I've always thought that the tech behind game streaming services like Onlive was amazing, only having a few moments of hands on playtime I can remember thinking during the entire play session that this simply shouldn't work. But it does and that fascinates me. However the concept is still a little ahead of it's time, internet speeds fast enough and latency low enough are not yet wide spread to the point that it is a real option for many hardcore gamers.

That got me thinking that perhaps the tech used to power the Onlive service could be repackaged for use in home networks. I for one would love to be able to play PC games on my big screen TV without lugging my 20KG rig through the house. If it is at all feasible it could be a real money maker for the company, if they were to charge even $60 for the server software the console/client is already priced at $99.99, then say $10 per license for each console you want to connect to the server. Then sell games via the current Onlive service with the option to play right away or download to your local Onlive server for local streaming throughout your house. Think what that could potentially do for the PC gaming industry, one machine allowing gaming throughout your whole house. Obviously powering up Crysis 2 from 3 different consoles would melt chips, but still. Local streaming would also illuminate Onlive's biggest issues latency and bandwidth. I understand that the idea of streaming the games off your own monster rig goes against their philosophy of doing away with the powerhouses needed for current PC gaming but I can't help but see so much potential with the idea.

What do you think? Would you be interested in a service that allowed you to stream your games over your local network for play anywhere in the house?

I try and finish all my games on the hardest difficulty so it's a bit of a task to remember all of them. To be honest there are only a handful of games that I would say are impressive to finish on the top level of hard DMC, Ninja Gaiden stuff like that. Notable games I've done would probably be Lost Planet (1) on Extreme, reaching the point at which I am 5 staring (almost) all songs across both Rock Band and Guitar Hero franchises on expert, tanking on our first heroic Lich King kill in WoW.

What is your thoughts on the current trend of bundling PVC statues (of varying quality) with most high profile releases these days? For example Halo Reach, Gears 3, Skyrim, Uncharted 3, Star Wars ToR etc.

Personally I think it is the publishers way or creating an illusion of exclusivity to lure people into paying an extra $60+ for something that normally doesn't hold up to close inspection. The value of the statue, to me, should be largely defined by its rarity and quality however trolling through Amazon just now there does seem to be a habit to over stock these things leading to price cuts and thus diminishing their value not only to the individual consumer but as a collector's item too. If I had my way the statue releases would be $400, made from the highest quality molds and materials and in numbered collectors packaging in runs of maybe 1000. Only then can I really see the appeal.

Thoughts?

The average Xbox 360 review score given by Gamespot is 6.9 .

Well you do now.

Just something that has been going through my head lately, since playing Just Cause 2 Demo, it later popped up when watching screwattacks FF13 review. When we boil it down to basics can't all reviews be summed up with simply how fun a game is. Why should anything else matter? Sure graphics may be pretty and the story could be nice, but if the game itself is no fun all other factors count for nothing.

Take Just Cause 2, being a fan on the first I was excited to play the demo. Upon booting it up and watching the opening cut scene there were only a few things going through my head. What a stupid story, this voice acting is terrible but extremely funny and hey look a helicopter I wanna skydive and see if I can catch it on the way down!(No I cant and floor is hard).It's just one of those games where you have so much fun messing about with the stupid things you can do that all other aspects are fogiven/forgotten. Yet I know this game wont score as high as say something like Bioshock even though I'm having just as much fun if not more playing it.

On the opposite side is FF13, now I fell out with all offline RPG's since Mass Effect and I guess that game sort of cuts into my point as well. Story, graphics etc may be well done andperha[s themain focus of some gamesbutif I don'thave fun playing these games, whats the point? And its not only RPG that I feel this way, GTA4 was also a game with rediculously high review scores that was just no where near as fun as the previous installments. I don't want to go bowling with friends and I don't to listen to Niko's stupid opinions on morality. I want to blow crap up and get into car chases, that's it.

(I'm going to spilt off from the point here a little)
We have next to unlimited potenial for ideas with way to execute them within a virtual world. Why do we insist on tying ourselves to reality within them? Why do we stick togaming conventionsthat have never been fun but are acceptedwith certain genres becasue, hey thats how it has always been done.

(back on point)
Is fun the only contributing factor to how good a game is?And if not should it be?

I dont think my GPU is the problem anymore. Here is what I have done to try and get to the root of the issue.

Uninstalled drivers tried a previous release
Uninstalled previous release driver tried steping further back and beta driver releases
Reinstalledwindows 7OS
Dismantled the laptop to check for damage or loose connections
Reinstalled Vista (booted once, didn't get to install GPU though)
Booted with G parted Linux distro (this booted)
Tried different hard drives
Removed and swaped around memory (booted once)

Seriously I give up. It is just so random now that I don't think it can be the GPU, it started after installing some new graphics drivers so that why I linked it to the gpu. But now it can blue screen before I have installed the gpu during the boot process of windows. However I can sometimes get it to boot but once I restart it bluescreens again. I have tried with and without my power adapter connected to see if it had anything to do with that becasue I did have an issue with it in the past. With and without the battery in. In all the PCs I have fixed and owned I have never had an issue like this that I havent been able to pin down. One thing is for certain now thought, it is definetly a hardware problem. The most annoying thing is that I can't test differnt parts to narrow it down because I dont have access to any that would do the trick.

I guess it is off to the repair shop then, which I hate doing!!!!

Basically Im having some issues with my m1730. I installed windows 7 on it, ran fine for a few weeks and now it just blue screens upon boot. I can get into Windows fine in safe mode and if the card hasn't been installed but as soon as I install it I blue screen.

So far I have taken apart the entire laptop to check if there was any damage to the GPU or if it had been knocked out of place and all seems fine. So I am starting to get suspect of the OS. I am reinstalling Vista as I type this but just want to get ahead of the game a little in case I need to buy a new GPU. I have searched all over the normal sites I get my desktop stuff from and found nothing. Newegg amazon overclockers... nothing. Where can I get mobile GPUs?