StreamMyGame
Posted by Mike | Filed under Games
For a while, I have been searching for a proper solution for playing games on my gaming rig from a distance. I think that I have finally found my answer. After searching through many expensive hardware options, such as KVM over IP, and wireless monitor signal broadcasters, my answer lies strictly in software.
I have looked into the software aspect before, with such answer as Remote Desktop and VNC, neither of which can provide any type of realtime streaming without a lot of problems. Remote Desktop, even on a local lan, is not 100% as well as VNC. I was doing a google search and came across this site call StreamMyGame.com. At first I was quite skeptical and didn’t believe that it would work. Then I saw that I could download and try for myself without paying a dime, and realized that this might actually be true. I tried out playing Fallout 3 from my Gaming Rig to another remote terminal in my home (one who’s game playing powers are limited) and found that it worked pretty well. The only complaint that I had was that there was no sound, presumably because I didn’t install a decoder onto my system. There were some graphical glitches, but other than that it seemed to work just fine. I haven’t gone and done any extensive playing, but it seems like it works pretty good.
The only problem, and an extremely small one at that, is that you need to pay to get anything above 640×480 on the remote PC. However, the cost is only $9.99/year (with some less restrictions than the free one) or $19.99/year for the unlimited and unrestricted account. I think that anyone who wants to play games from a distance (at least in their home) should give this a try.
Tags: future, streaming, technology, video games
2008 – Year in Review for Games
Posted by Mike | Filed under Commentary, Games
Looking back over the past year, there has been some dissappointments as well as some gems. There was Little Big Planet for the PS3, Gears of War 2 for the 360, and more. There were also the fair share of dissapointments, like Star Wars: Force Unleashed (terrible gameplay, but good graphics).
Back in the graphically-challenged 90s, many games sucked. But on a whole, did the games suck less? It seems with the advent of such amazingly powerful consoles (PS3 and Xbox360 only) that many games nowadays seem to rely on their sheer visual appeal instead of the actual gameplay. Star Wars:Force Unleashed is a great example. I had such high hopes for that game, and it flopped gameplay wise. It looked great, but the gameplay sucked. Little Big Planet and Gears of War 2 are two examples of great looking games with awesome gameplay mechanics.
With the recent recession, the game industry seems to be stronger than ever. However, if you have been keeping a close eye on industry news there have been many cutbacks and studio closures. Even the big companies like EA had trouble, laying off more than 1000 jobs and putting their expansions plans out in Vancouver on ice. Haze developer, Free Radical, even all but closed their doors just before Christmas, laying off most of their workforce and is now up for sale. I think that it sucks that people are out of jobs, but it is simply a byproduct of the boom since the launch of the new consoles. There were many companies in the industry that were not releasing games that were top quality, despite huge budgets (not saying that Free Radical is one of them). I can only hope that this will force developers to be more innovative and do a better job with gameplay mechanics and not focus on having the best graphics on the market – although it would be nice to have both.
This is my cry to the industry, to please remember that games have to be fun to play firstly, and everything else should be second.
Tags: 2008, Commentary, Games, review
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