Recently Brad introduced me to the guys at Spawn Labs as he wanted to try out a demo of their first product, the Spawn HD-720.  Basically this is a Slingbox for your Xbox (or Playstation 3).  It’s a small box that you install next to your game console, connect to your internet connection and connect to your console by Gamepad Adapters that let the box control your console just like any controller would (the console doesn’t know the difference).  You then visit their website, install a small plugin and in minutes you’ll be playing your favorite games streamed over the net, in real time at up to 720p resolution.  Sounds fairly cool, huh? 

First I must say I don’t actually have a Spawn HD-720 but rather they set me up with a demo at their offices.  So I can’t speak to how easy to configure the actual box is and I have no idea what sort of bandwidth they have (I assume tons).  I’m running on a Comcast cable modem at about 20MB downstream, so fairly quick.  For me it was a snap it get it all working – I accepted the invitation code they sent me via email (am guessing that’s only needed if you are browsing a friends machine).  After creating a quick account online I was able to play on either a Xbox360 or Playstation 3.  I clicked Play on the Xbox console and was prompted to download and install a small plugin which happened quickly and with ease.  Once I connected my Xbox controller to my PC (I already had the adapter for this) I was ready to go.

Upon clicking the big green Play button a new window opens to actually play the game.  This window has options for size (.5x all the way up to full screen) and a number of streaming and controller options.  You can play with the keyboard/mouse but that’s fairly tough depending on the game.  The first game I tried was Project Gotham Racing 4 – a game I owned a while back.  So how was playing?

It was okay.  The video and audio quality are impressive and there was virtually no visible lag at all.  In fact the video quality was some of the best I’ve seen from a device like this, better even than I remember my Sling HD was.  Input from the controller was a little laggy but far better than I expected.  I’d have to guess there is a .10-.25 second delay in all button presses, etc. (they estimate something in the .1 second range but it “felt” a bit more than that to me).  While that doesn’t sound like much when you are playing a racing game that has constant input (turn a bit, brake, gas gas gas!) it became pretty challenging to drive accurately.  While very interesting it wasn’t something I wanted to do for more than a few minutes.

Next I fired up the PS3 to play some Soul Caliber – an arcade style fighting game.  This was much more playable with button presses feeling near instant.  I don’t know the game at all so I don’t know all the special moves but it was fun to play – and something that I could actually do without being frustrated by the delay.  Impressive to say the least.

The more I thought about it though the more negatives I came up with.  Who is the target market for this?  Obviously hard core gamers that just have to play.  Ok, so where are they going to play – most likely when they are travelling. Spawn Labs points out that LAN play is near instant – but why if I was on the LAN would I not sit in front of my Xbox at my big HD TV and really enjoy it??  I understand there will be some households where getting time on the TV is challenging so there could be a use case there.  For me I’d use it travelling but most hard core gamers are going to have a laptop capable of at least decent gaming so again why would I want this?  The only use I could come up with would be multiplayer, console specific games that you want to play away from home.  I’m just not sure how often someone would want/need that.

There is another downside, you only get the one game disc that is in your console.  While there are some games that will play directly from the hard drives in the consoles they are generally demos or of the “casual” type (ie the ones I never play).  So you’re basically only able to play the one game that you left in the console when you left the house – sub optimal for sure.

I have to commend Spawn Labs for their implementation – very slick, fast, usable and easy.  I’m just not sure who they are going to sell it to.  As someone who owns 2 Xbox360’s, a PS3 and a myriad of controllers (Drum Rocker, Xbox360 Racing Wheel, Logitech G27 Racing Wheel, Fender Replica Bass, etc, etc) I’m obviously not averse to spending money on my gaming setup.  For me though I’d see no use for this device at all.  Fun, but definitely not a must have for me.

Thanks go to Brad for finding the cheat code to unlock all songs in Rock Band.  Finally you can have friends over and just play for fun vs. go through the horribly difficult Rock Band interface (who was the leader again, why don’t we have one, why can’t we just play, why are you clicking there, please don’t hit a button on the guitar, hey there stop screwing around on the drums).  Finally you can just have fun.

So how do you input this cheat code?  Well it’s really easy, here’s the step by step:

• Start on the Rock Band start screen (the one where it says “Press Start”)
• Then using a guitar controller play the following sequence (fairly quickly – just tap the buttons, don’t use the strum bar at all)
  Red-Yellow-Blue-Red-Red-Blue-Blue-Red-Yellow-Blue

That’s all there is to it.  It will tell you you’ve unlocked everything and that you can’t save your progress (since you are cheating).  Next time you’ve got the gang over for a game you’ll be able to have fun instead of fighting with the Rock Band interface.  Enjoy!

So I’ve been dorking out playing Rock Bank for the last few hours or so and I have to say, I’m surprisingly disappointed. Maybe I just had expectations that were way to high. I also didn’t like Guitar Hero 3 the first week I played it so maybe it will grow on me.

I have a few issues with it. First, either my guitar is broken or the new strum bar just sucks ass (I can hear something banging around inside the guitar). It’s loose, mushy and just feels like crap. I like that it’s much quieter than the previous guitars and I love the new design (looks like a Fender Startocaster). It’s much larger and feels much more like a real guitar in your hands. The addition of the smaller fret buttons at the bottom of the fret board is nice but they just don’t work that well. It’s not smooth to move between them and the raised bumps on them are too small to easily find your place. Given that you can’t really look down you should be able to feel this very easily, maybe it will just take me some time to get used to it.

Don’t get me started on the drums. Yes, they are built very well and look like they will take a lot of abuse. It is hard to get comfortable with them, you can’t really sit on a couch and need to sit on a real chair to play them well. The issue is they track oddly, or maybe my TV just isn’t calibrated properly. I’ve tried to play them three times (remember, I can sorta play drums, certainly enough to keep a beat with real musicians) and each time I’m getting boo’ed off. I can’t see how, I’m right in beat with what I hear so maybe I’m just retarded.

Don’t get me started on the USB hub. I mean I know that they didn’t need to go nice here but come on, this thing is a tiny piece of shit with a very short power cord. When this system is almost $200 can’t you give me a nicer hub than this? The packaging of the whole system sucks (looks like something for a factory, not a “cool” game). Oh, and from what I can tell so far my mic doesn’t work at all, or at least when I plug it in the game tells me there is no mic connected. Bargh!

So I gotta say after playing a few hours I wish I hadn’t spent the almost $200 on this. I’ll post back in a few days, I did read that single player is pretty weak so on Thanksgiving I’ll be taking it to a friends house where 4 of us can play all at once. That will be the real test… Man I hope it lives up to the hype! I will let you know in a few days, right now I’m back to Guitar Hero 3 for some fun…