We tested Google Stadia, Google's new streaming game platform, and its first exclusive, Gylt, the new Tequila Works, creators of Rime.
There are less than twenty-four hours left until the launch of Stadia and there are still many doubts that assail us on the new Google platform. Last week, without going any further, we discovered all the features that will not be available for departure; a series of notable absences that are missing many details to know and that lack a new arrival date. But between so much fear, doubt and question, in FreeGameTips we have been able to spend an hour thoroughly testing Google Stadia. And also, with Gylt, possibly the most anticipated game in its launch catalog. After that time there are still questions and we still want to know more about the immediate future of the system, but we also have several certainties.
For starters, Google Stadia impresses and reminds us of what happened with Nintendo 3DS. It is necessary to see to believe. As much as Nintendo once promised us a 3D laptop without glasses, many of us had to put our finger in the sore to really believe it. Something similar happens with Stadia. It is normal for people to be skeptical when they are told that they can play Shadow of the Tomb Raider on their home television, press a button and in less than five seconds be playing on their computer or mobile with the same graphic quality, without latency and from the exact point where he had left it. But it can.
Nothing to take your saved data from one system to another through a USB stick. Nothing to manually upload our games to the cloud and download them later. And of course, nothing to wait for the different platforms to start and link, or that they have to be on at the same time or with the same games installed. Between Google Stadia and the relationship, for example, between PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita there are several generations of difference. It is to get Wi-Fi, enter the application or Stadia page from where we want to play and press play. There is no option to be wrong. Faster and simpler impossible.
There are loose ends, of course. There will be no support for iOS launch, the servers have not yet been really tested, we do not know the connection quality of the demo (although we were guaranteed that it was not too good) … and so on. But in any case, time will dictate sentence on the last two very soon, as soon as the platform leaves. Of course our experience was very comfortable and fast, with hardly any problems. Only two graphic falls of a couple of seconds when playing on the mobile. The rest of the time, like silk.
The number of possibilities that Google Stadia opens overwhelms. Play any game anywhere with wifi. And also "play it well" (by controls and technical level, understand). That seems its maximum. Without installing or configuring anything. No downtime for menus and settings pages. We are far from catalog level so that it is fulfilled and we must check how well the technology works with the current means of any citizen (here you can, for example, check how your connection with Stadia goes), but it is a service with which Any fan of the sector will enjoy. It is to simplify the way of playing and allow to do it in more places. Travel without consoles / computer and still enjoy these at our destination? Play Mortal Kombat 11 or Destiny 2 on mobile, in the waiting room for dentists and hospitals? A world of possibilities that sounds future and that smells like it will be a standard before we realize it.
The Google Stadia command, latency?
Symmetric sticks as in the Dualshock, the arrangement of buttons on the Xbox controller, jack input … The Stadia Controller, which will be available in four models, is very continuous with the current market references, which does not have to to be bad. Although the crosshead and the triggers (with a certain distance) may be asked for something else, the control is light, ergonomic and intuitive. And if it does not convince us, we can always connect another one when we play on a computer and mobile phones (for now there is no compatible list and only the output support for Xbox players is confirmed). On television it will be mandatory for Google to, as we are told, avoid any input lag problem. Precisely that, the response time, is what will have to be analyzed over the next few weeks. And the battery life, of course. We did not appreciate latency problems during the test and the response speed was surprising at all times, even when we tried to play on mobile phones with an Xbox controller. We will have to see in the fastest, technical and demanding games, but at least in Gylt, which as we will see has a touch of third person shooter and requires some precision, we are very satisfied.
The greatest novelty of the controls resides in the five buttons of the central part. The select and start of a lifetime (curiously changed position, to pause the game and open inventories on the left) are added the Home menu, another for the voice assistant (which sneaks away list launch) and a fifth to make captures, which in principle and as we were told share the space of our Google account with Gmail and other applications. In the future, this last button will also allow streaming of maximum performance on YouTube, but again it is unknown when this option will arrive. The outgoing buyer must know that a lot of promise and loose fringe is also taken home.
This is Gylt, the new Tequila Works
Those loose fringes that we mentioned, mainly responsible for the misgivings that Google Stadia arouses, are many and also extend to the scope of its catalog. Today there were ten more titles coming out of nowhere! We do not know prices, shop, offer system, periodicity of the games for members of the Stadia Pro subscription, and so on. And not because we haven't asked. Not to mention future features such as sharing our library with family members, an option that does not know when it will arrive, or how many people it will be, or whether it will allow playing at the same time. The only sure thing today is that Stadia will have its own exclusives, that Google already has internal teams preparing them and that the first agreement (we will see whether temporary or not with the passing of the months) is with Tequila Works, which will premiere Gylt with Google Stadia.
The creators of Rime, Deadlight and The Sexy Brutale, among many others, bet on this occasion for a third-person survival adventure. In Gylt we will be at the helm of Sally, a girl who travels a world of dark fantasy in search of her cousin Emily. In the phase we tested, for example, we were going through the classic American neighborhood at night. There were hardly any lights in the streets and instead of peaceful neighbors who went through them were a series of shadow-like monsters. There were many and it was best to go crouched, silently and without activating the flashlight that we carried with us, crossing the back gardens of the houses, hiding behind fences, containers and parked cars. If discovered, the game turned Alan Wake and we had to aim with the flashlight at the shadows to slow them down, concentrating the focus on certain parts of his body, of a striking yellow color, to destroy them altogether. Like a third person shooter. As in Gears of War to defeat the brumark.
They killed us several times, making it clear that it was preferable to stealth and avoid the enemies. The scenarios also invite it to be plagued with hiding places, shortcuts and scrap that we can collect from the ground to throw it, make noise and divert attention from “the shadows”. There is even a certain strategic component, with puzzles to defeat enemies, such as taking them to a wet area, activating electricity in it and killing them from a shock. Gylt is not without personality either and the medicine cabinets, for example, are Sally's asthma inhalers. The world seen from the eyes of a girl. Tequila had already anticipated that issues such as abuse and bullying would be addressed through this adventure. We could not know too much of his plot, which seems as interesting as emotional, but we did fall in love with his artistic finish, which reminds of the films of Henry Selick (Coraline, Nightmare Before Christmas) and evokes the cardboard look of Rime . It was not much that we could be with him, but it was certainly enough for Gylt to continue to crave one of the most interesting titles in the launch catalog. We will see from tomorrow how Sally and Google Stadia are doing in their respective adventures.
