So, I've been experimenting with cloud gaming. This is not new technology and in fact the hype has declined with the shutdown of Google Stadia (and the general decline of Silicon Valley as the backdrop for this, I guess. Like, hey, I've been warned about the scary cyberpunk future where we own nothing and serve our cyber-overlords, but I guess reality is more mundane than that)
Anyway, I've been skeptical about the idea for a long time, but somewhat recently I got bored and decided to take a look at Nvidia's GeForce Now. Turns out they have a free tier which I was completely unaware of. And you don't buy games on their platform, you bring in already 'owned' titles from Steam and other places (though the selection of games is limited for whatever reason).
This is exciting as it means I can experience High-Spec Gaming™ for free, even on my shitty laptop! Or can I?
At the time of me completing it, this was the latest entry in the Need for Speed franchise, and it happened to be the only NFS game that was available on GeForce Now. Well, what better way to push cloud gaming to its limits than with a fast-paced, modern AAA racing game?
For starters, I'll say GeForce Now has done a good job of pulling me in. At first their free tier seemed very limiting, it was said to involve sitting in very long queues waiting for your turn to play, then getting exactly 1 hour of playtime, then having to wait 24 hours for another turn. But weirdly enough I was allowed to play nearly instantly, and after the 1-hour limit expired I was allowed to just enter the queue again and be back in the game in about 2 minutes.
Either I got really lucky (perhaps I logged in at a time when few other users were on; and their 1h/day limiter just broke for whatever reason), or something fishy was going on. Well, seems like this was a tactic to get me hooked on the service, and after a week of usage they started imposing restrictions again and now I had to wait 20 minutes to get only 1 hour of playtime. Fair enough, I was just seeing what I could get away with by paying nothing, so I can't complain.
(I should also mention that the free tier is limited to 720p30fps, but my laptop screen is 1366x768 anyway and I'm used to playing games at less than 60 FPS, so no big deal for me personally)
Okay, let's get back to the original question. Did I enjoy playing NFS Heat like this?
The answer is, not really, but honestly so far it's hard to tell if this is because this game sucks or the streaming service sucks. There is input lag which is inherent to these systems, it does take some time for keyboard input to be sent to Bulgaria and A/V output to be sent back to Ukraine. In my personal experience the delay is low enough to forget that this is running in another country, but high enough to feel like a very badly optimized game. Combine it with a 1-in-1000 chance of just... dropping a key input? And general network nonsense which leads to the whole game freezing for a few seconds once every hour or so. That last part may or may not have to do with me using Wi-Fi, using Linux, living in Ukraine, and other factors. Overall the game is playable but noticeably less enjoyable than playing a racing game offline.
The game itself is... okay, I guess? Better than NFS2015, I liked the day/night cycle, police chases were surprisingly difficult but still less fun than the original NFS Most Wanted, driving physics were... again, better than 2015. The graphics were good and I liked the customization options. Turns out the latest AAA titles aren't always phenomenal, but at least I get to experience the same disappointment as everyone else thanks to GFN! *6/10*
I did try to use GeForce Now both through their Windows client and through a web browser on Linux. I did not notice any differences in latency or quality.
gardenapple - 2023-02-05
Game finished 2022-11-28
