OnLive MicroConsole & Service review

Gaming can be an expensive hobby. If you’re a PC gamer, you’re compelled to keep up with the latest processors and graphics cards, while buying the latest games is often painfully expensive. Console gamers do get cheaper hardware, but the price of games is generally higher. It’s only after you you’ve shelled out a large sum that you even get to find out if the game’s to your taste or not.

OnLive is an online service which aims to solve several of these problems in one fell swoop. It uses a video streaming system to let you play games live over the internet – the movements of your controller are sent to the service’s servers, where the game is running, and its response is streamed to you as a real-time video. This allows you to instantly play any game on the service on any computer or device with the client installed on it.

Put simply, this is ‘gaming in the cloud’. There’s no downloading required and you don’t need any extra copy protection or authentication. The client’s system requirements are very modest and don’t affect the quality of your game’s speed or graphics – most netbooks are therefore fully capable of running OnLive.

You can access OnLive via a computer running OS X or Windows; or by using a £70 MicroConsole that plugs into your TV. Android and iOS apps for tablets are coming soon, too. The MicroConsole has a couple of USB ports at the front, an HDMI output at the back to make it easy to connect to a TV or monitor. There are also 3.5mm and optical S/PDIF outputs if you want to connect a pair of headphones or a set of speakers. A Gigabit Ethernet port provides the essential link to your home network.

Whichever method you opt for, you’ll need access to a computer to register and subscribe to the service at www.onlive.co.uk (make sure you don’t sign up at onlive.com instead; although you can get a US account, you won’t be able to use it in the UK). You’ll also need a fairly fast and stable internet connection – OnLive recommends an actual speed of 5Mbit/s or above. We had little luck when using a wireless connection, so whichever device you use to access OnLive, you’ll want to run an Ethernet cable to it.

Over a hundred games are already available, and you get half an hour of free time on each to see if you like them. Once you’ve decided what you like, you can rent games for three or five days, buy permanent access to them or subscribe to a PlayPack Bundle of over 100 titles for a very reasonable £7 a month. The PlayPack is the service’s best bargain, including action-packed classics such as Batman: Arkham Asylum as well as point-and-click adventures, puzzle, platform and strategy games. If you want a broad selection to keep your entire household entertained, it’s a great deal. Most of the games are single player, although there are a few online multiplayer titles available if you’re a fan of deathmatch shenanigans, including F.E.A.R. 3 Multiplayer.

If you’re keen to play the latest releases, then you’ll have to buy them at full price – Batman: Arkham City is available to pre-order at £40 at the time of writing. However, its been released already for consoles, with the Xbox 360 version widely available for £35 online. Fortunately, regular special offers are available and if you sign up now, you’ll get your first game for a pound. Better still, you can play an OnLive game instantly, no waiting for the postman, going to the shop, installing, or updating drivers. Just buy and play.

It’s worth noting that the graphical quality of OnLive’s most intensive streaming games isn’t quite as good as you’d expect from an Xbox360, let alone a PC with a decent graphics card. It’s not bad enough to be a distraction, though, and we found it easy to become immersed in the game, despite occasional jaggies and wavering gun sights.

The Witcher looks a little compressed here, the effect is much like that of watching reasonable quality YouTube footage

Using a mouse on the PC version feels a bit laggy if you’re used to the fast-twitch responsiveness of PC gaming. You get used to it, but it’s never quite comfortably fluid. We were much happier with the experience of using a control pad with the OnLive MicroConsole, which provided a suitably Xbox-like gaming experience, snapping to targets with ease. The controller is a poor man’s answer to Microsoft’s, with an almost identical button and stick layout, plus a few extra navigation buttons towards the base. It’s surprisingly heavy, but generally comfortable to use. Like the Xbox controller, it’s powered by a rechargeable battery pack or AA battery holder.

HomeFront is one of the few multiplayer shooters available, many will see the lack of Call of Duty as a major stumbling block

Although OnLive’s graphics and responsiveness are slightly limited by its cloud-based games-as-a-service model, this is more than made up for but its accessibility. You literally can play almost anywhere that there’s an internet connection. Of course, this means that if you don’t have a net connection, then you can’t play at all.

The regularly-updated subscription-based PlayPack Bundle is a brilliant deal and the entire system lends itself to casual and semi-casual gamers. The dedicated hardware is relatively inexpensive while the software clients are undemanding. We’re sceptical about paying full whack for the latest games only to play them at compromised quality, but rental is an appealing option. If you’re a perfectionist when it comes to graphical quality in particularly, OnLive isn’t for you, but it’s perfect for anyone who has a fast net connection and doesn’t want to shell out on expensive dedicated hardware.