When the recent update for Xbox Live was announced one of the more exciting features was the Games On Demand service. Instead of going to a store and worrying about shelf space you can access a growing catalog of titles that you can purchase directly to your Xbox 360 hard drive. Thanks to the fine folks over at 2K Games we were provided with a code for Bioshock to check out the service.
Check out our impressions of the Games On Demand service after the break!
We set out on our trek for Bioshock goodness by logging into our Xbox 360 profiles and navigating to the video game marketplace menu. Once there we saw a colorful pane announcing the Games On Demand service. A simple click brings you to the GOD hub where it not only displays the list of titles currently available but information about the service as well.
Navigating through the hub was just a simple as any other hub in the Xbox Live experience. I found no confusion about where to go and once I click on the Bioshock cover the hub changed to an awesome background of Rapture. Small touches like this really make the service shine as it feels like you are in a centralized hub for that game you are looking to download. not only can you choose to download the Games On Demand version but there were suggestions on other Bioshock things a user might enjoy like the original trial for the game.
So I went ahead and selected the Games On Demand version of Bioshock and just like any other download via Xbox Live it was simple and easy to use. You can choose to redeem a code, use existing MS Points, and buy more MS Points to download the games. Once the download is set you can leave it in the background running. Gamers take note that since these are full versions they are going to be hefty downloads. the several gig download for Bioshock took me about 2 hours to download on a DSL connection.
Once downloaded I loaded up the My Games section of my dashboard and Bioshock was ready for me to play. I clicked the button and the game loaded up right away with no problems. The game played smooth with no glitches at all in the two hours I sat down to revisit rapture. It really was a great experience being able to load up and play a game with no glitches or having to worry about cleaning a scratched disk just to get it to play.
The Games On Demand service was designed to make it easy on gamers to access classic titles when they want to play them without having to worry about lost or damaged media. It really is a fantastic system that is easy to use for both novice and expert gamers. The catalog is currently a small list of games but I expect it to grow over time of course. The only issue I can think of with this service would be the size of the downloads can fill up HD’s fast causing gamers to have to buy additional HD’s. With that being a minor issue I fully expect this service to be a great feature with the new Xbox Live update. while all you Shogunites clamor to pick your titles I am going to head back to rapture and enjoy myself a little more.
