TheBigNerdShow

It’s here; it’s been here in the UK for some time and it’s been in the USA for longer. It really is cloud gaming and it really isn’t cheap to buy the games seeing as you don’t get any physical copy. Batman Arkham City is a whooping £40, which is the same as the Xbox 360 version and with that copy when you’re done, you can trade the game back.

I know this is the Steam argument but still, with Steam you can playing at maxed out setting and you can mod. Do whatever you want with your game. With Onlive it’s not your game and you’re paying to access it. In fact you’re paying in two ways, for a start you pay for the game and then you pay with your broadband. About an hour of Batman at 720p is about the same as 4 to 4.5 GBs of data and with say Virgin Media (like me) that’s your limit before they bottle neck it and you’re slow for 5 hours.

If you try to play in those 5 hours, it’s like playing a You Tube video in super low res that always trying to buffer. Then we come to the fact that you must have a non-Chip and Pin credit card to use the service, so I haven’t paid for a single game. I want to buy Batman as my current computer could never play it. Instead it’s a demo service.

The library of games is a mix bag. There are some diamonds like LA Noire and Batman Arkham City and they have even added some touch support for the Android and iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch version of the software for some, not all, games. However you can’t buy all the games, most of the games in their monthly package deal can’t be bought outright. Then you add the fact that there aren’t that many AAA games. They need Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 and Elder Scrolls Skyrim.

They also need to unblock the multiplayer. You can only play on the Onlive servicers which is a terrible thing, when I was playing Homefront online it was hard to find a game with enough players to make it feel like a solid game. Duke Nukem Forever was just rubbish online. One on one was all I could get and it was against some kid who had no idea what they were doing.

Seeing as Onlive is cloud gaming played from PCs, why can’t they let you play against other PC gamers? I can’t see the lag being an issue because when playing online you don’t even notice lag. I have seen lag on Xbox Live which was like watching a slide show and the person they killed would have killed them if it wasn’t that laggy and that’s the issue with Peer to Peer multiplayer but most games on Onlive are server based.

I have to say, as a demo service it’s superb. When the system works, it works great. I love making bragging clips and it has some kind of bastardised achievement system which I don’t like. Bragging clips, being able to record the last 10 seconds is great fun, as my bragging clips from the online Homefront will show- 8 kills in a row! Boo-Yeah!

I want to like, no I want to love Onlive but they are making it so hard. It’s a real shame, Onlive on my Android or iPod Touch? Hell Yeah! Getting a micro-console to plug into the TV? Again, Hell Yeah! Sort out an agreement to exclude Onlive Traffic on Virgin Media? You need to! Onlive could be great, it could be the future of gaming, but if they don’t sort the issues out we all know that a company like Virgin Media will make their own version and put it into their TiVo service. Act Quick Onlive.

However I do have one other idea for Onlive, it’s a free idea. Team up with a company like Steam or Impulse. Make it so people pay for a game and can download the game to their super-duper computer but also use the Onlive app for iPad or on a Netbook for when you’re not at home.  This is a trick that could really set Onlive as the real future of gaming. It’ll take a partnership to work, but if it’s with Valve think of what you could be doing…

Playing Portal 2 on your iPad or iPhone in Co-Op mode with a mate, who is on their PS3 or PC. Team Fortress 2 on the train to London and you’re fragging away on a little netbook. Being able to gift a month of Onlive to a friend for a Hat or a Shotgun. Tell me that doesn’t sound cool!

I know that is a dream and it does look like a dream and nothing more than that but really I feel that is the way to go, or take on some of Steam’s ideas like trading games once you’re done. Last time I checked you’re paying for licences, but then the same agreement has been made over and over for Steam. It’s hard to say with Onlive where they should go next?

Should they improve the service by sorting out agreements with ISP, fixing the problem with taking debt cards and getting agreements with more AAA game companies to give a better class of game on their service OR should they join with a company like Steam or Impulse, or even Gameplay (that’s Game and Gamestation in Retail) and try to hit a larger market.

The Onlive console also needs to be on the high-street, in fact vouchers on the high-street would sort out the bank card issues too. However to date the only console I have seen is was in CEX and it was rated A grade but I know how they work and no doubt they gave the seller the money for a C Grade- I want to support Onlive <b>not</b> CEX…