The Gravel demo dropped today on Xbox Live and PSN, and since I’m a bit of a sim-cade racing fan, I immediately downloaded and gave it a try. What I experienced was, well, a game. It appears as though the developers, Milestone S.r.l., forgot what the purpose of a demo is actually supposed to be.
A game demo, at its most basic level, should fulfill at least three criteria:
First, it should give the player a good feel for what the game is. Give some insight. Show a tutorial. Let the player get a sense of what the campaign progression will be like and what they will be looking forward to.
Second, it should “wow” the player. Give a great first impression. Show the player that you’re proud of what you’ve done and you want to show it off.
Third, it should leave the player wanting more. That is the purpose of a demo, isn’t it? To make the player say to themself “Man that was awesome! I want this!”
The Gravel demo fails in all three regards. First, it only allows an exhibition-style “Free Race.” That’s fair, a lot of racing games lock out the campaign in a demo. But the two free races you are given both take place in the same environment, in the middle of a snow storm. Which brings us to the second objective. Nothing about a white-out snow storm is awe-inspiring. There is literally nothing to be seen. It’s pretty hard to be “wow’ed” by a game that won’t even show off its environments. Which brings us to the last objective. It’s pretty hard to be impressed and left wanting more when all you experience are two short races on a track you can barely see. It’s not exciting.
After playing the Gravel demo, I was left neither hating the game, nor wanting more. It’s obvious that Milestone S.r.l. is working on a budget that’s not nearly as plentiful as the likes of Playground, Turn 10, and Codemasters are used to, and that’s okay. I’ve enjoyed plenty of budget racers in my day. Both the Flatout and Burnout series began as small studios (and one could argue that both should have remained that way.) The argument I’m making here is not that Gravel is a bad game, nor am I arguing that it’s a good game. The point is, with such a limited, bland demo, I just don’t know.
In the words of a movie from high school, “I know you can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed?”
