Onlive - A Gamer's View

Earlier this summer a new gaming service kicked off.    This service is known as Onlive (www.onlive.com).  This service is a new player in the gaming industry and with time and maturity may grow to be a big player.   Onlive is a standout from the rest of the pack in the sense that this gaming service is truly a service.  They do not offer a standard product or platform for you to play games on.   Onlive is 100% subscription based where users pay a monthly fee to access the online services.  No console or high end PC are needed to play.  A basic PC (there are minimum performance recommendations though), a tv or monitor, and your standard mouse and keyboard or any Windows compatible game controller.   You can even switch off if you want to try both.  There are no discs for games, and in fact there are no downloads either.  Onlive works through direct streaming to your PC.

So, enough of an intro, here's my thoughts on Onlive.   I signed up prior to the service launch so I was offered a free years of service and one free game to play.   Honestly, the library available is quite extensive and are all high selling, popular, games.   I chose to redeem "Just Cause" and played it for a number of hours, really enjoying myself.   These games play just like the standard console or PC would allow.  The quality on screen for the game may change based on your changing internet connection and PC hardware performance.

So, in my opinion this service is a great value to any gamer who is interested in trying out games and doesn't want to invest in the cost of consoles or high end gaming PCs.   If you're a parent and want a safe and easy way to allow your kids to play games, this is an ideal solution.  A key portion of the service that I didn't mention yet, is that although you're online, the games available currently do not allow any cooperative or competitive playing yet.  For parents, this means you children won't be interacting w/ any other users so no worry on that end.  You can also look to set up parent controls if needed as well. 

In my closing though, I wanted to highlight my favorite feature of Onlive.   SPECTATING!  Wait...you're probably thinking, "Ha, spectating already exists!"  Yes, but not in the sense that you can boot up your game system, search all active games currently in session, then just join and sit back to watch.    This is what you can do w/ Onlive.  Its incredible.  As a hardcore gamer, honestly there are days when tv offers me nothing, and yet I'm not in the mood to deal w/ any games or people online.   If I could just boot up my Xbox 360, or PS3 and link up w/ a friend or random player online and just watch them play, that is all the joy I need for the evening.   I hope I'm not alone in this thought.  Current game spectating usually occurs for online play only, after you death or if you join a session late.   Nice, but pure spectating w/o my involvement is something I'd love to see.