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So far, there have only been three cloud services that have truly impressed me, the first was google docs. All my office work placed at a single location without the need for anything other than a web browser! No matter which machine I goto, I'm using the latest version of the document I need.

The second service to impress me was Dropbox, for the same reasons, only it applies across my spectrum of projects. Source code, artwork, photos, even music and videos can all be synced across my PC's and backed up in the cloud so I never need to worry about data loss or which version of the project I'm using.

The third service, is Onlive. It feels like the future! No game downloading, no software installation, and truly multiplatform without compromise. Games run on Windows and Mac OS alike, without missing features or long waits for release. But how does it achive this amazing feat?

Simply, onlive crunches the game for you on their servers, and pipes the video across your broadband connection. You then pipe your keyboard inputs back to the server.

Having recently upgraded my service to 50mb Virgin broadband, I must say, the service is absolutely amazing. I was dubious at first, I thought the controls and video would lag, after all you can't buffer this sort of thing like you can a youtube video. But I've tried three games from their £6.99 a month package. Batman Arkham Asylam, which is admittedly a pretty slow game. Supreme commander forged alliance, which is a complicated RTS game. And the ultra fast, quick reflex game Unreal Tournament III.

Not once have the controls felt sluggish or unresponsive, and while you might not notice in the likes of Arkham, I would definitely feel it in Unreal Torn III.

So from a straight up desktop PC I've had no problems. But what's got me really excited is that they are going to release a client for android and iPad tablet devices. You can play full PC games on tablet devices! How cool is that!

Because it's just streaming video, it's a great new direction for anti-piracy as well. Can't steal that game if you never get the data!

Up until now Cloud computing has, to me at least. Been a simple matter of file storage and sharing. Not that impressive. But a dedicated data center crunching your games, regardless of the hardware you are using also eliminates the need for expensive hardware upgrades. Onlive are also making deals with various TV services, as far as I understand. So smart TV's may well feature "apps" that support it as well.

For such a simple idea, the implementation appears very well done. Though I suspect users with slow broadband speeds will have nothing but trouble.

But it's free to sign up for an account, and you can immediately try demo's, of which you get 30 minutes game play of the full versions before you either need to buy the game, or rent a game pass.

Overall I think this is the most impressive example of cloud service aimed at consumers I've seen so far. Including apples iCloud (which has yet to impress me at all).

Yup I agree its a brilliant service, having a mac here I tend to miss out on the high end PC Games that people tend to be playing at the moment (My BIG PC exploded a year ago). Onlive has allowed me to play games on my 10Mb connection with little or no lag at all

It's great! However my internet is not. I can JUST about get enough bandwidth after midnight to run it, the video quality isn't brilliant, but it's really responsive. I just wish my small village wasn't so behind.

I like it, I got the micro console for free when I preordered Homefront. And just got Dues Ex HR for less than a $1 as part of a promotion a little while ago

It can be a bit picky though, and it isn't quite the same feel as having it on console or PC, but I'm sure it'll only improve with time.

I'm having concerns about the fact Onlive requires a so high internet speed.

Will the global network sustain this let's be honest, very excessive data transfer, if everybody (many many people...) starts using it?

It may seem awesome, thought aside from the fact it lacks of soul, and seems to try to once and for all erase the need to really possess the game in yours hands from the users... so aside from that tiny fact really, it also seems the most not-green solution that can be thought up.

There is already 432 active nuclear power plants, and 65 more under contruction worldwide. When it comes to Onlive, sorry but i can only think about that.

Let it be so miraculously advanced, maybe a nice experiment for a couple of college students at home, but raising it to a worldwide service... seriously, this is not healthy.

(And i haven't touched the area, what is true for every kind of online service from downloadable contents to things like Onlive: once the company behind it is gone, well, you are left there with a useless piece of hardware. Also it is very likely that the company behind Onlive started out with a serious debt, and if they don't get enough clients it's all going to collapse)

What I don't get is, how does it crunch the numbers effectively? I mean, for us to run a cutting edge AAA game we need a £500-£1000 PC. So surely, in order for them to generate the video feed, they need something with that power per player. So they have a mega server powerful enough to crunch 10 versions of the game on one machine, but surely this costs £20,000 or similar?

If so, how does this business model ever pay for itself? Once there are enough subscribers buying games such that the huge server farm of massively expensive rigs can be paid off, won't they need to be upgraded? I just don't get how they could ever sustain a large number of simultaneous players in a cost effective manner.

Perhaps I should actually work out the maths to see if I'm right.

It is a bit of a stuggle to imagine just how they do this - I mean having a server run OS instances is one thing, but running videogames, which each would need specific access to the graphics hardware... well it just boggles the mind.

I quite like the idea, although I've only played Deus Ex, the controls were responsive - but you really do need that 50mb internet connection - I'm not sure it would work as well on slower connections. What I think is incredible though, is how you get a 30 minute demo, you can play the full game of something, instead of downloaging gigabytes of demo's, you just jump in and give the game a try. The potential is amazing for this platform, it's the only possible alternative to a high spec gaming PC, and it takes that and amplifies the benefits - I mean if you can't afford a high spec gaming PC, you still have to get some sort of PC, and you still have to spend a bit of money to get a decent spec PC. Onlive levels the playing field somewhat, any cheap old PC will be able to play the latest games. It's quite an incredible system it has to be said, but I still cant wrap my head around how they do it, and how they can keep doing it in the future.

I didnt actually believe what people said about how quickly you can start playing, so i thought i would test it for myself even tho i dont have a controller or mouse for my laptop, I gave my brother a race, he had choose a game from our cabinet and load it up on our xbox and I launched a game on OnLive, and I won, astounded.

I think it's a great service, although I don't need it yet because my PC is pretty powerful.

The things that makes it click with me are the social aspects. You can browse and watch thousands of people's games, and you can record and playback your gameplay too. It's cool that you don't have to worry about save file management!

Just got the email this morning for Onlive's mobile app. Downloading now, anyone else try this out yet?

Will update once I play around with it. I'm using an HTC Sense so I'll let you know how well it does.