OnLive review: not so bad

[qubit]

CVG has reviewed the new OnLive gaming-over-the internet service and finds that it's not so bad. Reading between the lines though, it's laggy and the picture quality isn't too great - and that's with a great broadband connection, which isn't something that everybody has. Therefore, this is not something that PC enthusiasts like us would like, or even a discerning console gamer.

OnLive has landed - welcome to the future. Companies like Google and Apple are telling us everything digital is going to the cloud. Now games are, too, with OnLive the first big push to bring this new technology to the masses. And guess what? It works.

In a nutshell, OnLive is a gaming service that allows you to play the PC versions of many big new games, from Deus Ex: Human Revolution to Saints Row: The Third. Whether you're on a netbook, an iPad or on your own TV, choose a game and you'll be playing it in seconds. Witchcraft? Nope. In fact, it's the same sort of magic that drives YouTube.

The game isn't running on your computer - it's running on an up-to-the-minute PC far away in a data centre that streams the video and sound down to you over the web, while your control inputs are fed the other way. It's amazing to see top flight games running on a puny laptop that struggles with Bejeweled. The full selection of games on offer is already near on 150, covering many new releases, plus a wide selection of older and indie games. But some big publishers aren't present - there's no EA, Capcom or Valve.

And then, the lag:

JET LAGGING

Yes, new technology like this comes all sorts of caveats, and OnLive is no exception. The big question before OnLive launched was about lag - surely it takes time to send signals from your joypad down a wire to that data centre who knows where, and then to get the picture sent all the way back again? The sort of delay that makes playing a lot of action games really hard?

Well yes, you will feel a delay. But, assuming your broadband connection's pretty good and you're not too far from your ISP's exchange, it matters far less than you might ever have thought. On a 6mb connection with a ping of 32ms (that's an average connection according to broadband testing website Speedtest. net), we tried Duke Nukem Forever. Using mouse and keyboard controls, we initially found ourselves overcompensating our aim. But in a couple of minutes, we hardly noticed any more. And with OnLive's menus, the lag is almost undetectable.

They played what?! j/k

So, will this service threaten the enthusiast market who like to play high spec games in high quality, like we do? I doubt it.

 

[NinkobEi]

meh. when's the last game that needed a high end system to play? BF3? That game is out on Xbox so dont tell me a medium-low end system cant run it.