A blind date with OnLive

I was not expecting much, having awaited for the Phantom console's release and promise of online streaming of games. But, I must say, after spending the last few hours in attention-deficit game overload nirvana, I believe that cloud gaming has arrived.

Although initially released with oen free game code and only nineteen games to choose from, I could easily lose many more hours with OnLive. You are able to demo each game for 30 minute segments and your progress is not saved, you can watch what seemed like hundreds of games being played with no apparent lag. I was booted out a couple of times but I chalk that up to my crappy Comcast service that goes out fairly regularly (high bandwidth user, yeah right). I believe I watched all of the "Coming Soon" trailers and mainly look forward to the next Deus Ex.

I think this service will be ideal for the freelance game reviewer such as yours truly. The pricing structure currently is for three, five or unlimited days until 2013 (optimistic, ain't they?)

It remains to be seen if they have the capacity to add titles and subscribers at a brisk pace without overloading their server capacities and keeping the experience lag-free and enjoyable.

Now, for the real test of OnLive, I have a netbook and a Babbage-era laptop to try and crush my expectations.