Hello all,
A couple of weeks ago I posted a review of the three major cloud services and where they all stood in terms of what I would call the "layman's" use case.
Over the past couple of weeks I've been testing out the mobile applications of each service, and with GeForce Now announcing support for Safari and Chrome, I was able to give that one a go as well. Here's what I've found.
Testing Devices:
- iPhone 12 Pro Max (with Razer Kishi)
- iPhone 7 Plus (w Razer Kishi)
- Google Pixel 2 XL (with Stadia Controller and XBox One X controller)
- iPad Pro Gen 4 (w Stadia Controller, DualShock 4, and SteelSeries Nimbus mFI)
- iPod Touch (I was curious if there'd be any difference from iPhone...there wasn't)
Games Tested
- Immortal: Fenyx Rising
- Assassin's Creed: Valhalla
- Cyberpunk 2077 (Stadia and GFN only)
- Hitman: World of Assassination (Stadia only)
- CONTROL (GeForce Now and Luna only)
As a quick side note...of all the devices I tested, believe it or not the iPhone 7 Plus was actually the easiest to use. The reason was completely unexpected - it's one of the few iPhones that had a landscape home screen, making it super easy to switch between Luna, Stadia, and GFN when I wanted to. Unexpectedly nifty experience.
Another quick side note: None of these reviews are meant to be critical of the services - it's really a magical, wonderful time to be a gamer and the fact that these services work AT ALL just blows me away each time I play. My wife is probably tired of hearing me sing the praises of cloud gaming at this point! But honestly, I love all three, and I'm only posting these reviews since I have the luxury of time to review them, so hopefully I can save someone else some headache when trying to sort through which service to jump in on currently.
Quick Take: If you don't wanna read my long ramblings on each service here's the quick take: for most people looking to game on the go...I'd probably still just recommend a Switch. Wait, before you hit the downvote button lemme explain!
Google Stadia
Of the bunch, I fully expected Stadia to be the clear winner - and in a lot of categories it was. Ease of use was of course top notch - you just tap on a game and start playing. Actually, I shouldn't say "tap", cos of all the services I tested, Stadia was actually the one that required the LEAST screen tapping since it seems like Google has mapped all of the Razer Kishi buttons to Stadia. The Home button on the Kishi takes over as the Stadia button, and the WebApp's UI responds to the controller - Luna and GFN didn't seem to do the same. It really made the phone+Kishi feel the closest to a Switch out of the three platforms.
Gaming wise, Stadia had some issues. My intended use for the mobile apps is to play in bed while my wife is falling asleep. I realize this is an extremely specific use case but bear with me. Our bed is about 6 feet from the router, and on Stadia on both my 12 Pro Max and my 7 Plus, I would call the experience borderline unplayable.
The best "mobile" experience I found was the iPad Pro with, in another surprise, the DualShock 4. I was having a hell of a time getting my XBox One Elite V2 to connect, which could just be user error.
Even with the graphical hiccups and lag, Stadia was "usable", but it certainly wasn't as no-brainer easy as just picking up a Switch and firing up game. However the fact that I could stretch out in bed and play AC: Valhalla on a beautiful little OLED screen (on the 12 Pro Max) or a super nice LCD screen (on the 7 Plus) comfortably was just magical. Personally, I'm willing to forgive the playability hiccups to have AAA titles in my pocket and not be tied to my computer or my TV.
Stadia also wins in the case of screen-switching. My wife and I game on the couch, but when she wants to turn in, I can pause the game on the ChromeCast Ultra, pick up my phone, fire the game up and I'm right where I left off. GFN claims that it does this but I could never get it to work right, and I never thought to try it on Luna since I don't have a Fire Stick.
Overall: For the low low price of "absolutely free", Stadia is probably the service I'd recommend to someone IF: they have a specific game they want to play, they have Ubisoft+, or they are a Pro member and just want to casually game while on the go. This is probably the service I would recommend to most people, but with some caveats.
Amazon Luna
Of all three services that I tested, Luna was probably the most frustrating because I WANT it work due to the game selection. I mentioned in my previous review that I like Luna overall because of the sheer number of interesting indie titles on offer. Stuff like Blasphemous, Blazing Chrome, and Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night just shine on a mobile platform. I actually have the iOS port of Bloodstained and the Luna version plays FAR better, for example.
The weird thing about Luna is that it feels very much like Amazon allocates way more bandwidth to indie and popular games on their own channel than games on Ubisoft's channel or games that aren't quite as popular/notable. Games like River City Girls and Blazing Chrome, which require precise input, play fantastically well. But AC: Valhalla was freaking terrible most of the time. Watch Dogs: Legion was just a mess - I couldn't even play long enough to consider it a valid test of the game. It's mystifying, really.
This is where it all starts to fall apart with Luna - the inconsistency. Like I mentioned in my previous review, Luna just feels like an early access product without a ton of resources thrown behind it - which to be fair, is exactly what it is. Like a few other Amazon services, it feels like an "also-ran". While games like Blasphemous and Control ran wonderfully, games like AC: Valhalla and GRID were literally unplayable. Which, to me, is unacceptable since they clearly run just fine on Stadia and, as we'll discuss in a moment, GFN.
It still baffles me why Luna isn't somehow directly connected to my Prime Gaming library. There are dozens of games on there that I'd love to play on the go since I'm unlikely to play them at my computer, but they're just not there. Plus there's cool drop-in-drop-out titles on Prime Gaming that would make a lot of sense on mobile - why isn't there an SNK channel, for example? Metal Slug is a perfect phone game while waiting at the doctor's or something? Why aren't there free games to claim on Luna every month alongside the other Prime Gaming titles? Again, mystifying.
Luna still ends up being the service I have the least to say about because it has the least to offer. It's nifty that they've focused so much on bringing some good indie titles to the platform, but I feel like its a lot of games that most people have already played, and it's certainly not enough to justify $6 a month when Stadia is on offer for free, and GFN is on offer for $24 and you don't need a special invite. It just feels like either Amazon doesn't care very much about Luna or they just don't feel the need to push it yet. It's neat being able to play Control on my phone, but that's about as far as Luna goes.
Recommendation: I dunno who I'd recommend Luna to even if it didn't require an invite. It's just sortof...there. It's cool if you love indie titles but until it has more "channels", it's just not something I'd evangelize at all, especially at $6. If it were free with Prime
GeForce Now
Of the three services tested, GFN was the one that most surprised me. It plays EXCEEDINGLY well on mobile, even better than on desktop for some reason. Maybe it's something about running in a browser instead of a dedicated app.
The drawbacks of GFN on mobile though are the same as what I found on desktop - it's just haphazard and way too cumbersome for the average person. When trying to play Valhalla, the game first had to set up my rig, then apparently it had to install the game - I was left looking at the "A" loading logo for so long my phone actually almost went to sleep a couple of times.
I think part of the frustration with GFN is that unless you're quite computer savvy, you just have no idea what it's actually doing (or what you're supposed to be doing) half the time. Sometimes you see the Steam interface while it installs a game, sometimes you have to manually click things to install the games, sometimes it will randomly de-select the platform you selected (it kept wanting to switch my Cyberpunk 2077 install from GOG to Epic, even though I don't own it on Epic)
There's also the issue of your GFN "library" - it's a freaking mess. It shows games I own on platforms that GFN doesn't support, it shows games I don't even own, it's just - I hate to use this word again - haphazard.
Having said that, to my eyes on the phone screen, GFN looked the best. When it's running, it RUNS. It was the best by far. I was able to crank every setting to max and even though it only ran at 720 on my 7 Plus, with the brightness all the way up it looked VASTLY better than anything a Switch could produce. The only game that looked SLIGHTLY better on Stadia was Cyberpunk 2077, but neither my wife or I could figure out exactly why, it just had a better visual "feel" to it. Very minor though. Control on GFN looked just fantastic.
Of the services I tested, GFN also seems to have the least instances of buffering. Granted I've only been on it today, and right before posting this, I had an instance where I was sitting right next to my router and the game just crashed to the "desktop" saying I had a spotty connection, but other than that it's been fantastic in terms of buffering and latency, even better than Stadia.
By contrast, however, there were times on GFN when I hit bugs or UI issues that I just couldn't get past. Twice I couldn't end my game, three or four times the little on-screen menu slider didn't work, etc. These little minor frustrations just made me want to go back to Stadia, honestly.
Also I can't tell if I like or dislike being able to change graphical settings on GFN...on the one hand it's very satisfying to go in and manually set everything to "ultra" and have it work...but on the other, not having to worry about graphical settings on Stadia makes it a more "console like" experience and far more seamless. I'm torn on this one, but I think if I had to pick one, I'd say GFN simply due to the ray-tracing and better overall graphics. Though I do wish it would just auto-set all games to Ultra...remembering midway through a new session that I didn't go in and set everything up is a little frustrating. Not deal-breaking, just frustrating.
Recommendation: I'd recommend GFN for anyone who wants to play AAA titles maxed out and is pretty computer savvy, but doesn't want to fight with scalpers to get a current gen graphics card or pay exorbitant prices for a new gaming pre-built. I'd also recommend it for anyone who is uncomfortable with paying for a game on Stadia with Google's track record of killing projects. I'm comfortable with it, but I can't say that's an invalid concern. Keeping your library if GFN goes kaput is just hard to argue with.
Final Thoughts
Not that it's a competition but, I guess Stadia "wins" this round, but honestly, GFN surprised the heck out of me. Mobile is where GFN really shines. If they could work on simplifying the UI/UX, making the library a little more seamless (think GOG Galaxy), and even perhaps offering some selected titles as part of your Founder's membership, it would be a no-brainer recommendation. Graphically, GFN is far better than Stadia for AAA titles currently
This may be a little controversial here, but, for the average person that came to me asking about mobile gaming, I'd still say, just get a darn Switch. Some average gamers probably aren't gonna be able to get past the buffering hiccups. That's not really part of the review, just a side-note.
All in all I'm increasingly impressed by cloud gaming, and I'm insanely glad Cyberpunk 2077's shoddy launch led me to the cloud!
