The Double-Edged Blade Of Game Demos

I think I've written about this sort of thing before, but it's a slow blogging period right now, so here goes...

I had tentatively planned to buy Dead Space 2 when it comes out later this month, and then just happened to download and play the PS3 demo for the game over the past 24 hours. My relationship with the original Dead Space, which I believe I borrowed off a friend, was a bit uneven. I thought it was a really interesting game with awesome graphics and design, but I didn't like how repetitive it got in the later levels nor how hard it seemed to be to keep myself stocked up with ammo. Given the shock-based, in-your-face nature of the game, I really didn't want to have to conserve ammunition all that much when I had snarling, screaming monsters charging at me from around every corner. Because of those conflicting reactions to Dead Space, I played through most of the campaign but didn't complete it.

Playing the demo this morning, all of the negative attributes came roaring back... in some cases, quite literally! Sure enough, I was having trouble keeping my guns loaded, and I was dying a lot, even though I was playing on the second easiest difficulty (of five, I think!). After about an hour of it, I'd nixed any notion of spending money on this sequel. For saving me the dough, I'm grateful to Visceral Games; and yet I'm sure that wasn't the result they were going for. Ah well.