Crysis developer Crytek has liftedthe lid on Gface, the OnLive-meets-Facebook gaming social network that could genuinely transform multiplayer gaming. Why’s it so special? And what does it actually do? Read on to find out.
So you know how you can play games with your online friends through Facebook? But the games are mostly flash-based nonsense like the Zynga-developed FarmVille? Gface is a bit like that except with fully-3D core titles. It’s a social network designed to allow users to easily find their friends and set up online games with them.
It means that playing online multiplayer bouts of Crysis or other such titles with your mates will be as simple as seeing if they’re online a la Facebook chat.
So far, so Steam, but the icing on the cake is the fact that it’s all cloud-based and runs in your browser, which means that (as with OnLive) you don’t need a top end computer and there’s nothing to install.
OnLive and Google kill the games console
The Gface/Crytek team up could really shakeup the way we pay online multiplayer. It’s already been proved that such like-minded online hubs work wonders, as with the in-browser Quake Arena since 2009. If Gface can wrangle enough developers and titles into its stable as possible, it could become the de facto place for online multiplayer.
It’s not just for games, though: Gface also seems to be a fully-fledges social network with an interest in movies, music and picture sharing.
As it is, that’s kind of all we know: the service is in closed beta. If you’re lucky enough to be in the Gface inner circle, let us know what your experience has been like.
