Demo Man

Here's a hint for game developers: If you're going to release a demo of your Next Big Thing, make sure it's actually good enough for people to want to get the full thing. There's nothing worse than spending ages downloading a massive new demo only to find that you might as well have not bothered. Here're a few of the more recent examples:

On the face of it, War World was everything I was looking for. Fast-paced, Unreal-style multiplayer madness, with giant robots - a winning formula in my eyes. But when all you've got to go on is a Trial Version that features one playable mech, a single map and gametype - and a mere 50 seconds with which to get to experience it - you've got something so pointlessly short and restricting that savvy consumers are going to avoid shelling out for the full game just to see if it's actually any better. Worst part is, it's not even that bad a game - but the demo lost me completely.

Going back in time a bit here, but I'm a real sucker for alternate histories, and the concept be hing Turning Point: Fall of Liberty intrigued me. The demo was more than enough to put me off the full game though - it was one of the buggiest and most unpolished games I've ever seen. What did amuse me though, was the fact that the devs, Spark Unlimited, did their utmost to reassure everyone that all the problems would be fixed for the gold versions. Damage had been done, lads.

Beautiful Katamari was another let down. Great concept, wonderful visual style and beautifully realised controls - but less than two minutes to actually play the game. It took longer to boot and load the demo than it did to actually play it. LucasArts saved me £40 on Fracture by putting the bulk of its gimmicks in the first level. Unreal III showed me that the game wouldn't run properly on my PC, and even if it did, I wouldn't like it because it felt too consoley.

It doesn't stop there. Tie-ins that come out long after the actual event has finished, demos that don't actually work (I couldn't download last year's Pro Evo demo, and had to make do with Fifa), demos of peripheral-based games (I don't understand why you'd want to play Guitar Hero without the controller - the guitar is half the fun).

What developers don't seem to realise is that these demos can make or break their game - units are frequently shifted solely on the strength of the demo. I've found a number of little gems that I wouldn't otherwise have bothered with -Skate, Stuntman: Ignition, Mirrors Edge- and this is a habit that goes back to my early days as a PC gamer.

Savvy spenders will always want to try before they buy, and the relatively new luxury of free downloadable trial versions is formidable new power for the console consumer. Those that make the games we play are in for an interesting choice - to release a demo, and allow the public to make their minds up before launch date, or not release a demo at all, and lose the potential sales to those that wouldn't otherwise have given it a second look?

In any case, which is the greater crime - the good demo of the bad game, or the bad demo of the good one?

Achievement Unlocked

I have a confession to make. Whenever I put a new game into my 360, the first thing I do is have a look through the Achievement list. I’ll scroll down the list, see what you have to do to get those Gamerpoints, which are easily obtainable on the first playthrough. It makes me feel dirty and shallow, but when you’re a relatively new 360 owner, being faced with a Friends List full of mighty Gamerscores can make you feel a tad insignificant. So every point counts.

One thing that the Achievement list does tell me, though, is just how much effort the developers have put into them. It doesn’t take long to realise that 95% of all Achievements out there are variations on a theme - complete a level, collect something, get a new high score. Repetition is the key – and it’s boring.

I’m not saying I’m dead against ‘progress’ Achievements – after all, giving the player frequent rewards is a sure fire way to get them to keep playing. However, when the vast majority of Achievements in your game are made up of the sort of thing you’re going to be doing during the game anyway, then they cease to be achievements. Instead, I’d like to see such rewards given a relatively low number of points, and more focus given to the more difficult or obscure activities.

Japanese games are most often guilty of unimaginative rewards, with the average title containing between 5-20 different Achievements based on doing the same thing over and over. This is fine for the Japanese market, where gamers have the mindset for grinding and lengthy unlock processes. Indeed, these are some of the hardest Achievements to get – not necessarily because they’re difficult, but because of the sheer amount of time needed to invest to get them.

Western gamers, though, tend to need something new and shiny to spur them on, and Achievements are the literal carrot on the string for the short of attention span (including myself, I’ll admit). Having a good mix of campaign, collection, and multiplayer Achievements is rare, particularly if you want to give your game an acceptable difficulty curve.

It’s getting on a bit now, but Crackdown is still a good example of Achievements done right. Sure, there are the usual progress ones for going through the game as you normally would, but they’re worth a couple of hundred points, at most. The real meat of the points come from exploration and messing around in the world – the player is actively encouraged to drive into, blow up and jump off stuff in many different ways, and is rewarded accordingly.

Instead of forcing gamers to play in a specific way, or to struggle through the campaign on the hardest difficulty setting, Achievements should be there to encourage them to try new things. More Achievements should be secret – not revealed at all until the player triggers it, otherwise there’s no sense of discovery – of achievement. They should be more than simple checklists for the obsessive-compulsive. And with the PS3 getting its shiny new Trophies any day now, the need for creativity dressing up these carrots has never been stronger.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go and hunt some pigeons.