Age of Empires III has a demo out
Reading through the requirements, I almost had everything, bar the 64MB graphics card.
Knowing MS, the game would run like crap on the ‘base’ system reqs anyhow, but being able to shoot a character and have the force of the blow push them off a cliff was the clinker that got me to a thinking… time for an upgrade.
Whilst on the topic of addictive megalomaniac games, I liked the marketing ploy for Civ 4. They’ve created civanon.org, a site ala insert name of your addiction here) anonymous with tips for people trying to avoid that ‘one more turn’. The video on the site has the classic stereotype addicts at a civ 4 anonymous meeting, along with swearing grandmothers, an infamous political leader discovering the joys of the Latin language used by the Ancient Romans and some guy called Sid ;-). Go check it out if you’ve played the game.
Its worth noting that Civ 4 *does* run on this little icarus of mine.