直播游戏系统

On Thursday,直播，可用于Mac和Windows的基于云的创业游戏服务，推出了期待已久的单机游戏系统。OnLive的新微型游戏机电视适配器和无线控制器游戏系统expands the OnLive brand, effectively turning any television set into an instant, on-demand gaming device. The home console market is one of the fiercest industries to break into, but OnLive's impressive price tag--$100, including a free game pass--and its strong array of titles may see it make a splash this holiday season.

For those who are unfamiliar with the OnLive name, OnLive is a cloud-based gaming service that lets you stream games to your Mac, Windows PC, and thanks to the new Game System--your TV as well. But OnLive's biggest marketing problem is that the average consumer has no idea why it's cool. I know this because trying to explain why it's important to a room of technology enthusiasts (like, say, theMacworld编辑）将只能得到空洞的眼神。

So, a history lesson. A decade ago, few gamers would have dreamed that we could play high-end, graphically intensive titles without physically buying the discs and the box first. Then came pirating, as well asSteam和其他游戏服务，有效地让玩家不必离开自己的家，享受游戏。游戏光盘和箱艺术开始被淘汰，被下载的内容所取代。今年早些时候，OnLive的证明，玩家不需要光盘，高端机，甚至可以下载以享受最大的头衔大型游戏文件。

十年来,我们从玩家不得不去tores, buying a specific console (usually around $300 to $600) or a gaming computer (costing at least $1000) and then the games they wanted to play (usually priced between $30 to $60) to where OnLive takes us now: using virtually any TV, Windows or Mac computer can be used as a gaming platform. While we're not there yet, OnLive is exciting because it foretells a new future where gamers don't need to shell out thousands of dollars on high-end machines or hundreds of dollars on specific consoles. OnLive can become the Netflix of gaming, and that's why it's so cool.

Since OnLive's spring release, Mac and Windows users have been able to enjoy games like Batman: Arkham Asylum, Unreal Tournament, and Splinter Cell without game discs or massive downloads thanks to OnLive's now free-downloadable service. The Game System, available for $100, brings the service to television and places it in more direct competition with home consoles like Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and the Nintendo Wii.

家用游戏机市场是臭名昭著一个非常薄的边缘误差挑战。一个拙劣的主机上推出已经注定了几大游戏开发商，但更大和更经常买快乐游戏机市场是非常有利可图的，如果你能为自己做一个名字。

直播clearly understands the challenge and has done some very smart things. For the Game System launch, OnLive already has a following established through the Windows and Mac community that has been enjoying the service for months who can speak to the OnLive service actually working. OnLive has an impressive list of 35 titles and a list of "upcoming" titles that will hopefully launch simultaneously on the platform. Gamers can make informed decisions about what consoles to buy based on what games are going to be available--OnLive basically says right up front that it's going to have the titles you want, including Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood and Homefront.

OnLive的工程师们显然花了很多时间开发的家用游戏机。游戏系统本质上是两块首先是关于便携式硬盘驱动器大小的小黑框。设置此微型游戏机电视适配器只需要在以太网电缆从您的路由器，一个HDMI电缆连接到电视和电源堵塞。它不仅是简单的设置，它的很多便携。

The other part of the game system is the Wireless Controller--its something OnLive got very, very right. It looks and plays like the offspring of a TV remote, the PS3 controller and the Xbox 360 controller. The controller features two joysticks, four buttons (X, A, Y, B) in the right corner, a specialized D-pad in the left corner, two triggers and your standard R1 and L1 buttons. It feels a bit heavier than the Xbox 360 controller, which I personally feel is more ergonomically comfortable than the PS3 controller, but I prefer the PS3 and OnLive controller's dual stick design. Bottom line: the controller is familiar enough to gamers to be easy to pick up and play and still serves OnLive's purposes. At the bottom of the controller is a thin line of five buttons like you'd see on a VCR or DVD player. These effectively allow you to record and play back your brag clips--it's a clever, subtle and useful design quirk that doesn't distract from gameplay.

Perhaps most important decision made about OnLive is its price. At $100, it undercuts the competition to such a degree that virtually any gamer has to pay attention to it. Not only do you get the controller and MicroConsole, but you also get a free game pass. That means you're really paying $50 for the controller and console, and that's a pretty damn good deal.

但它是如何发挥？关于以及对我的MacBook Pro和酷睿i7 iMac电脑运行OnLive的服务。在做这个星期我的游戏评论，我用了一个实验室电视和微型游戏机专用，并没有注意到帧速率或比我在我的Mac电脑玩的时候所经历的游戏差异的任何放缓。

这也是一个很大的乐趣测试。您可以记录追溯谝剪辑，如果你做一些冷静的控制按钮的点击。你可以去竞技场，观看其他球员的发挥，并获得其他玩家击败如何一定水平的一些英特尔。然后，您可以欢呼，嘲笑，或朋友他们。这是很容易解开游戏，并开始播放，完成后，切换到另一个游戏。Demoing是一件轻而易举的事太 - 不像其他的服务，OnLive公司可以让你实际上是通过实际比赛的开始阶段发挥其作为演示的一部分。

Macworldstaffers were equally impressed with the graphics and lack of lag. I demoed Assassin's Creed II and Borderlands for Senior Editor Jonathan Seff and Editorial Director Jason Snell and both were impressed by the frame rates and the look of the game. The 1080p video resolution was also a welcome surprise, as is OnLive's promise of 3D TV compatibility in the future. Hardcore gamers will also enjoy the fact that the console is BlueTooth and USB-headset compatible.

While I'm a huge fan of Steam, I have to admit the service is currently limited in its game selection on the Mac and the lack of simultaneous launches. Meanwhile, OnLive has already boasted several simultaneous launches of high-end games including Mafia II and Kane & Lynch 2. And while Steam requires you to download the game's content to your hard drive, all of your game's information is effectively stored off-site in one of OnLive's servers.

That's the good and bad news for some players. Some will miss feeling like they "own" the game, since they're effectively unlocking the game on a service rather than downloading it to their own machine. But storing everything on the Cloud also means that OnLive will allow you to start playing Borderlands on your TV, save your game, and pick it up again on any machine that has the service--within seconds. Downloading OnLive's client takes seconds, even compared to Steam's and again there's no game content that needs to be downloaded.

Of course, like OnLive, Steam games require Steam connectivity to work. And like Steam, OnLive is completely dependant on your Internet connection. The recommended minimum broadband speed is 5Mbps for 40-inch TVs and above, 4Mbps for 30- to 40-inch TVs, and 3Mbps for TVs less than 30 inches. Slower connections can experience nose-diving frame rates and there have been reports that people who live further from server locations and have worse connections will find the 1:1 action to be anything but. That said, I can only speak from my own experience, and that is that OnLive has worked as promised with some caveats.

在一个点上，我无主游戏中遇到的错误和服务中断。不幸的是，boss战中，出现这种情况，当我再次推出的游戏，我失去了很多我的进步。像边疆游戏（审查即将出版）特别容易给玩家根据检查点保存系统失去他们的进步。如果你不经常保存，有点网络打嗝可能的灭顶之灾为您的游戏。

The other major drawback is that while OnLive is a social service, it's multiplayer component is hit or miss. Granted, games like Darksiders and Assassin's Creed II aren't meant for multiplayer. But in Kane & Lynch 2 and Borderlands, trying to "join" a multiplayer game will see you twiddling your thumbs for a while. With Borderlands, there aren't many public co-op games to join, and so multiplayer is dependent on inviting your OnLive friends for combat. After trying to join a quick match with Kane & Lynch 2 and being unsuccessful on multiple tries, I was worried that OnLive simply didn't have multiplayer capability. But jumping into a public match in Unreal Tournament III: Titan pack was easy and I was gunning down fools in seconds. That said, many future releases on OnLive are dependant on their multiplayer performance, and so far the public matchmaking services aren't there yet.

Macworld's buying advice

史蒂夫·珀尔曼，OnLive的创始人和CEO，该公司的新闻稿中吹嘘说：“OnLive的游戏系统标记用于视频游戏和家庭娱乐的新时代的开始。不仅是OnLive的游戏系统发挥最快的，最简单的方法，观看和客厅的大屏幕上即时试驾顶级的游戏，这也开启了一扇大门的游戏和娱乐选择一个新的世界 - 从富媒体社交网络和巨大的出席观看跨电视，PC游戏的可移植性，Mac和移动设备“。

虽然这是为时过早，如果OnLive的启动也预示着新时代的开始，它是安全地说，帕尔曼已经取得了不错的几个公司的承诺。具体来说，OnLive的是快速，简单，和令人印象深刻的简单利用，并且由于其价格低廉，OnLive的游戏系统应能吸引潜在的游戏机玩家的新组。它的游戏选择是令人满意的，虽然不是在同水准与Xbox 360或PS3的，在未来的差距可以关闭感谢OnLive的涉及几个高档的出版商。

The portability across TV, Windows, and Mac is also really exciting as it ensures that Mac users will get to enjoy high-end titles they would previously never get to enjoy. When the multiplayer functionality is better flushed out with certain games, and as the game library grows, Perlman's boast of a new era becomes more and more likely.

克里斯·霍尔特是Macworld大会副主编。

这个故事，“OnLive的游戏系统”最初发表Macworld .