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What are the best game demos?

Just Cause 2 and UT2k4. ONS-Torlan is still one of the best maps in a game ever. You hardly needed anything else.
 
Just Cause 2

Dead Rising

Kingdoms of Amalur

KoFXIII (Dat online play!)

BF1942/BF2

Bioshock

Power Stone

Viewtiful Joe

Brave Fencer Musashi

I remember being all giddy whenever I'd get a demo disc from OPM. That always ended up being hours of entertainment.
 
Skies of Arcadia demo.

That 2 hours demo when Dreamcast was already dead is unforgetteable.

Jet Set Radio demo didn't do justice to that game. Once I put in the retail game I was blown away.
 
Crackdown is the only answer to that question.

Honorable mention to Just Cause 2 and Burnout Paradise.

Lost Planet 2, also. The demo was far better than the final game, which is saying a lot.
 
BIOHAZARD 4

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Played it 50+ times by the time RE4 was released.
 
The best demo always has been and always will be the Capcom vs SNK 2 "Demo" for the original Xbox. It was the full game just without Online Functionality.
 
Prey

It was the best demo because it made me want to buy the game. Little did I know that the demo part was the best part of the game.

Blue Oyster Cult.
 
The Lost Planet online demo that came preinstalled on my 360 got a lot of hours out of me.

Battlefield Bad Company 2 had a very fun demo as well.
 
ponpo said:
This is probably just nostalgia speaking, but that weird deep sea diving / treasure finding PS1 game that came on a demo disc with the system was pretty awesome.
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Edit:I thought you were talking about this game.

I remember Treasures of the Deep too. Developped by Black Ops Entertainment, and edited by par Namco. Released in 1998.

vSOeb.jpg


Best demo ever.
 
I played the MGS1 and MGS2 demos for hours and hours on end, I never tired of them...

I remember playing the MGS1 demo in Japanese before an english version came out, though. Can't remember what the difference was.

Always loved getting the OPM or getting one of those PS Underground discs, just a whole disc full of demos. I know I played a lot of them but the MGS stand out most.
 
Just Cause 2: All the things you can do. It really showed you all the potential of the game. It was trying to do all the possible things on those 30 minutes. When I showed it to a friend, he played it like 4 or 5 times.

Fight Night Round 4: You can a fight a match of Muhamad Ali vs. Mike Tyson! And as a game is wonderful, one of the better boxing simulators I've ever played. This Demo has a little advantage over the full game, and that is blood. It is a shame the full game doesn't have it, because it is really good.

Blur Multiplayer: I liked it because it included many unlocks. The game is really cool. The only downside were connection issues.

And for me, the best demo of all...
Battlefield Bad Company 2: You have no idea how many hours I spent on this demo. How many Battlefield moments. How much destruction. Really. I gathered with my friends to play it. I got new friends! I made a Vodnik fly over me. I killed a stupid UAV pilot that was destroying my team. I blew three helicopters mith a tank (actually I was the passenger, in that tank). I destroyed houses, and walls. I learned to use C4 on tanks... Best two weeks on xbox (before full game)
 
Just Cause 2, easily. Saw the gif of the makeshift jetpack (you know the one) and knew I had to at least try the demo.

I remember playing the shit out of the THPS and DoA2 Dreamcast demos, too.
 
Dark Octave said:
I'm having a lot of fun with the Sniper Elite V2 demo.

Kind of afraid to get the rest of the game though. I hear it's iffy.
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If you enjoy the demo you should like the game. There isn't much more to it, but some of the levels are interesting and it can be a fairly good stealth game at times. I got it for cheap and didn't regret it, it's hard to get sick of that x-ray bullet cam.
 
I quite liked the Final Fantasy XIII-2 demo, as it lasts around 90-120 minutes and you basically get thrown in, letting you explore a bigger area and fighting a boss in the end.

Rayman Origins has 2 1/2 level to play, you can even play co-op and there is actually a bonus if you get all 9 lums in the demo. Played through it and then again later to get all lums.
 
Torchlight's pretty good (and long). Melty Blood's demo has multiplayer enabled (but I can't seem to get it working).
 
I don't know which one is the best but I'm gonna say first pro evolution soccer. I played soooooo many hours that demo that it's ridiculous. Never bought the game tho but I bought PES2 day 1.
 
best in terms of me remembering playing them over and over would be doom, diablo and omf2097 (or most shareware tbh). i was young at the time and had no means of acquiring the full versions until much later.

in terms of more recent demos, i usually only bother to try out psn game demos. dungeon defenders demo was pretty awesome and allowed multiplayer. the tetris demo was terrible and annoyed me to the point where i refused to buy it, even when it went on sale for like $3 or something. was only considering it for the multiplayer and the demo had no multiplayer options in it.
 
EV Nova, it's super long and expansive as far as demos go, and it has one of the best shareware methods I've come across:
Captain Hector, the ever-present ship that flies around reminding you to pay your shareware fee, stops playing nice after your trial period expires, and decides to just kill you instead. I literally laughed out loud the first time this happened. Technically you could still try to play if you wanted to, I guess, it's just very hard to escape being killed by Captain Hector.
 
Unreal Tournament 2004 had the best multiplayer FPS demo ever. I doubt it will ever be surpassed.

Deathmatch & Team Deathmatch map: Rankin
Capture the Flag map: Bridge of Fate
Assault map: Convoy
Bombing Run map: Colossus
Onlaught maps: Torlan & Primeval

Some of the best maps in the series. The full game, despite being awesome, was actually underwhelming in comparison.

Battlefield 1942's demo was great with Wake Island but you can't beat this variety. It might as well have been a DD game.

Also, I believe that in the early days of 3D fighting games it wasn't uncommon to get demos that allowed you to choose any normal character and play against the AI or, more importantly, a friend. Basically you didn't need to buy the game unless you wanted the unlockable characters and single player "campaign" modes. Virtual On was like that but it too is an unconventional fighting game.
 
Ninja Gaiden 1 (Xbox) - came out a long time before the game, thanks to delays. But it was fun to play through many times

Devil May Cry 3 - there was a japanese demo that I played the hell out of on my modded ps2


Lost Planet - had wayyyy more fun with this then the game, surprisingly enough. It also came out way before the game.
 
GTA. I probably played it hundreds of times, seeing how much damage you could cause before the timer ran out. It was almost better than the full game.
 
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