8 Video Game Tech Demos Which LIED To You

8. PlayStation T-Rex/Manta

Early adopters of Sony's brave leap into the video game industry were treated to a disc full of eye-catching goodies - just ripe to show off - and hopefully convert - jealous friends with.

Packaged with the PlayStation from 1995 onwards, the prosaically named 'Demo 1' contained a dozen or so teasers for upcoming and extant software, including such hits as Destruction Derby and Wipeout, as well as trailers for Tekken and Ridge Racer. Alongside the truncated games, the disc also had a couple of curios tucked away: Dino and Manta.

The former showed an incredible detailed tyrannosaurus-rex stalking a black void, with a camera which could be swung around by via the D-pad. Manta was much less threatening, depicting a serene underwater scene featuring a multi-polygoned ray swimming amongst a school of fish, all to a peaceful soundalike of Saint-Saëns' Aquarium.

These weren't games, but ultra-optimised, somewhat deceptive demonstrations of the PS1's technical capabilities. The marauding dino pretty much pushed the hardware to the limit, with more than fifty polygons and high-resolution textures. In truth, the PlayStation could never really replicate such high-fidelity, hi-ferocity imagery - not without running at 2fps, anyway (although Dino Crisis' T-rex was pretty neat).