OnLive Game Demos Come to GameSpot

One of the reason of being a pc gamer is the graphics, and Onlive takes that to second or last place. The fact that you are streaming the game to your system, also, means that your hardware, such as video cards, wont perform like if you were actually playing the game on pc. The graphics that Onlive offers, are set on the highest settings, yet you never notice any improvement, the images are sometimes close to 360, but most times, not even close. So, i don't think that this service is for any one, at least any one interested on performance.

Top Reason Why PC "Gamers" are threatened by cloud gaming: No more piracy. Period. Onlive is amazing, I now play it more than my 360/ps3, not to mention my wii, which I haven't touched in almost a year. My only suggestion: More games please! Also, I no longer shop at GameStop shops ever since I heard what they did to poor bastards that bought PC game copy of Deus Ex. If they'd bought it directly from Onlive they'd have gotten a FREE ONLIVE SYSTEM!!

"Detected high latency, unable to proceed"... :( Make sure you live in a privileged country close to an OnLive server before bothering to install this and do the mandatory signing up.

The fact that internet lag can affect a game I am playing single player bothers me.

You know, I have enjoyed browsing GameSpot for a long time, I almost left back during the Kane and Lynch Incident, but I decided to stick around, see if they took that mistake to heart and make something better of themselves. However, I feel in the last few days I have seen more threats to the integrity of this website then ever before, through there highly opinionated posts and pushing of OnLive which I am sorry, it is cool for what its trying to do, but its not worthwhile or good enough for a PC Gamer. I have little faith left and do not think I will be browsing this website much longer as they have lost my ability to swallow what they are selling.

i don't play computer games, i play console games. when OnLive was first announced i was interested but I am one of those who still likes to have hard copies of games sitting on a shelf. This demoing service sounds like an absolutely incredible edition to GameSpot though, particularly for PC gamers. I wonder though...if i were to buy a wired xbox 360 controller (so it wont go to waste) could i demo games for free via my computer & OnLive but play them as if it were on 360..i.e. demoing 360 games? If so, that controller might be a worthwhile investment. Then I don't have to rent or buy & sell or whatever, i can simply demo through gamespot/onlive and it might as well be on XBL! If that were the case it would be great. Other than that, still cool for PC gamers to be able to demo games, even if you don't end up purchasing said games on OnLive, although I'm also sure OnLive will gain a lot of customers via this.

onlive is cool but the onlive's resulation is :(

Glad to hear this. OnLive is amazing tech (Arkam Asylum looking sweet... on a netbook that struggles with YouTube!) that deserves more support in general.

OnLive is a great service. Especially for those without great gaming PCs. My PC can max any game out there so I don't use it much because I prefer my games to look amazing, but OnLive looks about the same as console games do. They also have really good prices. It is free and worth your time to at least check out.

@mortis1982 i dont know what you are talking about. i have a cheap comcast connection and i still get great results from onlive. hell if it weren't for games like halo, and call of duty, i would never even think about buying the new xbox. so if onlive does not work for you, fine. but for me, i will not think twice about buying a game solely on, onlive.

I tried the demo and it worked! Wow. ...my laptop did start heating up a little though...still the game ran perfectly fine.

Interesting service. I like the idea of not having to download a demo before playing it (I do have a gaming rig but bandwidth is in short supply for me) and as I use gamespot as my source of info its convenient to be able to instantly hop into demos from here. Good Job GS and I hope to see a wide variety of demos available. Also wondering if this service eats bandwidth at a rate comparable to netflix; if so its worth considering.

I remember back in 2002 and 2003 games mania had a game streaming service but the internet hadnt cought up...i think onlive is cool idea...if you live in japan or a country with no ISP download-upload limit.......im in toronto canada and rogers my isp...they cap my downloads and the amount of data onlive sends would make me pay HUGE amount of overcharge....so sadly until thats a thing of the past i will be sticking to steam or retail because it allows me to play anytime i want, saves on streaming cost and well.....the game is mine and not theres if the company goes under like games mania did........

@squall_83 Yeah maybe you just are one of those who don't have a good ping time, that should drastically improve once the new data centers open though. I'm a few hundred miles from the nearest data center in Virginia but it looks great to me, I hardly ever see any artifacts.

@Rocker6 once it hits Europe in a few weeks you should at least give it a try, you never know. Heck it's free to try, nothing to lose.

I'm a huge fan of onlive (founding member :D), but I'm kind of surprised how aggressively gamespot is willing to support it. This article includes phrases like "you never have to worry" and "crazy magic," which don't really qualify as objective journalism. Even so, I'm glad it's here. It's an excellent demo service--MUCH better than downloading and installing some 3gb demo just to play the first level. I honestly can't imagine why someone wouldn't want to use it for demos. As far as using to buy games, though, it's definitely not for everyone. The local experience is better.

Im from Europe,but my country has very slow Internet connection(at least its stable,it very rarely crashes) so I wont be getting much use out of this.But anyway,its a great new feature for anyone who can use it properly.

So far nowhere else can you get 2 games like Saints Row 3 and Deus Ex: HR for \$35 combined. I honestly feel sorry for those of you that think this service isnt worth using but i do understand that some people still cant get a good connection. If you have a good connection nothing beats this service. All it needs is more games and it will have them. OnLive is the next Steam.

@philnolan3d Please note... that was my point.

This feels kind of ironic...um...nevermind... Anyway...a lot of people had a hard time accepting (and a lot still do) digital download services over retail...but if there are plenty of people now who only buy digitally...so I can see this happening... If it can play these games smoothly on my computer...then this is amazing... I'm going to try the demo now...

@Wula_ Thanks man. That was the point of the article right? lol. There's so much argument happening in the comments, that's why I made my original post. I feel most people just read so little and bust out to comment with no real knowledge of the subject at hand. I had to say something. Now look, I've got caught up with the arguments.... Oh well... Such is life, I guess.

@squall_83 I agree on your comment about it being great for demos. Since that is all I find useful about the service. Nothing to loose to try out a full version for 30 mins but after you are done you can decide how much it is worth and then wait for that price drop to happen on other services or in retailers.

@philnolan3d Also, I have to say the games don't look nearly as good as they do running locally. They do look "close" when things aren't moving much. As soon as things start flying all over the place it just turns into a sea of artifacts, at least for me. Maybe I'm just unlucky?

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@philnolan3d Well maybe it has something to do with the distance to the nearest OnLive "hub". My specs are way above requirements so, IMO, it shouldn't lag. Maybe I'm just too picky. The lag is VERY minute, I will admit, but it's still enough to notice.

@mortis1982 I know exactly how you feel man. I have the second best internet package around in my area at $45 a month and even then. It still lags at about .5 to 1 seconds at time for me. So playing FPS's takes a bit more time to line up your precision shots. Meanwhile turn based games you have nothing to worry about. So when I did the math I figured it was cheaper to build a computer that can handle the games at the same quality as their machines. Then to order most internet connection's that meet the requirements. And even with mine being the best provider. I still had 2 times in the hour and a half I played where it said I was having connection issues :/ In the meantime I rather stick to a local machine with less issues then to a service that is too demanding of a connection speed that doesn't exist yet. Or well here in canada at least.

@s_h_a_d_o Please note that I said that was a big region. Not everywhere.

@squall_83 I also have a pretty capable PC quad core CPU, high end graphics card. I need these things for work. But I love not having to download games and they take up my hard drive space. I have a 20Mb connection (way above the requirement, I admit) and the games look and play just as good as if they were local. Heck, I have played Red Faction: Armageddon while rendering 3D animation and video in the background with out even noticing a hit to my render. BTW if you they get another 3000 or so FB "likes" by Labor Day they make Batman Arkham Asylum 99 cents. The number is rising rapidly. What's not to like about that? http://on.fb.me/mZZBPO

Ive got it installed on my PC, I only use it to demo games. It works well enough though for some peoples needs

@philnolan3d Contrary to popular belief, life does exist outside the US and Europe.

Onlive fails, I have tried it and I have an excellent internet connection 2.5mb/s down 500kb/s up and I still get lag on their service. I thought it would have been a good idea when I first heard about it, but after using it no way will I try it again. Just download or buy physical copies of your games, this service is out way too soon.

@philnolan3d If you don't have a PC that's capable of playing the games locally I can see how it would be acceptable, don't get me wrong. Though, coming from a standpoint where I CAN play all the games locally, It's pretty bad. I have a 25Mbit internet connection. It's WAY faster than the recommended requirement and I still see a very noticeable input lag.

@squall_83 No we don't all know it sucks because it's an awesome service. @s_h_a_d_o Region is currently in the USA, but as of Sept 22nd it hits Europe. That's a pretty big region.

Nice for ONlive, should get their name out there more. I'm still not completely sold on the service though and I've been using it since beta. The whole only streaming at 720p kind of annoys me when I have such a nice 50inch hdtv and widescreen computer monitor. Plus there is a noticeable delay sometime annoyingly to much for me to ever get into any fast twitch games.

@da_illest101 What is the way better alternative? I want to know.

@ pomd1 Who cares if you don't physical own them (and yes, I know the answer to that is actually quite a few people)? You still get to play the game like every one else. The only negative I see to OnLive game when compared to PC gaming is that you cannot do mods, which really does suck. And I am sure in the year 2100 that $2,000 will not really be all that much if inflation continues at the same rate (roughly 3-4%) it has for the past few decades.

I wouldn't buy the games from OnLive, but I will just play the demos and that cost is free!

@LobbyPolice Way to keep it classy. Wasn't trying to show a game demo--just showing that it worked. Why don't you give it a try and see for yourself?

I actually had some fun with the demos on here. Splinter Cell was fun online and it didn't lag at all.

I think this is a cool idea, like OnLive or not.

Don't get me wrong, this cloud gaming demo idea is cool. But OnLive as a gaming service is terrible for us gamers and not needed.

pass

OK... I have this crazy idea.... Let's all shut up about how much OnLive sucks. We all know that. The point here is that we are getting "demos". The game may not run perfect, but this will give you a general idea of how the game plays and will help you in making your buying decision. There isn't any suggestion that you will be buying or playing this game afterwards through the OnLive service. It's just a demo. It's just a sample so you will know if you want to go to your local retailer and drop cash on the game. I happen to think this is an AMAZING idea. 1. You don't have to wait for an enormous download. 2. You don't have to wait for an equally time consuming install. 3. You will no longer have to worry about hard drive fragmentation from all the demos coming in and out. How can any bad come from this new addition?!?

I'll definitely give this try, seems like there's nothing to lose here.

"...it's an impressive service." lololol. It's an impressive ripoff. You pay the same price for your games but you don't own them... no thanks. Maybe in the year 2100 when consoles cost $2000 I'll consider cloud gaming.

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Great selection of demos!

All that Cloud Computing stuff...naaaaahh thanks I'll pass on this one, reading your reviews is help enough when a decision is unclear ;)

Oooh - bold move GS! Pity it's so limited by region.