I remember... 12 years ago, a buddy of mine asked me if I have a 3D accelerator supported graphics card so that we could try and play a demo of "the best game ever made" - Duke Nukem 3D. A week later we were drawing the monsters seen in it on paper.

I remember... 10 years ago I installed a demo of DeusEx off of a CD I got in a gaming magazine. Played that untill every pixel of the game was forever etched into my brain.

The same magazine CD also contained a demo of Tony Hawks Pro Skater 2. I remember I got so good at that particular stage, I stunk at other stages when I got the full version.

I remember... 9 years ago I downloaded an AVP2 single player demo, played that for about 6 months and played the multiplayer demo for about the same time.

Soon after, we got an internet connection and while "Yahoo-ing" for the 1st thing that came to mind ("free games"), I stumbled upon an application called Real Arcade that taught me the horrors of the word "game trial". Real Arcade was an online gaming service which offered free game trials. You installed their application (at the time owned by RealNetworks) and from there you could download these trials, some demos and also buy them. At first I think they only had game demos but later started offering trials. A game trial is essentially a timed game which locks after a certain amount of time has passed while playing it. Reinstalling the game may sometimes reset the timer, but you have to start from the beginning of the game - no saves there. A demo on the other hand is a part of the original game where lots of content is not present and usually has 1 or few stages, a limited number of lets say weapons... but the game is not timed. One can play it for as long as he wishes. So why am I comparing game trials to "horrors". Well right after RealArcde started offering them I of course played some of them and some of the games I really liked. I finally learn the game mechanics, I finally start having fun and BOOM! your trial is over, CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW! I didn't even finish the stage :cry: This became a regular occurrence, I preferred a demo where half of the content wasn't included and you had 2 stages to play with - FOREVER until the end of time! After that, I stopped playing trial games and never payed attention to them... until only recently.

The four games written in bold above, though only a handful mentioned, are one of my favourites and I eventually did buy their full versions. But it didn't stop there, I also bought most of their sequels. Out of all the trials I played in my life, I didn't get any of their full versions.

And now, trials are back to haunt me once again. Though maybe not in the same manner, they have improved but they still contain the evil within them! February 2010, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 multiplayer demo came out. I downloaded it and at that time was busy with other things letf it to be played a week later. So, a week passes, I fire it up and get a message saying "the demo is over"! WHAAAT?! Shouldn't this be a trial or something than? But ok, since its a multiplayer demo, I guess they cant let it run forever. About the same time a multiplayer demo of Aliens vs Predator is released. Same thing happens! Though luckily I did get to play it for 1 hr, the next day - "the demo was over". Again I say to myself, ok its a multilayer demo, I guess they can't leave it running forever. Today, I fire up a so called demo of Need for Speed Hot Pursuit I had downloaded a week ago but never had time to try it out. Guess what. The demo period is over.

I was intending to buy BC2 but not without a test of the game first. Same goes for AVP and NFS. I did NOT buy BC2, I did NOT buy AVP and I am not going to buy NFS. Thank you game trials for returning once again in a way the player can't even control when the trial starts counting down that oh so neat timer, but rather letting the developers/publishers decide this for us. I've said it before and I'm saying it again; If I'm uncertain about getting a game - I'm going to play the demo to see if its worth it. Xbox live community games close after a 15 min trial is played. I do not own any of them, I do not even test them anymore because of this reason.

And as far as game demos go; all of the XBLA games I bought were 1st tested as demos and depending on that I decided if I should buy the game or not. If I wasn't sure still, I played the demo again and again and again until I was. I'm not gonna lie, there have been tons of XBLA demos I played and didn't buy - but there were also some which I bought and wasnt sure of it in the 1st place. I played the Trials HD demo for 3 hours before deciding if I should get it (I did buy it in the end), if it was a 30 min trial instead of a demo - I wouldn't be addicted to that game today and Red Lynx would have been 10$ poorer.

I'm happy PC demo's are still the same good old demos I remember I played 10 and more years ago.