As an overall experience, the OnLive MicroConsole asks quite a bit out of me as a user. Not the service itself, I have no beefs with the service. The OnLive MicroConsole is a box roughly the size of a DSi. It is designed to bring PC gaming to your television or monitor without the need of a computer with reasonable specs, or a computer at all for that matter. There is a lot the OnLive MicroConsole has to offer the world in terms of a cheap and affordable PC gaming experience brought straight to your living room. It’s hard to imagine a world where they could even live up to a fraction of such lofty goals and promises

All it asks is that you have a TV or monitor with an HDMI port, an Ethernet port to plug into nearby, and at least 2 MBPS out of your ISP to experience their service. This is where I ran into some issues. I’ve got power sockets and death squids all over the place, so that’s no problem. My TV is HDMI ready, so no need to drop 30 bucks on a component adapter, and I can handle the MBPS needed. But I’m clearly not the person they had in mind for the MicroConsole. The service allows for computers to connect via WiFi, however the console does not. The console requires you to connect either with an Ethernet cable or through various bridge techniques.

(more…)

Thinking of picking up the Augmented Edition of Deus Ex: Human Revolution on the PlayStation 3? Here’s a fun fact I found out the hard way so you don’t have to! The bonus “DVD” that’s included, despite having “DVD” printed on the disc itself (and the back of the box), is actually a Blu-ray disc.

“But my PS3 is a Blu-ray player! What’s the big deal?” you might ask. Well, gentle reader, you may be annoyed to find out that while you can access the videos included using your PS3, the soundtrack will not work. You can attempt to select it from your PS3, but it will promptly tell you to put the Blu-ray disc in your computer to retrieve the files.

Like many people out there, my computer has no Blu-ray drive. Considering I personally only went with the Augmented Edition for the soundtrack which is currently inaccessible to me on a Blu-ray disc with “DVD” printed on it, I’m a bit annoyed to put it nicely.

I’m sure in time we will all have Blu-ray drives, or perhaps even Green-ray drives, installed right into our heads that will allow us to download soundtracks right into our brains, but until that time you better have one in your computer or it’s no soundtracks for you!

Update: The support forum thread on EidosGames.com is full of people having this same issue

Prepare to cross “helping in the fight against cancer” off of your life’s To-Do list. The American Cancer Society is hoping to raise $10,000 by April 29th and they have no intention of leaving your generosity unrewarded. Far from it, in fact!

By making a donation as low as $10, you can receive not one, but three full length Songs for the Cure albums in digital form. Bump your donation up to $15 or more and you’ll even get physical copies of all three albums.

You might be wondering what all this has to do with video games. As it turns out, the over 40 artists involved with the albums include a number of Indie Game composers, OverClocked ReMix veterans, and even some musicians from bigger titles. (more…)