OnLive Android App Preview
OnLive (The Game Streaming Service) has recently been extended to the Android platform, and this article reviews how well it works and its faults!
Using his 'Xperia Play' and of course nice Internet connection, Gamer 'Ahmed_p800' has written up a new review for us on how the streaming service works for playing games which are currently available
Hi All,
This will be a short preview for the newly released OnLive application for Android smart phones.
OnLive is service for streaming game (imagine it as youtube...but for games!), and works almost on all platform available, let it be Windows, Mac, iOS, Android.
So let us start with the preview :-)
Device under test:
Sony Ericsson Xperia Play - Running Android 2.3.3 - Single core 1GHz - RAM 512MB (usually around 170 MBytes is free) very limited and considered low.
Note: Probably, the performance is affected by the specs and free RAM, as the Xperia has very limited free RAM, expect better behavior on high-end devices (Like Samsung Galaxy S2).
Internet Connection:
Local provider (Etisalat) - 8Mbit/s
OnLive Android app:
The application should be available for FREE in Android store, just search for "onlive".
If incase it was not there (I could not find it as I am in United Arab Emirates - Middle East), you can get it from this 4shared link.
Upon installing, you will get 1 free game, Lego Batman!
For this preview, I have made a video:
And captured some photos which you can see below:
First, you have to log-in to your OnLive account, after that, everything is streamed to you.
1- As soon as you start the application, OnLive animated icon will play (pretty nice):
2- After logging-in, main menu will appear, and you will be able to sign-in to Facebook:
3- And this is the Main menu:
4- Arena section, all the games are here!
5- If you tap any game, a preview will play:
6- This here is the Market Place:
7- Available Games genres in the Market (Notice the bottom row):
8- If you tap any game in the market, this screen will appear with multiple options:
9- Tapping the small trailer thumbnails, will show a preview:
10- "Play" button options like try, buy...etc:
11- This here is the Home Button menu, you can exit a game from here:
12- This is a preview for the on-screen touch buttons layout:
13- Real IN-GAME Graphics ;p ... being streamed to your phone!
Also, please watch the video I have made, It has more info, and you can see some gameplay and more menus!
So let's start talking:
- After installing the application (around 2.4MB), the icon will appear, tapping the icon, the application will start obviously, the application will automatically connect to the internet, and then you will have to log-in (free registration).
The into animation will play afterwards, I found it to be really pretty with orange strips making the circular shape of OnLive icon, after that, the screen will flash with a bright light which will disappear to show you the EARTH, but in this earth, countries are games! thumbnails of games to be precise, watching the animated scenes running on the small screen was impressive (note again that this is all being streamed to you, and not being rendered on the devices itself).
The main menu will appear, and here you can start playing a game directly by going to arena, many games are available, yet, they don't feel that much, and scrolling will keep repeating the same 5 or 6 games unless you re-enter, I hope they add more in the future, and better quality games too.
Before a game starts, a preview will appear with some option, tapping play will display a screen where you can either try it or buy it, for trying a game, you can play it for only 30 minutes.
Now for the really important part...the Performance!
As I already mentioned, I am using an 8MBits internet connection, I usually get download speeds up to 900KBytes/s, but this, of course depends on the server.
Not sure if the distance affected the performance here, or was it that the connection I'm using was not consistent?, or maybe a weak signal issue (as I'm using WiFi), or maybe because of the limited RAM on the Xperia play?, but there was "LAG", sadly too much, the input lag was there but not that much (will affect fast based gameplay I believe), though the big issue was the game itself lagged and was usually sluggish, and sometimes the screen becomes pixilated, still, the biggest issue here is the lag, it really kills the gameplay, specially in racing games (as can be seen in the video).
After playing around with OnLive for while, here are some advantages/disadvantages:
Disadvantages:
- LAG (Could be my connection, could be the servers, could be the limited RAM?).
- Not many games!
- Text/Buttons are too small!
- Not ALL games support touch screen, many need a controller, and those won't work!
- Some bugs here and there (like on-screen buttons getting stuck or unresponsive).
- Menus are not optimized for small screens.
Advantages:
- The intro is beautiful! (Including the Earth)
- Menus are really simple to use and straight forward.
- Some nice games are available.
- With consistent and stable connection, games will run nicely I believe.
- Awesome graphics on a phone! (Thats a WOW effect guaranteed)
- No wait or loading between menus.
- Brand new experience! :-)
Conclusion:
"Brand new experience", I can assure you that, but, it will be up to you to decide if you like it or not, in my case, I enjoyed it, really, being able to play PC games with High end graphic on a small phone is pretty nice.
The biggest issue in my opinion was the lag, with lag, it is simply "Unplayable", and you really need a stable connection for that, imagine you playing for a while and then it starts lagging and stuttering, this will surely kill the experience!
So for me, did I like it? Yes I did!
Would I pay to buy a virtual game and use the service? Not in this life!! nope.
I still cannot justify it, I'm kind of retro, I want to "feel" the game in my hands, and I still prefer to play games on my laptop, at least that way lag is avoidable for sure!
I advice anyone with an Android phone to try it out (iOS too).
And don't forget to watch the video!
Hope you liked the preview.
Best Regards
Our thanks to 'Ahmed_p800' for taking the time to review how well or not 'OnLive' works on 'Android' platforms!
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Originally Posted by Gloris
