In one quick motion, Square Enix has announced and launched their own take on cloud gaming. CoreOnline will let players enjoy certain Square Enix titles from within their web browsers in glorious HD*.
The first two games offered up by the service are Hitman: Blood Money and Mini Ninjas. Mini Ninjas is old news and has been available on the Google Chrome Store for a while now. Hitman, though, is a brand new offering.
While it is free-to-play, users will need to watch ads in order to unlock time within the game. One ad earned me 10 minutes of play time. I could have scored each level by paying $0.49 and skipping the ads. Here's the breakdown of how that all works by way of Square Enix:
The CORE®ONLINE service has been updated to offer users the chance to play through entire games for free, in exchange for watching video advertisements. Users will be able to earn game time by choosing from a choice of ads, and this game time can be passed on from one play session to the next. Alternatively, it will be possible to skip ads by buying individual levels or complete games.
My quick session arrived without a single hiccup or stutter. That said, I for one have always found cloud gaming to be a bit unreliable. It's great when it works well, but it doesn't work well often.
Nevertheless, this whole idea of earning time in games by watching brief odds is exceptionally interesting. Would you be willing to watch commercials every 10 minutes in order to enjoy free gaming? You can try Hitman: Blood Money right here.
*Lag permitting.
[via The Barcode Society]
