For as long as Zynga has been charging middle-aged women real money to harvest virtual crops, the term "Facebook game" has rarely been used by hardcore gamers without at least a little derision. With the launch of a new app from Gaikai, however, that may be changing.
Launched today, the company's new gaming app shows promise. Though still in beta, it offers players the chance to play demos for games like Saints Row The Third, Dead Rising 2 and The Witcher 2 from the comfort of their internet browsers. Impressively, it doesn't seem to require the kind of heavy duty gaming rigs mny people associate with PC gaming, requiring only that players have up-to-date versions of Firefox, Chrome or Internet Explorer with updated Java installed.
It's not without its flaws, of course. For one thing, as stated before, at the moment it's only offering demos. For another, if you're not used to playing games with a mouse and keyboard (which, I'll be honest, describes me pretty well), it does take some getting used to the controls.
Nonetheless, it's a pretty neat concept. I mean, not that I'd advocate slacking off at work so you can kill zombies with makeshift weapons, but hey -- if you've got a job that doesn't block Facebook, you totally could do that now.