You might recall our Super Rub ‘a’ Dub post a few days ago. IGN were basically of the opinion that even if the game were free, it still wouldn’t be worth the effort you had to make to play it.

Which got us to thinking. With the advent of the Playstation Store and the Xbox Live Marketplace, the Wii Shop Channel, together with the recent flood of PSP demos into the wild, gamers are almost spoilt for choice. But IGN have a point. There’s no such thing as a free lunch game. For those on capped download plans there’s the size of the download to consider. The advent of high-def gaming means some of these games will take a bite out of your monthly cap. Then there’s the time you’re going to have to invest getting your head around the controls of a demo. Like we said, this is no free ride. So let the other sites tell you when the demo has landed; the Incomplete Gamer will tell you whether the demo is worthy of your time. For this, our very first DEMOgraphy, we take a look at the Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops multiplayer demo.

Ok, we know what you’re thinking. It’s the 18th of May, and Portable Ops drops into retail today (or so we’re led to believe, but my local neighbourhood Big W is still, at time of writing, sadly Portable Opless), so why do we need to mess around with the demo.

That’s a good point, but lets face it…you’re curious. This game is meant to be a killer app. Yet for all the great reviews this game has got, you’ve still got your doubts. This game is quirky. Hell, you can unlock and recruit new characters by driving past a wireless hotspot. What if this game is just not your cup of energy drink? Surely a sneak peak, a try-before-you-buy, is a wise move.

First the good news. You’ll only be sacrificing 6 meg of your precious download cap and the demo will fit on the most embarrassingly small memory stick duo. So far so good.

Now for the bad news. The demo is multiplayer and the poor man’s multiplayer at that – ad-hoc, not infrastructure. Ad-hoc – the one that works, not through the internet, but PSP to PSP, which is all well and good if you can find another PSP within spitting distance but otherwise you’re out of luck.

Sure you can create a game, load up, and find yourself, well and truly alone, in a walled courtyard. The graphics are great, it has to be said, and the controls seem fairly intuitive, the camera behaves itself fairly well and you can walk around the yard, climb a ladder, enter the control rooms and basically have a bit of a look-see, but as for the game play, your guess is as good as ours. You’ll have to either find a friend with a PSP or shell out to buy the game (JB HiFi currently has the title listed at $72).

If a demo is meant to provide a taste of the game and entice you to buy it, we have to admit feeling slightly under whelmed. If only because the title is so hotly anticipated, the brief hands-on has left us a little more eager to play the game, but had this not been Portable Ops, based on our time with the demo, we wouldn’t be adding the game to our must buy list. 2/10