Tag: Online gaming »

It hasn't been until recently that I've really begun to explore my iPhone's capacity for online gaming. I've come to the conclusion that it's certainly not the best platform for drawn-out battles, but it's great for quick random matches. And it's a good fit for a game like Wordy Findy.

There's absolutely nothing to it: just download the app (for free), choose a name to play under and just wait for the next game to start. Matchmaking is handled automatically. Once a game starts, players have around two minutes to find as many words as possible by tracing a line between connecting letters. Completed words earn points based on the values of the letters used and handy information like total available words and points are shown after each game. A scoreboard with each participant's name and score is also displayed between rounds, igniting those instinctual fires of competition while still providing the more humble with anonymity.

Wordy Findy is in the App Store right now, and it's completely free. Ad-supported with banners displayed at the bottom of the screen (mercifully out of the way), but still free.

OnLive, the streaming game service that plans to take the world by storm, has announced today as the launch day for its official OnLive iPad viewer. The free service allows users to watch any game being played by any member of the OnLive community at any time. So if you're feeling like a video game voyeur then this may just be the perfect app for you.

The app comes with a few strings attached, so make sure you know what you're getting into before you install. First off, this is a viewer only, so you won't be able to actually play any games, but rather instead only watch them. If you want to interact with the titles available on OnLive first you'll need to set up an account and then stream the games to either a PC or the newly released MicroConsole. Also, keep in mind that OnLive requires a rather large chunk of bandwidth, even to simply watch games, so make sure you're running an Internet connection that can keep up with the requirements. In our quick tests, the quality was not so great on 802.11g, but very good on 802.11n. But it's free and your mileage may vary.

Some might scoff at merely releasing a viewer rather than a full-on OnLive client, but OnLive representatives have explained to us that the games on the service have been tuned for consoles and PCs and aren't yet ready to run on the iPad. The conversion of PC video games that are used to a full keyboard and mouse to a touch only device, just isn't that easy. Does that mean we might see a true iPad client down the line? Absolutely, it's just a matter of letting the OnLive crew continue to tweak and hone the service until it's ready to support actual gameplay. Basically, users should think of this as an important first step and a sort of proof of concept for what will be available on down the line.