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What PC game demos blew you away?

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The Tie Fighter demo, where iirc your Tie is launched off the corvette 'Prowler'. I played it over, and over, and over, and over...
 
There were two demos that impressed me:
Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis
and Patrician 2

I played both demos for weeks and, of course, bought the games. And I am still playing both games on my notebook 🙂
 
JSt0rm01 said:
diablo 1
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ditto =) It was on a CD I borrowed from a friend that had a bunch of game demos on it. I decided to try this Diablo game out, and was hooked. Made a frantic dash to Wal-Mart that night and bought it =) Made it to map level 13 before I decided to try this "multiplayer" thing out. People were doling out the best hacked/duped gear on battle.net, and in no time, I had a full set. It made the game super easy, and I never did actually finish it (legit anyway). I remember shortly thereafter downloading a hack for it and 1-punching Diablo dead... at that point I was just playing it for laughs.
 
Tomb Raider - it was the first time that I saw Hardware accelerated graphics. I was instantly blown away...
 
Age of Empires 1 demo.

I had meant to get the AoE2 demo, but we had AoE 1 instead. I was always into history more than my brother, he was playing while I watched in sheer awe (I was like 7). My dad watched too, and pretended to be annoyed when the baddies got killed and had blood spill out from them--and he made a few remarks about the enemy houses burning down with little flames poking above them.

For a kid who only had played Sim Tower, Sim City, and Sim Town, this was a colossal shift in understanding what was possible in a game (I had always thought that games were either those dumb fight club games, horror shooters, or Sim City lol) and it definitely changed my life.

We bought AoE 2, but I liked the demo for AoE 1 so much I went back and bought AoE 1 as well, as well as the Rise of Rome expack.

More recently, the Battlefield 2 demo definitely sucked up my life. The demo is the third most played game on my Xfire account, stacking up an impressive 185 hours, but I had been playing the demo since June of 2005 and didn't get xfire til around March 2006--so you can guess this number is a little off. 😛


Battlefield 2 itself is 420 hours. 😱
 
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Qtest !!

Another vote for Dungeon Siege. I bought it as well as the expansions and DSII.
 
Majesty, Townopolis, Space Empires III, Freedom Force, GRID, Company of Heroes, Battlefield 2. The demo for Doom 3 actually turned me off, because I don't like being scared out of my skin. Technically impressive, though. I also liked Titan Quest, but after playing it a lot on Gametap, I decided I was wasting too much time on mindless point-and-clicking. One of the reasons I won't buy Diablo II.

Back when I used to rent games (the old version of demos), I was so impressed by Final Fantasy II and The Legend of Zelda that I had to have them.
 
AoE 1 :Rise of Rome demo is what started me as a PC gamer, before that i was Console only... since then i always play more games on PC than consoles.
 
TehMac said:
Age of Empires 1 demo.

I had meant to get the AoE2 demo, but we had AoE 1 instead. I was always into history more than my brother, he was playing while I watched in sheer awe (I was like 7). My dad watched too, and pretended to be annoyed when the baddies got killed and had blood spill out from them--and he made a few remarks about the enemy houses burning down with little flames poking above them.

For a kid who only had played Sim Tower, Sim City, and Sim Town, this was a colossal shift in understanding what was possible in a game (I had always thought that games were either those dumb fight club games, horror shooters, or Sim City lol) and it definitely changed my life.

We bought AoE 2, but I liked the demo for AoE 1 so much I went back and bought AoE 1 as well, as well as the Rise of Rome expack.

More recently, the Battlefield 2 demo definitely sucked up my life. The demo is the third most played game on my Xfire account, stacking up an impressive 185 hours, but I had been playing the demo since June of 2005 and didn't get xfire til around March 2006--so you can guess this number is a little off. 😛


Battlefield 2 itself is 420 hours. 😱
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Nice... SimTower and SimCity were games I played tons too when I was younger.

Also, like you, BF2 ate up a lot of my time a few years ago. I played it quite a bit. I do love that game, I should try it again (servers will be lacking though obviously)

If I was at home, I'd post my hours spent on Left 4 Dead 2... It's up there, and has only been out since November, 2009. With all the new mutations and game modes, it is impossible to get bored. I just love that game.
 
CoinOperatedBoy said:
Unreal Tournament '99. Actually, I guess the demo was a little too good because I played so much Instagib CTF on the demo that it took me a year or two before I bought the full version, and then I didn't even play it much.
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lol I played UT04 demo a lot before I sprung for the Full version, only game to this day that was worth it.
 
BF2, hands down. Less than 2 weeks into playing the demo, I was out buying enough parts to build a new machine ($1200). Less than 2 years later, I built the 2 rigs in my sig, primarily for BF2. Of course I did a few small upgrades since, but you get the point. I seriously doubt I'll ever do that again for another game. I still average about 12 hours a week playing BF2.
 
The one that i remember very vividly was Ascendancy. Before moo and moo2, the ascendancy demo came out and was just flat out awesome.

On that same token, Deadlock.

"The tarth are big the tarth are tough the tarth will cause you pain. They aren't too bright but when you can headbutt buildings, who needs brains? They've got the greatest farmers but as spies they suck you see. They try to hide their six-foot width behind a one-foot tree."

What a great game.
 
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