I have a rather large collection of US PlayStation demo discs at this point. I have every US PS2 Magazine demo disc, and almost every PlayStation Underground volume. I'll probably yap about them in a future post, but not today. Today I wanna yap about a part of a recent addition, being Vol 1. of the PlayStation Interactive Sampler discs. I acquired several of these in an eBay lot recently, and I might yap about other volumes in the future, but as the first post on this mess of a blog, I find it poetic to yap about one of the first demo discs on the original PlayStation.
Before I dive into this disc, I want to share a fun fact I learnt while doing a tiny bit of research. There are actually two versions of this disc, one bundled with the console, and another apparently sold in stores. The difference is the packaging here, the store versions removes references to Mortal Kombat 3, and Loaded, both being mature rated games. I don't know if these 2 titles are removed on the disc, but if so, that's crappy. I own the pack-in version if that wasn't made clear.
Booting the demo disc up brings you a little intro followed by a list of the games featured on the disc. This is peak 90s aesthetic to me, trying to be extreme, cool, and hip, which is something I enjoy. The games with playable demos are Loaded, Wipeout, Twisted Metal, Warhawk, and Mortal Kombat 3, while NHL Faceoff, NBA Gameday, Destruction Derby, and Descent are video previews. This disc is pretty light on content compared to future demo discs, but keep in mind this is a disc released around the PS1's launch.
Do I think this is a great demo disc today? No, not really. I am a little biased, because I tend to prefer later PS1 stuff, around 1998 and onwards. This is 1996, so it's that launch period of the PS1, a time I'm less accustomed to. Now that's not to say all of these games suck, but I will say nothing here is something I really enjoyed. Wipeout is the best game here in my opinion, but even that is just a 1 lap 2 minute course. Most of these demos are under 5 minutes, hard to get anything out of them now. Now for 1996 that's fine, this was a new thing for a lot of people, and to get even something small in their console bundled in will surely distract them for a bit, but in a modern lens, this is good for collectors wanting to own a bunch of demo discs, but there's nothing for a player here, for that you should buy an Underground demo disc. I do get how its silly to talk playability in a demo disc, because it’s 2026, and if you want to play any game on ps1, there's so many options, but I am a silly guy who has played arguably too many demo discs, and I do find fun in them, but this one was just cool for the novelty, nothing more.
That's Vol 1 of the PlayStation Interactive Sampler Disc. I love demo discs,. so expect to see more demo discs yapped about. I got over a hundred of them, so I'm not lacking at all. I might even have more demo discs than games at this point, which is sad to think about. Anyway, have a great day.
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