Demo Time Baby!

As I have gotten older I have found myself playing more demos for games.  I cannot recall playing a lot of them when I was younger, but now I look at my PS3 and Steam and there are at least 15 waiting for me.  I will most likely purchase maybe one if any, but it is my downloading of them that startles me.

I was talking with We$$ the other night and we were talking about some demos that I had.  I told him that I had written up a quick draft of this post and we had a nice conversation about how things have changed since we were young in the world of demos.

I don't know why in the past I did not partake in them.  Maybe it was because I was young and did not want to waste time on something that was not the full product.  Thinking that if I liked it great, and if not I wasted my time.

I hate wasting my time.

I think another part was I felt games that were not going to make it big went out on demos.  These were inferior products.

I think about it and I also realize that availability played a big role in things as well.  When we were young the internet was only a small fledgling of what it is now.  Downloading grainy porn pictures was a 30 minutes process for just getting one.  Dial up was king.  The idea of sending music, or even videos, over the internet to someone else was there, but most of us didn't pay too much to the notion.  We were happy with our fuzzy, low resolution pictures.

We$$ reminded me that it used to be that demos only came in gaming magazines.  You would get your issue for that month, and in the middle of the magazine, or in the sealed bag that contained the issue, there would be a disc (I cannot remember any demos for cartridge games, correct me if I am wrong) that you could put in your PC/PS and that was that month's demo.  I didn't really buy any of the gaming magazines.  I got my info through word of mouth and made my gaming purchase decisions based on company that made it, series it was in, genre, and the box art.

It was hard to get demos this way at home.  Yeah you could go to the store and play the game when it was at the kiosk, yet you always ran the risk of some little jackass hogging all the time in this mortal realm playing the game on an infinite loop.  I do remember FFVII being on a full game play at a MediaPlay back in the day that I played at.  In fact, I now remember a lot of full games that one could play.

Anyways, back to the point at hand.  All of this has lead me to talk about just finishing the Journey demo.  Yeah, I am quite late to the Journey game (DON'T START SINGING!!).  The game is absolutely beautiful. Simply amazing.

From thatgamecompany.com

I mean really, look at that screenshot.  That just blows me away.

The wordless story as you adventure alone with the seldom help of a mute stranger, who is someone in real life, is such an appealing, grand idea.  You get to interact with others without having to worry about being shy or taken aback by talking with them.  There is no judging in this realm.

Maybe because of money or some other reason I did not pick this game up.  I have heard about it a lot even before the release.  Even then it seemed appealing to me.  I just did not take the bait of it.  Part of me wants to now.  Amazing how a short, maybe 20 minute demo will do that.

I have other demos on my queue waiting for me to get to them.  Some I will, some I will not.  I think my outlook on them now is that I hope demos really start to kick some ass.  Start bringing in a lot more people to games.  Maybe I was distracted by one amazing one in a haystack filled with crap, but it only takes one to make you want to experience more of them.

It only takes one of make you use it as a viable way to purchase new games.

So here is to good demos.  May they bring good companies more sales.

Been a long time...

God it has been a long time.

An exceedingly long period of counting that concerns seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades, etc. has passed.


And I have been nowhere to usher those (oh few you are) through the journey that we call completing a shitload of bad investments.


Lets do a little self imposed Q&A on what has happened:

Where the flying f**ktards have you been?
Well kids, I have been here, at my computer.  Also over yonder on the couch.  And upstairs sleeping in the bed.  Plus there is hanging with the wife and the pup.  Oh, and that work thing.  Blah to work I say.

There be an issue with the work thing?
Well, work has been pretty intense lately.  There was a chance that the wife and I would be moving but things unfortunately fell through.  So I have been picking up some extra shifts at work in the morning to make some extra cash.

Ok, I am bummed for you since things haven't gone well.  Have you kept up on the games?
Heck yeah.

Really?
Yeah

Really??
...ehhh.  To the best that I can.  With so much work lately I have tried to do my best to get through the list.  I will also say that I fell prey to the Steam Summer Sales program (maybe one of my biggest enemies) and I got some games off of that for my PC.  At least I got a great deal on them.


Over the months I have been working as consistent as I can with getting through the games (always insert title when you can).  I use Backloggery as my main tracker of all my games.  I routinely praise them for such a great site, and they deserve it.  Its so simple and easy to use.  Nothing complicated or annoying notifications that you get at all hours of the day.  This is one of the main reasons why I haven't been keeping up with my blog really.  Cause my thinking was I could just update things on my Backloggery page and those that really wanted to could follow me there.

Ok.  So why decide now to start back on the blog?
Well I can only do so much with Backloggery.  I like to write out my thoughts sometimes.  Elaborate on what my brain and feelings are saying to those out there in cyberland.  Those are really the main reasons.
I think I also have some grand delusion of being famous on the internet for something that does not involve a sex tape.

Note: I do not have a sex tape on the web.

The Q&A session is now over.

Let me catch you up on things.  I have completed a handful of games, added a good amount of games.  And I am carrying on.  That is all that one needs to know.  I am going to update the List so it reflects what is going on.  I should have a new post in the next couple of days.

Look at the picture to get an idea

Can anyone guess what is on the discussion block for today???


Anyone?????


Hmmmm

Maybe its what I consider one of the best platforms to experience games.

Its Steam (made possible by Valve, who also owns the above image.  Thank you)

I have a closeness to Valve and therefore Steam because of my early days of gaming on the PC.  The first First Person Shooters (FPS) that I ever played all the way through and completely obsessed about was Half-Life.  Made possible by Valve.

Honestly, Half-Life is up there as once of the greatest along side some of the grandfathers of the PC FPS genre (Doom, Duke Nukem, etc.)

Half-Life helped to spawn Counter Strike, Day of Defeat, Team Fortress, and other directly.  I can't really think of anyone that plays FPS on PC that has not played Half-Life and its offspring.

I remember back in college I would play Half-Life 2 on my PC as my roommate watched.  It was seriously like watching a movie.  Soo many wasted nights doing that.

Back to Steam though.  I think it appeals to me so much because it allows you to manage your games on PC in one location.  I can buy games off the Steam network if I want to and they will automatically download to my PC.  I can then access them from my Steam client without having to dig around through my HD to find the games.  I can add games to Steam that are not in it's store but I have on my computer so I can load them from Steam, but also take advantage of their cross game chat feature they have for when you want to talk with your friend while playing a game.  Hell, I think its a feature that is the standard and is much better than what the PS3 and Xbox360 have.

There are trophies and achievements as well with Steam, but those don't interest me as much as on the PS3 for some reason.

I think that it comes down to this.  I can keep it running in the background when I am working on the internet, typing a blog ;), or just listening to music.  Then when I am feeling gamey (insert laugh) I just right click on the icon, select my game, and I am off.

Its quite addicting.  Once my new PC is built it will work wonders on that for sure since my current system is quite old (over 10 years) and is chugging along like a Centenarian with organ failure running the Boston Marathon (poor dude ain't even going to make it).

This leads me to another good thing about Steam, which is I can instantly install all my games on another PC to my new one by just installing the client.  It does only support the Steam Store games, but still its amazing.



I know all of that sounded like I am trying to sell a product.  I promise I am not.  I am just happy with my experience with it.