At E3 this week we got our hands-on OnLive’s streaming gaming service, now with tablet support…
The service, which we’ve seen demoed and launched at E3′s past, allows you to play high profile, triple A games, without the need to both own a console, or the physical game you want to play. Instead OnLive streams the game to you from one of their many virtual setups. All you need then is a PC or Mac to play it on, and some kind of controller.
This year, OnLive were demoing a more portable solution with the ability to stream games to tablet devices. We tried it out on the iPad and came a way pretty darn impressed. We took to games out for a spin, Splinter Cell Conviction and PURE (ATV off-road racing). So, how on earth do you control these games you may ask? Well, much like iOS games, the controls are mapped to a touch based overlay, virtually replicating the layout of an Xbox 360 controller.
For intense action games like Splinter Cell, the controls did feel a little clunky, almost floaty. However, there will be full bluetooth controller support too, so the need for onscreen controls will be limited for serious OnLive users. For racing games like PURE though, the onscreen controls felt perfectly fine and I was able to navigate the off-road terrain with little to no problems, save my own abilities.
Visually the games looked fantastic. Because the games are running from a high-end PC over the air, the only work the iPad is doing is of a playback role. Much of our good experience was no doubt due to a great network connection being demoed at OnLive’s booth, however, even with a drop now and again in picture quality (think Netflix) the game’s frame rates remained silky smooth. We were told that only a minimum of 3Mb connection will be needed to play.
We came away impressed with what we saw, as we were initially quite sceptical with how well it would run. Seeing a full console game running on the iPad brought big grins to all our faces. The potential for playing hardcore games anywhere in your house without the need to hog the TV or PC (a big part of what Nintendo are trying to do with Wii U) is certainly an attractive proposition.
Check out our hands-on footage of OnLive for iPad below:
