5 tech demos that were miles better than Milo

Milo is no more. The small boy whose dead sheep eyes forever judged us has finally been given the kibosh. First revealed by Peter Molyneux at Microsoft's E3 conference last year, most people assumed the Project Natal demo would be turned into an actual game.

However Xbox bigwig Aaron Greenberg has recently revealed there are no plans to turn the bit of technical wizardry/creepy child-controlling sim into a full Kinect game. So out of respect for the worryingly sentient sprog, we're remembering some tech demos that were way better than his creepy, paper-playing conversation.

T-rex/Manta ray (PlayStation)

Back in 1995, before Independence Day had wowed cinema goers with its shoddy CG aliens and the sheer awesomeness of Jeff Goldblum, PS1 owners were being bowled over by a demo disc featuring history's greatest killer and the thing that offed that crocodile bloke. Admittedly, you had little control, other than making the Rex roar and panning the camera. But both were still brilliant ambient experiences that delivered a level of polygon-pushing power few full fat PS1 games could match.

Shark/Top Gun rip-off (Nintendo 64)

Thank the good lord above the N64 launched with Mario 64 and Pilotwings. Because if it had to rely on shifting itself to punters on the back of this shark and flight sim, we wouldn't have held much hope for it. Still, there's no doubt for early 90s technology, these demos are pretty impressive. Just look at how smooth the 64-bit textures on that great white are. Excuse us, we need a moment.

Raven 'Two to Tango' (Xbox)

This Vasquez rip-off may have a face like a mutated Mr. Potato Head, but this was still a purdy tech demo when it was first revealed at GDC back in 2000. Luckily for Xbox owners everywhere, developers soon got to grips with the hardware, giving their heroes faces that actually looked y'know, human.