Demo Discette

As the sellotape used to attach this demo disc to the THC front cover is specially designed to be impervious to scraping fingernails and to deface the glossy cover art when removed, we recommend you enjoy what you can see of the scantily clad elven archer pincushioning the muscle-bound orc warrior, before attempting separation.

Curious Dog Games will need to breathe more life into their flight models if Blue Sky Aces is to have any chance of supplanting Wings of War as my go-to lite WWI air warfare plaything. The affable demo boasts huge, lively furballs, passable AI, and appealing, texture-free landscapes, but, short on nuance and character, the FMs fail to pull their weight.

Spins might be non-existent and stalls innocuous, but you’d need to be an awfully wet windsock not to glean any joy from vandalising an enemy aerodrome, de-winging an Albatross, or buzzing a No Man’s Land strewn with the wrecks of downed foes.

Well reviewed and relatively cheap, Armoured Commander II arguably wasn’t in desperate need of a taster, but Gregory Adam Scott has produced one nonetheless. Like its parent, the AC2 demo abounds with steed choices. Counting the Ram Mk II used in the tutorial, 27 different AFVs are available to trialists.

As both of the included campaigns use the invasion of Poland as a backdrop, the line-up of potential mounts ranges from tiddlers like the TKS tankette to medium-weight bruisers such as the Panzer IV Ausf. D. If you’re feeling daring you can even chance your arm in a heavy-hitting halftrack.

The better you do in the Grit and Valor – 1949 demo, the closer you get to THC’s backyard – central southern England. A handsome dieselpunk tactics game played on small gridded battlefields, G&V isn’t quite an indebted to Into the Breach as it first appears. Turnless action means you’ve got to be quick as well as canny in order to come out on top in the five-minute missions.

While the rock-paper-scissors relationships of the three mech types (ironclad, explosive, fire) feel a tad forced, and the manually triggered special abilities have few parallels in Grogland, historical wargamers looking for something pacy and different, should find their skill set of some use.

Full Fathom is a delightfully odd piscine. The demo deposits you in the bowels of an apparently deserted submerged submarine that could be the centrepiece of an ambitious Quake TC. There appear to be no immediate threats to your safety, however, manipulation of the myriad switches, buttons, and levers in the bridge fairly quickly reveals an alternative cause for concern. The sub is out-of-order, and unless you can work out a way to fix it, you’re never going to see dry land again.

I suspect it’s impossible to complete the repairs using just the tools and materials scattered through the sub’s eight compartments. The fact that DÆMON House let you don a diving suit and explore the vessel’s profoundly eerie surroundings, suggests some vital parts are further afield.

Could Mortyr II’s lowish Mobyscore be misleading? The forty minutes I’ve just spent shooting, stabbing, and stick-grenading my through the trenches of an Eastern Front gun battery courtesy of this entertaining 2004 demo, indicates it might be.

Yes, the action isn’t Brothers in Arms or Hidden and Dangerous realistic, but solid level design, serviceable graphics and sound, and adversaries who retreat, seek cover, and, post-mortem, drop scavenge-able weapons, seems like ample justification for a Steam or GOG re-release.