Does anyone subscribe to yahoo's Games on Demand? There seem to be quite a few games I'd like to play, but probably would never buy on there. Is performance good? I assume it downloads the game to your drive. Or is it actually streaming?
Thanks
Yahoo Games on Demand?
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Fitzy
- Posts: 2030
- Joined: Wed Oct 13, 2004 4:15 pm
- Location: Rockville, MD
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Effidian
- Posts: 1563
- Joined: Sat Dec 04, 2004 3:50 am
I've been using it for a couple months. It downloads the game to the drive, and you have to launch it from the web page. The download performance is obviously dependent on your connection, but game performance has nothing to do with your connection speed. You can actually start playing before the entire game is downloaded. If it hits something it hasn't downloaded yet, the game will just pause until it has the file. I usually just let it download when I'm doing something else.
It isn't without issues though.
1. The biggest for me is that most games don't have the manuals. I'm the type that reads the manual before I even start the game, so this is the biggest flaw in my opinion. Some games don't really need manuals, but with others I find myself searching the net trying to find information on what things are.
2. The games are encrypted. When you launch the game, the data is mapped to a virtual drive that is inaccessible by other applications. This means you can't fool around with config files, or add mods or patches or even use command line parameters. The games I have played have all had the latest patch, but I've downloaded a couple that didn't work on my system and not being able to have more flexibility was an issue. This also means that unless the game allows you to save your games in a specific directory or it saves it outside the game directory (like in My Documents), you can't get at your save games.
3. Game selection is pretty limited, but if you haven't played some of them, the price is certainly right. Plus I find that I've tried some games that I never would have bought. "Beyond Good and Evil", for example, was great but I never would have looked at it if I didn't have this service.
4. A minor one is that you can't download one while you play something else. Not really a big deal, but there were a few times I would have like to do this.
Anyway, it has certainly been worth the money and they seem to be adding new games pretty frequently. In the last month they've added a couple and they have a list of games they are adding in the future (no dates though). They just added Joan of Arc, which I had a blast with...
It isn't without issues though.
1. The biggest for me is that most games don't have the manuals. I'm the type that reads the manual before I even start the game, so this is the biggest flaw in my opinion. Some games don't really need manuals, but with others I find myself searching the net trying to find information on what things are.
2. The games are encrypted. When you launch the game, the data is mapped to a virtual drive that is inaccessible by other applications. This means you can't fool around with config files, or add mods or patches or even use command line parameters. The games I have played have all had the latest patch, but I've downloaded a couple that didn't work on my system and not being able to have more flexibility was an issue. This also means that unless the game allows you to save your games in a specific directory or it saves it outside the game directory (like in My Documents), you can't get at your save games.
3. Game selection is pretty limited, but if you haven't played some of them, the price is certainly right. Plus I find that I've tried some games that I never would have bought. "Beyond Good and Evil", for example, was great but I never would have looked at it if I didn't have this service.
4. A minor one is that you can't download one while you play something else. Not really a big deal, but there were a few times I would have like to do this.
Anyway, it has certainly been worth the money and they seem to be adding new games pretty frequently. In the last month they've added a couple and they have a list of games they are adding in the future (no dates though). They just added Joan of Arc, which I had a blast with...