Tetsuo Time

I've been following this project for years and the scope has changed since then. At first it was just a port to add better 3D rendering as in accelerated rather than the old software rendering it had and adding somewhat higher resolution textures. But since then it's been upgraded to feature more dynamic lighting, normal maps which carve geometric detail into flat walls making them more detailed and 3D. 
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{Eduke32 Web Site}

OK complaint time... one reason why I hate Onlive (OK hate is maybe a strong word for what I feel... more like plain dislike) is apart from the downsides inherent in the system that make it less ideal for someone like me who doesn't have the greatest broadband which make it inferior to playing a local copy of a game... and even under ideal conditions it doesn't compare. These are compressed, blocky\artifacted images that only support 1280x720 at the most if you have a real good connection and if you have a not so good one like mine because you live in a rural area where you where lucky to even get 1.5Mbps DSL and that's just the theoretical speed not the real world speed then you have to play it at even lower resolution than that... like half that or lower.. So you get inferior image like these screenshots in the best case scenario:

http://cache.gizmodo.de/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/onlivefull1.jpg

and

http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/4/2010/06/onlivefull2.jpg

Then added lag on top of what the game naturally has with input lag.

I don't like the implications it has for gaming.... especially if your platform is one that is supported by game studios but is less on the beaten track than a Windows PC... like say..... Mac.

Like you might ask if a certain game is available on your platform and they say well look it's on onlive that means it's on your platform. Well, gee thanks but no thanks... I'd rather have a local copy running at an uncompressed resolution up to the native resolution of my monitor (2560x1440) with modding, access to the .ini\.cfg files and other perks that come from playing it local. Hell I'd rather play it via a compatibility layer (like a WINE type solution) because I still get access to stuff like that... and I do just that for some of my games.

Imagine if onlive was streaming console games and they decided to not make PC version and said well onlive is streaming the 360 version so it's on your platform... I'm sorry but that doesn't truly count in my opinion. Although on the other hand I had seen a certain CEO say basically that about a game recently (If you want to play this game you can because it's on onlive) but that game then ended up being announced as being ported to the Mac a few weeks later. So we can still have both but still.

Some people say that steam can yank your games at any time as well but it's much much easier to yank away your games if you don't even have any of their data locally on your hard drive at all. Steam games can be made to play offline without steam... they can be backed up so in case they pull them from the library there's still copies you can play. Onlive games can't.

That is a BIG difference.

On the other hand I was at one time wishing that games would be more like movies in their cross platform independentness but onlive isn't exactly what I had in mind. I had more in mind like a game could be made once and then installed to any system you want to play it on no matter what company made it. WINE is closer to my vision than onlive as it can play a Windows game on either Mac or Linux with the same copy.

Lastly what I don't understand is why people would have such a backlash against always on connection DRM yet be warm and receptive towards onlive which is the ultimate always on connection DRM. That type of DRM is copy protection that forces you to be online to play a game even if it's single player which isn't always possible even today for a variety of reasons.

In an ideal world onlive would probably be fine and I can see the appeal especially to demo games or get a sneak preview like a friend of mine does but it just doesn't work out for me.

OK complaint time... one reason why I hate Onlive (OK hate is maybe a strong word for what I feel... more like plain dislike) is apart from the downsides inherent in the system that make it less ideal for someone like me who doesn't have the greatest broadband which make it inferior to playing a local copy of a game... and even under ideal conditions it doesn't compare. These are compressed, blocky\artifacted images that only support 1280x720 at the most if you have a real good connection and if you have a not so good one like mine because you live in a rural area where you where lucky to even get 1.5Mbps DSL and that's just the theoretical speed not the real world speed then you have to play it at even lower resolution than that... like half that or lower.. So you get inferior image like these screenshots in the best case scenario:

http://cache.gizmodo.de/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/onlivefull1.jpg

and

http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/4/2010/06/onlivefull2.jpg

Then added lag on top of what the game naturally has with input lag.

I don't like the implications it has for gaming.... especially if your platform is one that is supported by game studios but is less on the beaten track than a Windows PC... like say..... Mac.

Like you might ask if a certain game is available on your platform and they say well look it's on onlive that means it's on your platform. Well, gee thanks but no thanks... I'd rather have a local copy running at an uncompressed resolution up to the native resolution of my monitor (2560x1440) with modding, access to the .ini\.cfg files and other perks that come from playing it local. Hell I'd rather play it via a compatibility layer (like a WINE type solution) because I still get access to stuff like that... and I do just that for some of my games.

Imagine if onlive was streaming console games and they decided to not make PC version and said well onlive is streaming the 360 version so it's on your platform... I'm sorry but that doesn't truly count in my opinion. Although on the other hand I had seen a certain CEO say basically that about a game recently (If you want to play this game you can because it's on onlive) but that game then ended up being announced as being ported to the Mac a few weeks later. So we can still have both but still.

Some people say that steam can yank your games at any time as well but it's much much easier to yank away your games if you don't even have any of their data locally on your hard drive at all. Steam games can be made to play offline without steam... they can be backed up so in case they pull them from the library there's still copies you can play. Onlive games can't.

That is a BIG difference.

On the other hand I was at one time wishing that games would be more like movies in their cross platform independentness but onlive isn't exactly what I had in mind. I had more in mind like a game could be made once and then installed to any system you want to play it on no matter what company made it. WINE is closer to my vision than onlive as it can play a Windows game on either Mac or Linux with the same copy.

Lastly what I don't understand is why people would have such a backlash against always on connection DRM yet be warm and receptive towards onlive which is the ultimate always on connection DRM. That type of DRM is copy protection that forces you to be online to play a game even if it's single player which isn't always possible even today for a variety of reasons.

In an ideal world onlive would probably be fine and I can see the appeal especially to demo games or get a sneak preview like a friend of mine does but it just doesn't work out for me.

PC Gamer has been running an article series called "Crap Shoot" where they revisit an old adventure game and talk about how crap it is. This week's pick brought back memories for me because it was from the time when 3D Accelerator cards where first becoming mainstream and they where some of the first web content to leverage those cards way before stuff like Unity and WebGL where invented...... or before telltale games jumped into the episodic adventure games business.

Anyway these "movies" Brilliant Digital was making back in the late 90's weren't really movies per say. They where more like episodic adventure games based on licensed content and mostly played like those choose your own adventure books you might find in an elementary school library (I don't know if they still carry those kind of books there though).

The gameplay mostly consisted of making a choice at certain points of the game which branches you off onto a different plotline. In a way it kind of worked out a little better in as a game mechanic than in a book because you couldn't just bookmark the page with the choice and quickly flip back as soon as you sense there's trouble coming. Also since there's only so much room in a kids paperback most of the bad choices gave you a quick ending which doesn't have to happen in a game scenerio. But either way the choose your own adventure thing was still pretty silly and gimmicky.

There was only one choose your own adventure book that I truly liked and it was because of the subject and how well written I thought it was back then. I forgot the name of the book but it was about a kid who got a space vespa scooter and got a friendly alien blob pet thingy. But I digress.

Much like the choose your own adventure books these where all pretty gimmicky and the graphics are extremely dated by todays standards but looked very good back in the day running on a 3Dfx card at 640x480 with bilinear filtering on a 14 inch tube monitor. The subject of these games was pretty much throw away tween paperback book fodder in fact most if not all of them where probably adapted from some of those choose your own adventure books.

But the novelty of the new 3D graphics along with the nostalgia of me having read the choose your own adventure books made it a neat experience for me plus it was one of the first times when they had a game'ish episodic web series kind of like what companies like telltale are doing today with their adventure series (I have been playing the Back To The Future one and would be playing the Jurassic Park one if they hadn't delayed it).

Each episode would pretty much end in cliffhangers which made me want to view the next one that and seeing more 3D accelerated graphics which again where a novelty at the time. Plus I was still rather young when I played them. ;)

One of my hobbies is revisiting old games via WINE or Emulation but these aren't readily available unless I find a disc to order. My memories of them are most likely much better than if I where to replay them though as the crap shoot article may indicate. I can appreciate old games for what they are but some things are probably best left in the past when you come down to it.

What's interesting to me is it seems netflix has some of these available to rent. I guess they consider them to be movies. If I still had netflix I might consider renting them just for the hell of it.

Yes, these three screenshots are from three different computers each with a different theme and a different wall *edit* Fixed the second screenshot:

Yes, these three screenshots are from three different computers each with a different theme and a different wall *edit* Fixed the second screenshot:

I read recently that Capcom is working with Mad Catz to make a bundle of Street Fighter IV and their controls they made specifically for it for the PC. I think that's a pretty good idea since not as many PC players have the right controls to play SFIV. But I already know one person from PC Gamer Magazine who is going to hate on the game because he doesn't like any game that's not good to play with a keyboard and mouse. He's going to say, "why are they bringing a fighting game to the PC? Fighting games are for consoles!" I hope he doesn't get the review. It'd get a unfair crap review.

There's nothing stopping fighting games on the PC except peoples misconceptions. partly coming from those days when they had to be made for DOS and didn't turn out very well. For the longest time there wasn't a decent control or way to be able to hook 2 controllers to play one game either. But things have changed since then... the only thing that hasn't changed are people's perception. Perhaps that will change with Street Fighter IV. Those who play fighting games through emulation should already have their perceptions changed as well.

It turns out I was correct about their computer. It pretty much was the hard drive that was in need of replacement. That hard drive they had had been dying for years. The new hard drive came in the post on Friday. I transferred all the screws from the old drive that latch onto the brackets in the case into the new drive. I slapped it in.. plugged all the cords and powered on the computer. The computer detected the drive right away and I was able to format it and get it started installing the operating system.

So yeah their computer is now fully functional again after me having spent hours reinstalling everything from scratch. Plus they have an extra 20GB to boot. The old drive was 60GB and the new drive is 80GB. We have no use for that other drive anymore though since it's not even accepting power anymore.

It should be almost like nothing happened when they sit down at the computer although they do know about the old hard drive dying since I had to tell them so they could authorize me ordering a new one.

It turns out I was correct about their computer. It pretty much was the hard drive that was in need of replacement. That hard drive they had had been dying for years. The new hard drive came in the post on Friday. I transferred all the screws from the old drive that latch onto the brackets in the case into the new drive. I slapped it in.. plugged all the cords and powered on the computer. The computer detected the drive right away and I was able to format it and get it started installing the operating system.

So yeah their computer is now fully functional again after me having spent hours reinstalling everything from scratch. Plus they have an extra 20GB to boot. The old drive was 60GB and the new drive is 80GB. We have no use for that other drive anymore though since it's not even accepting power anymore.

It should be almost like nothing happened when they sit down at the computer although they do know about the old hard drive dying since I had to tell them so they could authorize me ordering a new one.