Kaies
Grand Lizard
Onlive is a new gaming service, it lets you stream games over the internet on your PC, TV or tablet. The games are streamed in the highest graphics setting they can go at, this is because they are streaming from monster PC's (no console games sorry).
To play a game you can either, purchase a play pass or a play pack, you can also trial the game for 30 mins. A play pass lets you play the game for a limited amount off time, there are 3 options, i will use saints row 3 as an example
It also has a feature that i really like, Its called "Arena Mode". This is essentially a spectating feature which lets you watch anyone who is gaming using OnLive, you can voice chat to them too and vote them on how well they are doing at the game. If you really like how well they did you can also add them as a friend and voice chat to them later.
Now this sounds pretty good, but there is a catch as all ways. Even though the games play on the highest setting, your resolution is limited at 1280x720 or 1024x768. If your using a 23" 1080p monitor like i am, it can make games looks ugly. The other catch is how the service works. Because its streaming, you will need to have really good internet to play games without lag, i have very good internet 20mb and no limit but i still notice a delay in me pressing a button and the game responding.
Overall i think this is a nice service, it offers things that other services cant provide. However it has its downfalls. Its a new technology and has a few kinks that need working out and i would suggest not investing in it until they are fixed.
Good:
Bad :
To play a game you can either, purchase a play pass or a play pack, you can also trial the game for 30 mins. A play pass lets you play the game for a limited amount off time, there are 3 options, i will use saints row 3 as an example
- 3 Days - £3.99
- 5 Days £5.99
- Full unlimited access £29.99
It also has a feature that i really like, Its called "Arena Mode". This is essentially a spectating feature which lets you watch anyone who is gaming using OnLive, you can voice chat to them too and vote them on how well they are doing at the game. If you really like how well they did you can also add them as a friend and voice chat to them later.
Now this sounds pretty good, but there is a catch as all ways. Even though the games play on the highest setting, your resolution is limited at 1280x720 or 1024x768. If your using a 23" 1080p monitor like i am, it can make games looks ugly. The other catch is how the service works. Because its streaming, you will need to have really good internet to play games without lag, i have very good internet 20mb and no limit but i still notice a delay in me pressing a button and the game responding.
Overall i think this is a nice service, it offers things that other services cant provide. However it has its downfalls. Its a new technology and has a few kinks that need working out and i would suggest not investing in it until they are fixed.
Good:
- Even though its subscription based you can still buy games normally (I think, thats what it looked like)
- Subscribing gives you upto a 30% discount on all game
- If you subscribe you get 135 games to use forever unless you unsubscribe, its all new games too.
There is something called "Area Mode" which is basically a giant spectating arena, you can watch anyones game, talk to them and score them on how well they are doing. Its quite cool really. Feel bored? Watch people fail at call of duty!
- The selection of games has improved. It has new ones like, saints row 3, ass creed 1.4 (Assassins creed: revelations) batman archam city ect.
Bad :
- There seems to be a slight delay in mouse movement and game movement, this could just be my internet.
- I dont know if this is bad or not but, even if you use onlive you can still play multiplayer. They don't have their own servers so you will be playing on the normal ones. this might give people an advantage, i don't know.
- Even though the games are maxed out, the resolution is not. So you can use a nice crisp 1080p res and on my monitor it looks ugly as it has to upscale it...
Think of the internet bills, steaming an entire game over the internet is going to use a lot!
