Standfirst: Sally Dobie reviews the Shadow streaming service as an affordable alternative to upgrading your gaming devices.
Technology updates are coming out constantly, and without infinite money, it’s really difficult to keep up. For a lot of gamers out there, it’s difficult to play the latest games when the spec required is so high.
However, recently several companies, including Nvidia and Sony have come out with an alternative option: streaming. This service lets you pay a monthly subscription to stream games from another, better performing PC to your computer or laptop.
This service is a way cheaper alternative to upgrading your PC or buying the latest gaming laptop and expands the gaming possibilities tenfold.
One such service is Shadow by Blade. At £24.95 per month you can stream your games through a PC with a much higher spec than what you have at home, as long as you have a good internet connection.
I’ve been using this service for a few months now, and it’s really amazing. Compared to my partner who is still playing off of his gaming PC, I can play games like Star Citizen on medium graphics quality through my little HP Omen laptop. What’s more, there’s no need for a cooling pad or fan when you’re technically not playing the game on your own device.
The service is far from perfect, though. It’s to be expected that there are problems with framerate, but the real problem is lag.
Video game streaming, or ‘cloud gaming’ works in a similar way to streaming services like Netflix and Hulu. With this, it’s unnoticeable if the image arrives on your screen a fraction of a second later than it’s supposed to, episodes and movies will still play flawlessly. But with gaming, when fast reactions and quick movements are key, this becomes a bit more of a problem.
For example, when I’m playing Monster Hunter World through Shadow, sometimes in a battle the action will happen a millisecond after I click the mouse, but this can make a lot of difference in the timing of moves. Another problem I’ve had was when re-playing Arkham Knight. During a car chase, the game lagged, and by the time it corrected itself I had crashed and flipped the car, resulting in losing the mission.
Streaming services have been around for a few years now, but according to the Guardian they’ve never had more than “mixed success”. Admittedly, even with the great concept, it is difficult to put into practice.
But this isn’t stopping Shadow. February 2020 marks a change from their original 24.95 price to three varying tiers, the Boost (14), Ultra (29) and the Infinite (49 per month); both increasing accessibility for those on a lower budget and increasing storage size and capabilities for others.
Since I’m on an annual subscription I get to choose my tier now, so I can’t wait to see what next year brings.