Have you checked out PlayStation Home lately? No? Then you're missing out on a some pretty advanced new gaming experiences.
The latest is No Man's Land , a free-to-play shooter that takes place in a post-apocalyptic America setting, where "you must scavenge to survive while confronting tribes of heavily armed enemies focused on their own survival." As revealed at the PlayStation Blog , the game is a "first of its kind on a console:" a totally free-to-play multiplayer shooter. …don't see those everyday.
Apparently, the development team at VEEMEE was made up of "industry veterans who have worked across a wide range of platforms and genres." The idea is to mix the immersive gameplay of bigger-budget titles with the social and "freemium" elements that dominate the casual realm. They remind us that this is something that is "only possible on PlayStation." Feel free to read up on it; this one is a third-person tactical shooter with a cover-based mechanic and 4-on-4 team combat.
You gotta check this out:
I'm gonna fire me up some Home looks like…
Hey, lookin' good!
Forgot about Home all these years.
Gatto give it some love… Jack B would agree I think. Looks pretty good… I will open the front door to Home again and walk inside…
Q!
"play.experience.enjoy"
Sounds a bit like a Home version of The Last of Us.
I've never enjoyed Home but I'll admit this game looks fun.
I'll probably not play it though as the lads I mostly play with are from this site, making them mostly US or Canadians. So unless Home has done away with it's silly region restrictions, I'll probably not bother.
But it does look like an interesting game and maybe Home has improved since I last visited.
I've said this was the future of gaming since Home was unveiled. We're quickly moving towards the "thin" console.
ROTFL!
Larry Ellison or Oracle has been pushing thin clients and pc replacement for two decades, and in the end , the smartphone/tablet based on Linux/iOS has a better chance of subsuming that role that anything Ellison ever dreamed up. Thin console? Already exists and has done since Home began. However the very best experiences in Home still download an actual game to the console…not so thin after all.
The thin client isn't a question of if, it's just a matter of when. One of the most important things people use their computers for (email) moved to the cloud silently years ago. No one actually uses an email client for personal email any more. Companies are also moving to having Google host their email. Next is Google Docs replacing Word and Excel, etc.
Right now, the thin console (Home) is more of a proof of concept. But with the relative success of OnLive, PSN showing that full game downloads for AAA games are viable, and Home coming closer and closer to being able to offer full AAA titles, the thin console is moving from from proof of concept to reality. It's clear this is why Sony has put so much time and resources into Home, considering it really hasn't been a big hit.
Right now, we're just waiting for the infrastructure to catch up with the technology. But, I predict not the next, but the following generation of consoles to launch with an sku which is a completely thin console.
And, for the record, even if a game in home has to download some temporary data to your local hdd, it would still be considered thin. Similar to a browser game needing java to be installed on your hdd to run.
Troy, for the record, a game like Salt Shooter is not a 'thin' game, it launches within the home environment, but is every bit as thick as any PSN title. Web based applications are 'thin' client, however the majority of actual work done using PCs is performed using applications running locally non the PC. That is not thin.
And for the record, I've worked professionally in the IT industry for more than 2 decades, I know a thin client when I see one. Downloading an application which is then stored locally on the HDD and executed locally does not match any definition of thin client I am currently aware of, unless you redefine it of course…
'relative success' of OnLive? LOL, you might as well talk of the relative success of 3DO. There are fundamental issues with streaming games or running them remotely that cannot be solved with fancy words, spiffy investor portfolios or technical hand waving. There are many genre which will always need to run locally to maintain the tight coupling between the controls and the game. There is far too much network lag inherent in a switched and routed network such as the Internet, regardless of the networking standards used by clients, to allow games that require immediacy of control. I'm talking about shooters (FPS and TPS), fighters and racers, and anything that allows PvP in real time. Unless you are geographically close or on the same ISP trunk, the lag in the controls is likely to be intolerable at best.