It’s raining games! Cloud gaming hits TVs

Hear me now, peasants, with your antiquated computers, bowls of gruel and embarrassing outdated fashion sense! No longer are you quite so inferior to the glorious PC gaming master races with their diamond studded octo-core processors, water cooled graphics cards and jewel-encrusted laser mice, for today hear of OnLive!

What was that I heard you cry? What is OnLive? As a most learned and informed gentleman let me guide you along the path to nirvāna. OnLive is a form of cloud computing, where game processing and synchronization occurs on remote servers, controlled from a video feed (up to 1080p) delivered to your laughably bad PC or Mac (at least OS X 10.5.8) via the miracle that is the Internet. So long as your computer has a good internet connection (we are talking at least 5 Mbit/s) and can display video you can play a fine albeit small-ish selection of games such as Assassin’s Creed II, Borderlands and the ever amazing LEGO Batman in eye-popping high quality, even if your chuggingly slow machine couldn’t handle them locally.

And before you start drooling all over my expensive Italian loafers, no, the games aren’t free; you are required to purchase a PlayPass to run them, which will give you either unlimited, 5-day or 3-day access to your game of choice. Most of the games do have a demo mode available, so if you’re really worried about parting with what little hard-earned cash you have you can play the full game for a while before committing.

Now, down to the release of the OnLive MicroConsole (OLMC), those of you without mountainous stacks of cash can connect to games and play them on your HDTVs (though how you got your grubby hands on an HDTV is beyond even my great understanding). If you don’t have an HDTV, just find something with HDMI connectivity and you will be set to experience the gaming equivalent of Columbia’s finest. Provided you have the broadband line to stream the information, of course – the larger the screen, the fastest your broadband needs to be to get a smooth experience.

The physical console is about the size of an iPhone, and light enough to carry around if you don’t happen to have an army of slaves (sorry, servants) to do physical work for you. An adaptor light informs you when your game is being processed, and there’s no need to waste time upgrading as all information is automatically sorted for you. It also has Wi-Fi connectivity, which makes it even more portable.

Perhaps you are trying to feebly contemplate how you control your game with the OnLive MicroConsole? You are? Then let me fill you in – you can thank me later. The OLMC comes with a wireless controller (usable only for the MicroConsole, mind) and rechargeable batteries, so that you don’t have to spend more money on fresh batteries and can instead splash out on crusts of dry bread. If you’re not so keen on the rather small controller you can hook up a mouse and keyboard via USB/ Bluetooth to game with.

A bonus feature that you may like is the ability to record any moment of your game with the record button on the controller, which you can show off to your friends and look very smug about. That is, if you have any friends. Or the ability to pull off any amazing gaming moments.

So do I recommend this magical little box to you? If you have a good broadband connection and a computer that struggles to run Pong, I’d tell you to sell a kidney and invest in a MicroConsole as that the package isn’t that costly and doesn’t require constant updating. Plus, with over a hundred new games supposedly in the pipeline your fickle attention will be kept well and truly captivated. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and purchase another solid gold Rolls Royce.