You should eb able to download a demo of the new version of cubase(v5) from the steinberg site.
http://www.steinberg.net
You can't trigger samples like with a sampler on cubase but it can do everything else a sampler can. It's just a matter of cut & pasting your .wav files instead of triggering them. Getting a SoundFont card means you can trigger samples from your soundcard but these will be in mono so it's best to go for a software sampler/trigger such as Virtual Sampler , gigasampler or UnityAS1 (bitheadz)
For the links to gigasampler and Unity as1 (same people that make the Retro As1 Synth) have a look at my site at
http://www.luko.fly.to at the bottom of the musicians / audio section.