What are some good demos to try?

[Dis]

I'm looking for a new game, but I'm unwilling to spend money on it until I know if I like it or not. I've had a couple of duds the past few months. I want to try some demos.

And I'm looking to expand into other genres. I've never really played any wargames. Are there any demos for wargames? I'm also looking for strategy and rpg's of course. Also I'm kind of interested in adventure games, I've never played them (not since text adventures anyways), and I'd like to give them a try. Feel free to recommend other genres as well.

I'm only looking for games that have demos available for download.

[Solver]

Half-Life 2 .

Rome:Total War has a demo.

[lord of the mark]

i havent checked any recent demos, but wargames DO have demos. I played a demo of The Operational Art of War sometime back - the demo is the first couple of months of the Korea scenario, IIRC.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Solver
Half-Life 2 .

Rome:Total War has a demo.

Half Life 2 sucks. Actually from what I heard of that steam thing, I want no part of it.

[quantum_mechani]

Here are some good demos:

Escape Velocity: Nova

A nice space RPG.

Spiderweb Software

More great RPG demos than you can shake a stick at (I would recommend starting with blades of avernum).

Dominions II

The world's best TBS game.

[Dis]

ahh cool, dominion II has a demo. I've been wanting to try that game.

Although I think I remember installing the demo before, and not being able to get it to work. I'll try again.

[Dis]

bump

[Solver]

Half-Life 2 doesn't suck, Steam does. You're right to want nothing to do with that piece of crap...

[Adagio]

If you want to try an adventure game you should try the best one:

The Longest Journey

So far I haven't found anyone who likes adventure games who doesn't like that one
It is "old" but still the best looking adventure game around. I believe you can find it cheap these days. I know there's a demo to this game, but the demo doesn't really give anything (it's only one chapter of the... uhmm... 12 (?) chapters)

[Trifna]

Syndicate (it's so old... get the complete game since the subsequent misssions really get more serious. Demo here: http://eager.back2roots.org/DEMO/index.html#S)
Apparently "Syndicate Wars" (out in 1996) captured the feeling of the original. I played A"Syndicate: American Revolt", which is harder than Syndicate.

Corporate Machine, and Political Machine (games working in similar ways)


Capitalism 2

[Adagio]

Syndicate Wars is great, but doesn't work on modern computers

[Trifna]

It does... but you need to use this old "EM memory" or something. This means to tweak something in some way I don't remember (convert some RAM to that I think)............. it was easy anyway.

You'd need to go on some IRC #help channel to ask.

[Adagio]

Does that make it run slower? For me it runs with 100000+ fps (both WinXP and Win98SE)

[Dis]

I actually have syndicate wars. That game kicks my ass. I got stuck on this one mission, and just gave up

[Atragon]

I would suggest Massive Assault, and its sequal Domination... just be careful when searching for the sequal, use 'Massive Assault: Domination' as the search string.