The Official Playstation magazine (OPM) was the only PS3 based magazine that handed out game demos through a Blu-Ray disc. Many other magazines couldn't afford to use Blu-Ray such as PSW (Playstation World) and PSM3 and instead decided to use double sided DVD's which they tried to make up for with their list of videos, themes, pictures, save files and more. What makes these demo discs even more interesting is the fact that only the UK and some selected European countries (from my knowledge) were the only ones to have access to these demo discs from their regional official magazine. Finding any information on what is contained on these discs is impossible due to the limited appeal, regional exclusivity and just a lack of coverage in general.
So it's time to scour through my complete collection of these discs and find out what's on them. Here's the list of games that you will never be able to get access to ever again and which never saw a PC release.
- The Punisher: No Mercy
Based on Marvels Punisher, this game looks to be a janky multiplayer FPS that got pretty poor reviews all round. Unfortunately the demo is online only and as you would expect, finding a game is impossible in addition to the full game being removed some time ago. Oh well, looks like I didn't miss much anyway.
- Rampage World Tour
- Joust
- Gauntlet 2
- Championship Sprint
- Rampart
These are 5 HD renditions of classic games, all of which are timed at 3 minutes aside from Joust which is 1 minute. These games look great at 720p and it's a shame that to achieve this level of sharpness you will have to resort to emulation. Despite these games being released on tons of compilations and having a number of different releases on consoles, this isn't a huge loss, just a shame really.
- Best of Firstplay: Volume 1
Don't worry if you have no idea what this is. It's a magazine exclusive feature which had a small number of video reviews, previews and a news section. What makes this even remotely interesting is this feature is from 2010 and contains news and pretty screenshots of The Last Guardian and the funny part is, it doesn't look any different!
- Marvel vs Capcom 2
Marvels HD remaster of the beloved entry in the Marvel vs Capcom series. Unfortunately this is a split-screen only game and with no friends and only 1 controller, I was unable to test it out. You can play this on the original Xbox and Dreamcast, but you'll never achieve the sharp picture quality seen here.
- Hail to the Chimp
This is a delisted party game that features 2 game modes, 1 map and 4 playable characters. The game has a cell shaded look and an American News program feel to it. Gameplay is fixed on a single screen battle arena where the goal is to collect clams and hit other characters to lose their clams with the game modes complimenting these mechanics. While it did see a physical release in the US, it never did in Europe. Thank god the PS3 is region free though it seems to be rare and quite pricey too.
- GTI Club Rally Cote D'azur +
Now this is something special. It's an arcade racing game in the vein of Daytona, featuring 1 track, 1 car (an old Golf GTI) and an unlockable cop skin for your car. This is a HD rendition of Konami's Classic GTI Club from 1996 with a silky smooth 60fps, very colourful graphics and great arcade gameplay. Unfortunately this game got delisted years ago, though a different version on PSP is available. With Konami moving on to Pachinko machines and this game likely being a legal nightmare, it's safe to assume we will never be seeing this get re-released ever.
- Aero-Cross
One very important feature that appears on 2 demo discs is Aero-Cross due to it never being released and ultimately canceled. Originally this was going to be part of Namco's Generations which only saw the releases of Pac-Man Championship Edition DX and Galaga Legions DX. The game is an endless runner with 360 degree movement and one single jump button, regardless it's quite a fun little game. This demo is just one short level but is the only way ever you will be able to play this game, making this a potentially desirable disc in the future.
While this is everything so far, there are a lot more PSN titles on these discs which may get delisted at any moment. With the PS3 starting to die off, the player-base dying, and the costs associate with keeping a game up on there, it's likely these demos are the only way to preserve a limited yet playable version of these games. Now with the slow death of magazines and the disappearance of demo discs entirely for Xbox One and PS4, how will we be able to preserve these digital exclusives once they get removed? Welcome to the digital future!
