My Video Game Side Quest: Demos

    If you weren't sure about whether or not to buy a game or system, there was really only one option back in the 80s--demos. Many places had systems set up so that one could try out a game or two for certain systems. The first one I ever tried was in the early 80s. I went with my mom on Saturday morning to South Mayo Tire to either get the tires rotated or the oil changed. Instead of waiting downstairs, we went upstairs to the electronics department where they had some video game system demo. Of course, I went to play with it. I was having troubles with it though, probably because I was holding the controller upside down, (I have always been a little ambidextrous, doing things offhandedly, so I had the directional buttons on the right and the action buttons on the left, which was backwards.) After a few minutes, my mom forced me off, even though we were basically the only people up there. I spent the rest of the time watching a Smurfs cartoon I don't think I had seen yet. She never took me back, going elsewhere for maintenance when I was there. South Mayo Tire may have gotten rid of its electronics section a long time ago, but it is otherwise still in business. 

    Other stores had demos too.  The ones I remember most were the original location of Lowe's in Pikeville and the Sears at the Huntington Mall. The latter one may have had a Phillips CD-i with the cursed Zelda game port on display. I don't remember ever playing any of them. Video game stores also had some demos up, but I never played them either, as they were usually at distant malls where I didn't have all that extra time to play games.

    In the mid/late 90s, when I was unemployed, I would make trips to Prestonsburg just to break the monotony. One thing I did was go to Walmart and play Super Mario 64 on the GC demo for a few minutes, usually after I lost a few lives. I thought it was fun combining my takes with others to beat the game. There were other system demos up, but I never tried those. I would wind up playing other games at GC demos in Paintsville and Norton. (Walmart has since opened larger, Superstore locations nearby at both spots.). Today, you can't find demos at Walmart, at least locally. Some gaming stores might have playable demos up, but I so rarely go into them and I rarely have enough time to play when I do go.

    I had another way to demo games in the 90s. The Official US Playstation Magazine used to have a demo disc in every issue.  Similar to the disc I got with my PS1, the discs had previews and playable levels to a number of games each issue. These discs were the main reason why I bought one almost every month. The mag even had a mini-guide for many of the playable demos, so you could complete them. Some of the levels could be replayed as many times as you wanted.  Others ended as soon as you lost all your lives, and you couldn't replay it until you reloaded the CD. A few were on a timer, ending after ten minutes or so. I replayed one game multiple times to see as far it went, always losing my lives or hitting the time limit, before I finally finished it, only to get an ending saying you needed the full version of the game to see more.

    While I didn't play every game, or watch every preview reel, I played most of them. In fact, some of them were more enjoyable than some of my full games. For a few months after the 2003 flood, those demos were all I had to play until I could buy more new games. Yes, strangely enough, I had saved most of the demo discs, as well as getting newer ones. 

    Ultimately, the magazine was cancelled, so I had no more new demos. A few other free discs had been available at places, but I never tried them as I was afraid of their dubious nature. Nowadays, with most games being digital, such demos would be hard to come by anyway, even if I had a newer system. I think I remember seeing something packaged with some of the few gaming mags that are still left, but I don't know if any of them were demos. 

    The next few posts will be about the games I only bought because I loved the demos so much. None of them were typical of what I would have normally bought, and I might not even considered them unless I had had them as part of a demo.