Another Saturday night solo, so you know what that means: another time-warped basement gaming session courtesy of Pizza Hut! In my alternate universe, the pizza I ordered tonight came with the second demo disc in the Pizza Hut/PlayStation collaboration, sporting 5 more games slated for release in 1999. Let’s see what we’ve got here, will lightning strike twice and bring me another evening of short-burst fun? The last disc set the bar pretty high, but the PS1 library is as wide and deep as the ocean. I can’t wait to pop it in, and we’re starting off with… Tetris?
Demo Disc 1 opened up with Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, arguably one of the greatest demos of all time. Disc 2 kicks things off a bit more subdued. Tetris is a hard game to iterate on without feeling like a knock-off. Some games in the series do manage to introduce the right amount of freshness and evolution. Then you have others like The Next Tetris, which are just… blah. The hallmark of the PlayStation was its 3D polygonal graphics, and when done well really brought gaming to the next dimension. TNT made its Tetris blocks 3D polygons and called it a day: flat, bland, shimmering shapes falling into the same playfield used for a decade already. Everything from the game pieces to the menus and side panels has a wobble to it to show off the 3D-ness of it all, but the effect is barely impressive. It’s still Tetris, so it’s still a good game, but it’s hard to be wowed when the presentation is so lazy.
The Next Tetris, from what we can tell from the demo, is stage-based. The goal is not to simply make lines and score up, but clear out pre-positioned blocks in the playfield. The tetromino pieces are all the same from the past, but some are made of separate chunks which will detach and drop if placed over an opening. This opens up a bit of strategy in forming lines and chaining combos. It’s not a bad idea, and surely future games adapted this idea into their side modes with a little more refinement. You can choose between a standard game and a challenge game: both feature the same objective but the challenge mode challenges you (haha) into clearing the stage in a set number of moves. Each mode features three different stages wrapped around a five-minute timer, and the demo ends at whichever finishes first.
For those not enamored with the Tetris lifestyle, this five-minute demo is all you’ll want and then some. Again the game is not inherently bad. It’s competent Tetris (albeit a little threadbare) and it’s nice to have clear goals to work toward. Even the chaining aspect is fun. A solid presentation would have been great to wrap it all together in but it is simply not there. It’s also an odd game to have a demo for. Tetris shouldn’t have to ‘sell’ you at this point, either you’ll buy the game because you like Tetris or you won’t. Nothing about this game or this demo would make any agnostic a believer.
Quick story time! My next door neighbor growing up owned a PlayStation, and on his pack-in disc was a demo of the first Spyro the Dragon. We played that demo inside and out repeatedly for months, we absolutely adored it. For Christmas that year he got the sequel, Spyro 2, and we played it together to completion. I’ve since played Spyro 2 (as well as the others) many a time, so I am extremely familiar with it, but I’ve never played it before in demo form! This will be interesting!
The Spyro 2 demo opens up with a preview of all the game has to offer, before having you choose between two levels to play for yourself. The two levels they chose are surprising to me, as they are not introductory or simple; they take place several worlds into the main game.
These are the full levels from the main game, with all the gems, talismans, and orbs ready to be collected. There’s no gating, no hand-holding, and again the levels themselves are not the simplest they could’ve chosen. These levels also feature some of the more challenging orb missions, and nothing’s been toned down for the demo’s sake. Even the skill points (hidden objectives) are present and achievable! Finishing either stage through its portal dumps you right back to the demo’s main menu, which is unceremonious compared to Spyro 1 which let you pop around the levels at will.
This is definitely the meatier of Disc 2’s offerings, and will take you a while… if you’re not a Spyro player. For a returning veteran that runtime is much lower. It doesn’t feel as much as a demo as it feels like jumping into someone else’s save file. It can feel a little jarring not being eased in, and the game’s actual opening levels could’ve served as a much better demo, but maybe they were trying to subvert our expectations?
In this second half of the PS1’s lifespan, Gran Turismo surged ahead as a marquee title. Though Spyro got top billing, this demo for Gran Turismo 2 is the headliner of Disc 2. As a series known for its massive amount of content, how would they manage to pare it down for a demo?
GT2 is split between an Arcade disc and a Simulation disc, offering different methods of play. Here the Arcade side is represented with a single track to race on, three different difficulty levels and three types of cars, with a couple available to choose from. The Simulation side is treated more like a teaser, featuring menu after menu of dummied-out selections and functions. With little context, it all comes across a little nonsensical. Similar to Spyro 2, those familiar with the predecessor probably get more out of this demo than newcomers like myself.
So all in all you get a solid race with a bit of replayability with the cars and difficulties you’re given. And if the menus tantalize you into giving the full game a go, then they’ve done their job. GT2’s demo gives you the bare minimum to get a feel for the quality and high standards they’re going for, and it’s impressive even to this day. You can tell they were squeezing every drop out of the PS1 they could, and yet it doesn’t feel limiting. I’ve been meaning to dip into the GT franchise but its depth and hardcore-ness kept me away. Frankly a demo like this was a good way to take some of its teeth away, maybe starting with the Arcade side of GT2 would be a good place to start!
Hmm, that’s odd. After selecting a demo you’re always shown a screen outlining the game’s controls. Tomb Raider didn’t have one. No big deal I guess, maybe the demo has its own control screen.
The game boots directly into a trailer. Hmm that’s different too. Just a standard coming soon trailer, showcasing new levels and features with text overlays. After two minutes or so, the trailer ends as we load into… the boot menu? Wait there’s no playable demo??
Yep. Now, it was very normal for demo discs to include a mix of playable demos and video-only trailers, but the games were clearly marked as demos or videos. Disc 1 was all demos, and nothing indicated that Tomb Raider was video-only. The disc opening even alludes to the game being playable! I feel gypped! Come on, they really couldn’t have slipped even a piece of level into this disc? Of allll the upcoming PlayStation releases, on discs that were all gameplay no video, why did they bother putting this one on? Sigh.
Sled Storm
I suppose it’s Pizza Hut Demo Disc tradition that we feature a snow-based game. But I’m pleased to report Sled Storm is a much better experience than Cool Boarders 4. We’ve got two characters and two tracks, pretty standard demo fare. Multiplayer is also supported, alluding once again to having 4-player support. Instead of snowboarding down a mountain, we’re snowmobiling around a track.
Also with a rudimentary trick system, there’s a lot of similarities to CB4, but everything about Sled Storm just feels better. It’s still not a game I’ll pursue further, but it makes for a good demo and something I wouldn’t mind spinning up for a few races here and there. A decent finish for a rather uneven disc.
Unfortunately, I left Disc 2 a little disappointed. Disc 1 was a brilliant journey of solid demos of legendary PlayStation games. Disc 2 made some questionable game choices, and the demos themselves were just odd representations of their games. The Next Tetris was literally over in 5 minutes, and is a game that doesn’t need to be demoed. Spyro 2 is a certified banger, but it was a bold move to feature two intermediate levels that could’ve easily turned off newcomers. Gran Turismo 2 is lucky it’s as good of a game it is, as its demo feels phoned in and the simulation menus to nowhere felt a bit pretentious. Tomb Raider, let’s not even go there with my disappointment. And Sled Storm was… fine.
Is it a bad demo disc? No not really, after all it’s hard to be mad about a freebie. Disc 1 certainly outshines it, but both discs together showcase a great collection representative of the PS1 in its second half. It’s still a great duology to cherish and remember fondly, and it’s been a pleasure to revisit this pizza slice of PlayStation life 27 years ago. Demo discs have a unique way of capturing the mood of their era, and after fast-forwarding to present day 2026, oh man, please take me back!!
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