Disclaimer: this article reflects my personal experience using OnLive. Due to many factors, such as Internet speed, there’s every chance your experience will differ. For the games tests I was running OnLive through my laptop using a WiFi connection.
I love my laptop, I really do. It has 4GB of memory, a dual core processor and some funky wizardry that means the area next to the touch pad remains 25% cooler than my body temperature. Essentially it’s my base of operations; however it is useless for gaming. It’s this fact that prompted me to take a look at the cloud based gaming service ‘OnLive’ when it launched last week.
For those who are unaware, OnLive stores games on remote servers which you then stream via the Internet. This means you can play any game on any machine, as long as you a) have an account and b) have fast enough broadband. In theory it sounds like my idea of heaven.
In all honesty I wasn’t even expecting to be able to create an account. My broadband speed runs at “between 1.5 and 3.5mb, with an estimate of 2mb” which is bang on the minimum requirements to access the service from your laptop. Much to my surprise, after spending about a minute creating a free account, OnLive kicked into life!
First up I should probably mention a few things. There has been one particular launch week hiccup which has seen gamers have to wait a few minutes before being able to log on at peak times (probably caused by the thousands of free OnLive consoles given out at the Eurogamer Expo). This issue has been acknowledged, and apparently is being worked on.
The next stumbling block is the whole idea of never actually owning the game you have paid for. What if the service collapses and shuts down? What if my Internet service provider has an outage? I’m left stranded.
There’s also the small matter of Internet usage. Currently I’m on a BT Unlimited package, which is just as well because OnLive reportedly uses 2GB of data per hour. I don’t think that figure has been officially confirmed, but it’s one I’ve seen from several sources who have run tests on their machines.
As you can see there are many hurdles to overcome when it comes to convincing gamers that OnLive is worth a shot. Never-the-less, let us continue.
Once logged on, you are greeted with a rather swish user interface that is split into the following areas:
- Arena
- Profile
- Marketplace
- Showcase
- My Games
- Last Played
- Brag Clips
- Friends
We managed to speak with John Spinale, OnLive’s VP of Games, at the Eurogamer Expo and he was kind enough to go through some of these options for us, as well as put our minds at ease regarding OnLive’s future support of current games. Check it out below.
It looks smooth on the video, but what about in real life using a normal Internet connection? Well, the whole set-up has left me very impressed. The ease at which you jump into a game, purchase content or communicate with friends came as quite a surprise. I’m not entirely sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this.
Once I had messed about adding friends and admiring the scenery it was time to do some actual games testing, looking at graphical quality and lag. For this I used Borderlands, Trine, The Maw, Flatout 2 and DiRT 3. To make it a fair test I logged on at the following times over the course of three days:
- Between 8 – 10am
- Between 2 – 3pm
- Between 6 – 8pm
- 10pm onwards
Any time between 2 – 9pm saw the “OnLive is full” message appear, followed by a wait of about five minutes before being allowed to log on. Only once, on the launch day at about 6pm was the service what I deem unusable, with a fair amount of pixilation. All other times have been fine.
It’s at this point where I had to switch from mouse and keyboard to a controller, due to a medical condition known as “being cack-handed”. I purchased a Microsoft Wired Controller (basically an Xbox 360 controller) and downloaded this driver (thanks to Wolvogamer1 for the link). After a quick system reboot OnLive automatically recognised the controller and changed the interface so that keyboard prompts were replaced by button prompts.
In terms of visual quality the games were a mixed bag. The car models on DiRT 3 looked fine, but the backgrounds seemed particularly fuzzy. Borderlands, on the other hand, looked absolutely great with no issues that immediately jumped out. The same could be said of The Maw. Trine seemed to be a middle ground, with nice enough graphics albeit with a slightly fuzzy effect. To be honest it’s a matter of taste as to how harshly you judge the games. I was in no way put off, but others might be.
Lag was where the biggest surprise happened. I have suffered none. I couldn’t quite believe it, but cornering in DiRT 3 was perfect, precision platforming in Trine wasn’t a problem, and headshots in Borderlands came with ease. At one point in Borderlands I just span my character in circles, changing direction quickly to try and catch OnLive out. It didn’t work. I have heard that others haven’t had such a smooth experience, but I can’t complain.
[drop2] Borderlands was dragged out once again to test a bit of online co-op. I couldn’t fault OnLive as setting up a bout was easy, it ran effortlessly and there was no lag. Also, Borderlands is great isn’t it? I never really played it much on the consoles, but I can see it becoming a time sink.I haven’t managed to play any full multiplayer games yet, but I have spectated on one of my friends playing Duke Nukem Forever and Homefront (he has a similar Internet connection to mine) and it all seemed fine.
The last few days have been very interesting. I’ve gone from being hopeful yet sceptical, to someone who will use OnLive very frequently. So far, for me, it has worked perfectly (bar the “full” message) and I’ve actually gone as far as to pre-order Saints Row 3 plus the monthly PlayPack.
I can totally understand why some people don’t like the idea of OnLive. As someone who has gamed for 25 years, I too like to have the physical media stacked in a neat pile in my house. That won’t change anytime soon. Instead I’ll be using OnLive more as a supplement to my console gaming, and I can see myself using the game rental facility quite a lot.
I was speaking to Peter about this a couple of days ago, and I quite liked his thoughts on the matter. “Just because you stream a film or two from LOVEFiLM, it doesn’t mean you’re going to give up buying DVDs”. I think the same applies to OnLive, and I see it sharing a space with retail games rather than taking it over.
I really hope the service flourishes, and with EA on board, and titles such as AC: Revelations and Batman: AC on the way, things are looking positive.
nofi
Pinned for later. =)
3shirts
For me the decision will rest almost entirely on pricing.
Everything I’ve heard puts me off
Dan Lee
Yeah, to get the best deals you really need to have the PlayPack, which gives you 30% off new games and rentals. That makes a big difference (Saints Row 3 for under £25).
Foxhound_Solid
Good concept, not for me though.
halbpro
“Hey you know what I wanna do? Stare at the back of Kris’s head for 15 minutes.”
kivi95
Still don’t get it why i would want this if I already have a ps3 or Xbox360.
halbpro
Because you can instantly rent games, same reason some people choose to rent digital movies. That’s a good reason for a start. Plus you can play old games that aren’t supported on 360, PS3 or even really supported on PC any more.
smokeybeef
If anything just use it as a good way of trying out some demos instantly :D
Ben
^ exactly!
Deathbrin
Is there some sort of a clever system that select a server based on your location or do you just have to have a UK account to get on the UK ones? What about people with “older” US accounts?
Dan Lee
Not sure about your first question. Apparently OnLive are looking at a solution to migrate US accounts over to UK ones.
smokeybeef
As Dan said, I put in a request with the support and they said they are currently working on an easy way to migrate US accounts to UK ones.
I hope they do it soon, I want to get my £1 game! I was also tempted by the Saints Row pre-order bonus, but I’m not fussed by the game so I’ll wait for the next one.
skibadee
not for me tried it will not try it again will be surprised if it is still going strong this time next year.
beeje13
I could only find one game that I wanted to play in the playpack, and that wouldn’t let me use a gamepad!! Sony and MS must be chuckling. Good tech though, no doubt.
Youles
Nice read.
Dan – if you’re on Unlimited with BT I suspect you’re on Option 3. Therefore, if you don’t already have it, and even if you don’t plan on using it, I would ask BT for BT Vision. I was on Option 3 and added BT Vision for something like £3 extra a month. However, since BT Vision requires at least 2MB speeds and the latest Hub (according to the engineer), BT had to supply me with the latest HomeHub and upped my internet speed from 2-3MB to a constant 6.5MB. It’s constant cos it’s even restricted at 6.5MB. I would have paid the £3 just for the speed increase, let alone BT Vision too. It was a no brainer!
Dan Lee
Nice shout, Ill give that one a shot.
smokeybeef
I tried OnLive on launch day and had absolutely no problems. No lag or pixelation anywhere. I have the 20MB Virgin BB, so that’s plenty. I just worry how much it’ll suffer when the ‘traffic management’ kicks in…
Ben
Works well on 100Mb/s too ;)
BrendanCalls
I have to agree, I’m very impressed by OnLive. I’ve probably clocked up about 15 hours since Friday and had a great experience. I’ve got the Micro-console, free at EGX and im really chuffed with it.
Peter Rushton
How much does this cost? I am interested haha
Dan Lee
Depends. If you play on your laptop it’s free to set up, and you just pay to rent or buy games. You can also pay £6.99 a month for the PlayPack, which gives you unlimited access to 100 games plus 30% off all new titles and rentals. You can buy a microconsole which hooks up to your telly, which is £70, or free if you preorder Saints Row 3 before tomorrow.
halbpro
If you wanna play demos it’s free, the PlayPack (which gives you access to a 100+ games) is £6.99 a month or you can rent/buy individual titles like you would from Steam. Only difference is (obviously) they stream them to you instead of you downloading them.