to, making whoever plays the demo want to see what went before. Also as a stand alone level it does a much better job of showcasing the game than a random level from the full game, as it is expressley designed to be just one little level on it’s own containing several different styles of gameplay that you meet in the game. This condensing down of the great parts of the game into one short level works a treat. It is in fact up there with the best levels in the main game.

Of course this has been done with the luxury of time, the game was released several months ago and the developers having completed the game, know what makes a good level and what elements of gameplay will best showcase their work.

Things are a lot harder when planning a demo for a games initial release. The developers have a lot of other work on their plates and probably do not feel they have the time to spend on creating the perfect demo for their game. They will just presume that a quick slice of gameplay will be enough to whet people’s appetites.

Which is a shame because a well though out demo, like the new Darwinia demo, would easily win round a lot more people. If I played a great demo like that I would be straight out to buy the game, whereas when the previous demo was released I didn’t buy the game until I’d seen several positive reviews.

Demos are a flawed medium for showcasing a game, but in the right hands and for the right style of game they can be worth it.

Oh and make sure you check out that Darwinia demo!

I found the UT2004 demo to be great. It was fun, demonstrated each type of game style well, and ran wonderfully on my PC. Trying the full version, I found it to also be fun (as expected), but it actually ran really poorly, which I found odd because the demo ran so well for me. I needed to buy another 512MB of RAM before the full version became comfortable.

The BF2 demo was also quite alright, though I haven’t installed the full version myself since, I’ve just played it on a friends PC. But I think the demo gave a pretty solid impression of what to expect there.

That said, both are largely just games for online play, so there is obviously less to showcase than say, an RPG. Speaking of them, the Dungeon Siege 2 demo actually was able to fit a lot of story in, and had quite an expansive map. Overall I think it was a good demo (as far as demonstrating what I am sure is a lousy game), and included a lot, but for crying out loud, it was twice as big as the UT2004 and BF2 demos put together. 1.4 gig, bloody hell.

Given the above, the fair question is “why would you provide a demo that bares little resemblance to the final product?” I can understand why a demo would be concocted entirely from scratch to contain all the major elements of a game without giving the game away (both in terms of content and plot). But I can’t see the point of a demo that’s either a) rough, or b) different to the game itself. For starters it will likely give a bad impression of the likely final product and therefore make the purchaser less likely to buy. Your reports of people canceling pre-orders for Sam 2 seems to confirm this. Personally, if I didn’t like the demo then I’d be canceling my pre-order as well in the same way that I wouldn’t buy a car if I disliked my demonstration. We didn’t buy a Mini Cooper, despite it’s price being acceptable and reviews good, purely because we didn’t like the demo car.

Anyway, I personally put a lot of weight on the demonstration. If I didn’t like it then it’s very unlikely that I’ll want to buy the final game.