So, I've been primarily a PC gamer, since way back. For reference, one of the first games I remember playing was KROZ on some old IBM clone we had. Sure I've had consoles in the past, SNES, N64, Gamecube. Now I've got a 360, And i'm spending a lot of time with that. I still consider myself a PC gamer primarily, for those of you who like labels. I will probably get a Wii at some point, especially now that it's got a few games I want. I still see Wii as more of a console for party games right now though.

Anyway, more to the point. Since I game on both PC and consoles, I see some things on PC that are nice to have, but consoles miss out on. The same is also true in reverse. This brings me to the point of this blog post, demos. On my 360, I download a demo, play it, and delete it when I'm done. On a pc, I download the demo, install it (usually installing some shitty copy protection with it) then I can play. (i won't count control configuration and video settings as a negative here, since I think those are a good thing for PC gamers.)

When I'm done playing the demo, instead of just deleting it, I have to uninstall it (probably leaving the copy protection behind) then depending on how sloppy the developer is, there could still be files, folders, or registry entries left behind.

I guess what it comes down to is "bloat". I am always afraid of my pc getting bloated down with bullshit. It probably started back in Windows 9x days, when if you didn't reformat your computer monthly it got so bloated it was almost unusable. I know XP is supposed to be better about a lot of these things, and I know i could just use XP's rollback feature, but that's for noobs. I don't need a safety net.

hmm, this isn't turning out to be as short and to the point as I wanted for it to be, so i'll get to the point. Am I just being needlessly paranoid? should I be installing demos like crazy, the consequences be damned?




bonus: 10 free internets* to anyone who knows what i'm on about in my picture.

*prize not actually valid