Hmm, I dunno, Q3Test certainly felt quite different from the final incarnation. More of a pre-demo, though.

Doom never had a retail release outside the shareware and Ultimate versions. Doom 1.1 had sound pitching, an offensive room in e1m4, broken GUS support, multiple monitor support for wider FOV by network, etc...

Star Trek Voyager Elite Force demo had blood and different player sounds!

leileilol wrote:

Doom never had a retail release outside the shareware and Ultimate versions. Doom 1.1 had sound pitching, an offensive room in e1m4, broken GUS support, multiple monitor support for wider FOV by network, etc...

Star Trek Voyager Elite Force demo had blood and different player sounds!

Oh yes, the days of mail-order. And that swastika room in E1M4. Nathan has a bunch of good stuff on his site for those interested in all the old Doom stuff, including the press-release demo version:

http://www.toastytech.com/dooma/alphapr.html

Can't believe they took the blood feature out of the retail Elite Force release (never played the final version).

leileilol wrote:

multiple monitor support for wider FOV by network, etc...

Hehe, I remember back in the day (when I lived in Miami, and first 'officially' starting my PC business) working on a customer's small office network setup.

I gave him a *discount* for allowing me to sweet talk him into letting me borrow his network for an hour or so, so's I could try the DOOM FOV network thing out 🤣!

Man! That was cool looking! 😀

Timeshift. Granted, that did get a newer demo afterwards.

It's not many times games get second chances to fix their screwup. I don't think DNF has one though 🙁

Rise of the Triad 1.0 had worse controls and a bad control setup screen. It also had other things like stereo OPL3 music (which strangely, contributed to the input lag) and footsteps and even a longer "laaaaadada"

Carmageddon TDR's alpha demo featured partially destructible drones. The retail still gets the drones but you can't inflict absolutely any degree of damage on them.

The American McGee's Alice's demo had a nice realtime 3D intro which's completely missing in the retail version.

The Shadow Warrior demo had midi music and the retail didn't, well, actually it does have midi music, but none that will play during regular gameplay, it's just the midi files somewhere in a folder for use with a media player.

I'm not exactly sure about this one, it's been a while since I had a go at them, but I think the Redneck Rampage retail had a different (and uglier imho) font, and I also recall it missing (or having considerably less) blood puddles.

Rise of the Triad 1.0 had worse controls and a bad control setup screen. It also had other things like stereo OPL3 music (which strangely, contributed to the input lag) and footsteps and even a longer "laaaaadada"

Yes the levels in the shareware version of ROTT weren't part of the registered version but I believe most registered ROTT CD's included the shareware WAD file as well so you could play it if you wanted to.
Interestingly with ROTT they totally changed the way FM synth sounds between versions 1.2 to 1.3. Personally I think the 1.2 version sounds way better. But these days I can play it on GM which sounds the same between versions so its not really an issue 😀

Age of Empires: Rise of Rome's demo had a 3 level campaign that wasn't available with the retail product.

DonutKing wrote:

Interestingly with ROTT they totally changed the way FM synth sounds between versions 1.2 to 1.3.

I've been meaning to compile a new DOS ROTT with the old ASS timbres which are fortunately still backed up in the source archive. You can also re-enable the OPL3 music too.

but i'm too lazy to set up a watcom development environment.

I'm going to resist the urge to make a fart joke, but what exactly are ASS timbres? 🤣

So is the 1.2 version using OPL3 and 1.3 using OPL2? Or are they using some sort of different 'library' or 'bank' of FM synth timbres?
I've always wondered what the reasons for the change was.

The Mechwarrior II demo was simply a mission from the full game, but with a completely different array of Mechs... the result was a nearly impossible mission because the total tonnage of all the Mechs you end up fighting is MUCH higher.

The Daggerfall demo limited you to a particular island, but strangely enough, the locations on this island are completely different from the full version due to the pseudo-random nature of the game's world layout.

In the shareware version of One Must Fall 2097, since you can't select Raven to play as, he's been turned into the final boss and given a substantial boost in stats, thus hiding the nature of the ACTUAL final boss.

Granted, these are all minor things but they're the only differences I can think of at the moment between retail/demo versions of games.

The Neverhood had a different music track at the beginning that can't be found anywhere else but that particular demo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVxx7fPhJHE

Jazz Jackrabbit 2 had levels that weren't in the retail.

I'm almost positive that Little Big Adventure 2 also had a demo with a few inaccessible or non existent locations in the final release.

And of course a ton of others that I just can't remember right now.

The Space Quest 6 demo is a mini-quest that serves as a prologue of sorts for the full game. Playing it is the only way to see Roger's living quarters.

I have a demo of wing commander prophecy according to the cd its exclusive to pc-gamer u.k magazine

The Freddy Pharkas demo (not the talkie demo) is an alternate mini-quest.

Didn't Shadow Warrior's demo have 4 new levels different from the full game?

Terra Nova by Looking Glass. There were two demos released:

The first had a single completely different mission not included in the retail release; while the second demo had three missons (again, completely new and different missions not included in the retail release).

P.S. For any TN fans, some goodies (and the two demos, hacked for use within the same installed directory of the retail TN; in other words, they don't have to be installed seperately from the retail CDROM version... they can reside in the same directory, and share retail game resources) here -> http://www.cmoo.com/snor/weeds/Terra_Nova/ 😀

DonutKing wrote:

I'm going to resist the urge to make a fart joke, but what exactly are ASS timbres? 🤣

ASS = Apogee Sound System, created by Jim Dose' as an alternative to the DMX library

F2bnp wrote:

Jazz Jackrabbit 2 had levels that weren't in the retail.

*BUZZER* WRONG it has the 'shareware demo' episode for selection.

Yeah you're actually right now that I think about it! It's just that I used to have the version from The Underdogs and it never included the shareware levels nor any videos !

I think the first weapon in the shareware version of Operation Body Count was different and its level wasn't in the registered version.