also.known.as “spvn”

It seems like OnLive is going to be released to the general public pretty soon despite all the skepticism towards it. Of course, when I say “general public”, it really means “the American public”. And as I said, there’s a bunch of skepticism as to how well and compelling this will really be. Personally, if I had the chance, I’d sign up for this service on day one. My computers are always so outdated (I’m typing this on a 3 year old iMac now, that takes like 10 seconds to open up Firefox mind you) and I don’t have a console (because my TV doesn’t even have a HDMI input), meaning there’re a bunch of games that I can’t play. Or rather every single game that’s been released within the last year can’t run on my computers. If only I had OnLive, everything would be so much better.

I have to admit I was pretty skeptical about this service when it was first announced, because it sounded too good to be true. Even now there arre people commenting that something like this can’t be fully realised for at least another 10 years. However, after watching the video below, I truly believe something like this is actually going to be possible within the next year or so. Reason being they’ve done so much technical stuff to surpass the current limits, not only that but they’ve also thought about the problems they’re facing from a new perspective.

For example the way OnLive basically works is that the game itself will run on they’re uber fast servers that can even run Cysis at max settings. Then, these computers will process whatever is supposed to be shown on screen, apply a video compression algorithm and what the user ultimately sees on his or her screen is essentially a video of what happened after each of their button presses.

Now such a thing would have been impossible in the pass due to current video compression techniques. Reason being they’re built to make each and every frame of the video look the way it should look. Meaning that if you pause a movie, the frame will show all the details perfectly, since a video is basically a bunch of images displayed one after another so when you pause a movie you’re basically staring at a single picture.

It would have been impossible to use such techniques to conduct live streaming of a video game, because the video would be too damn big. So what they’ve (somehow) done is to use a completely new video compression technique that makes the video look good while it’s in motion, reason being one would never actually “pause” a video game. Thus, while the game itself will look good when it’s playing, if you went and paused the video that’s being streamed to your computer screen, the resulting frame might or might not look good, as there’ll be packet losses along the way and stuff. However, this isn’t a problem at all since the video of the game will never actually be paused, thus solving the problem.

Pure genius honestly.

How do I know all this? From the presentation the CEO of OnLive gave to a group of students at the University of Colombia. It’s 48 minutes long, but it’s really informative about the service itself, and shows you how the many obvious problems they faced were ultimately solvable.

For those who don’t know, I’m at avid user of digg.com (it’s not without its flaws though, but that’s a story for another time), and a few days ago I stumbled across an article on digg titled “Top 10 reasons I don’t care about today’s gaming“. Disregarding the grammatically incorrect title, it seemed like an interesting article.

Among the first few paragraphs (right before the list actually starts), the author wrote:

And just to clarify, this is all my opinion, so don’t get worked up about it (glares at the users of Digg.com… ‘OMG U SUK UR LIST SUX UR ON CRACK!’)

Knowing how immature some digg users could be, I sympathised with him… but then I read the article.

After which, I posted the following comment on digg, which I’ll use here (slightly edited) because it’s really all I want to say:

Initially when he started complaining about how Digg users were irritating for calling him an idiot, I was thinking I’d agree with him by the end of the article because I’ve seen how bad some comments on digg are.

After going through the entire article, the first comment (That guy is an idiot, why was this article even submitted?) needs to be dugg up A LOT more. And so that he doesn’t post an update to the post going “AHA DIGG USERS ARE STILL FLAMING ME, THE STUPID IDIOTS WHO COMPLAIN FOR NOTHING”, I’m gonna try and prove why SOME (note, not ALL, I do agree with some parts of what he said) were utter crap:

(Please keep in mind this was a one-off comment, hence the sloppy writing and pretty biased tone)
——-Start of comment——–
10) Too many good old games
Ok, he has a point there I guess. Personally, I’ve never played old games (I’m only 17), but I don’t doubt some of them are good, looking at how much love some are given. However, is this REALLY a credible reason for not caring about new games? Does the fact that old games are good = new games suck? He stated Halo 2 as one of the “old franchises”, did he ever bother to try Halo 3? Or any other good game out nowadays actually.

Fact is technology has reached a point where there’s just more stuff in games nowadays, eg. Open world games. Sure you could consider GTA 3 an “old game”, but face it, GTA 4 kicks ass.

9) Way too complex

This entire point only focuses on the PS3 (at least that’s what I think, I personally don’t own any current gen consoles, and not because I don’t want to), if I’m wrong someone please correct me. But from what I’ve heard, only the PS3 really requires you to install games.

And even if it wasn’t the case, if the game is good enough, I’m sure most people would be willing to wait for awhile longer to start playing it. So you’re telling me that because you need to wait to install games, you’ll gladly pass on games that might go on to become classics in the future? And only when they become classics will you check them out?

Memory cards

I actually agree with this part, the ability to bring my latest save file of Final Fantasy or whatever game to my friend’s house who has a PS2 as well as the game itself to show off to him how cool my characters are is great fun. My only gripe with Mem cards are the small storage space. IMHO, mem cards would probably have been a good idea to add to the current gen consoles. Portability rules.

As for the author, you seriously think you’re going to run out of space because of game save files on a HD?

7) WiiMusic

Do I really need to explain how stupid this point is? How does the release of a (supposedly) crappy game, which you yourself admit was released at the wrong time, contribute to you not wanting to check out newer games? How does that even make sense?!

“Stupid game got released at the wrong time, everyone hates it…. I SHOULD STOP CARING ABOUT NEW GAMES.”

6) ‘Hardcore’ and ‘Casual’

He’s actually stereotyping the 2 categories himself. Only other idiots think that Casual games don’t belong to a “hardcore gamer” library, no one’s even saying that’s the case. Every single gamer (hardcore or not) has definitely spent some time with an online flash game or something like that.

Besides, the logic here doesn’t make sense again.

“People stereotype hardcore and casual gamers…. GAMES NOWADAYS SUCK.”

5) Online

Some games were MEANT to be played online. So you’re not happy that a game doesn’t have enough single player content and you usually only play single player stuff? THEN DON’T BUY THAT PARTICULAR GAME! DUH!

oh and I quote

“Either give me a good game with no online capabilities, or a good game with online capabilities. I don’t really care which.”

If you “don’t care which”, then why is this even an issue?!

4) Casual gaming

Have you even TRIED casual games? World of Goo anyone? And what’s the problem with casual games? There are more than enough “hardcore” games out there for YOU, so now what,

“There are so many casual games out there and I don’t like them… I SHOULD STOP CARING ABOUT ALL GAMES”.

3) Cost

Ok here, I completely agree, game prices are definitely going up, but if the game is quality enough, I’d still be willing to buy it. But for this point I can see his reasons for not liking newer games. But seriously, not caring about games just because of their cost? Good luck catching up in the future when all these games become classics and their prices drop low enough for your budget.

2) Console problems

True, the RROD epidemic is unprecedented, so I can see why you are irritated with the new consoles. But may I please inform you of this “console” that has been around for ages called the PC? Sure not all games run on it, but it’s still a worthwhile platform to play some of the latest, good games that come out on the PC as well. But besides that, surely you can still learn to at least appreciate the new games without actually playing them? Flat out ignoring what are going to become classics in the future is plain dumb.

1) Lack of games!

Someone PLEASE help me on this one, I am soooo lazy to list all the good games that have come out in the last 5 years. THERE ARE SO MANY. He’s obviously not looking hard enough for good games… or he’s just been hiding under a rock. Just a few games I can think of off the top of my head:

1. GTA IV
2. Halo 3
3. Left 4 Dead
4. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
5. Fallout 3
6. Bioshock
7. Gears of War
8. Metal Gear Solid 4
9. Team Fortress 2
10. Portal

and many, many, many more.

——-End of comment——–

All in all, there’s really no reason to at least completely give up on keeping up with the latest games, you might not like all of them, but the technology itself is something to marvel at. Sure we had Super Mario, Zelda, etc in the past, but even if you disregard the improvement in graphics, developers have learned how to develop better gameplay, provide a more engaging story than saving a princess from Bowser, and have created open worlds previous thought impossible.

Games of the past will always remain classics, but games of today are going to become classics of the future.