So first of all what did i get with my premiere edition? Well it gets you a White Stadia controller, a Chromecast Ultra, 3 Months of Stadia Pro and the Destiny 2 collection. For it's RRP i still think this is a pretty good deal even this early in the services life.
I actually got the 3 month Pro code when my package shipped so i got to use the service for day using the browser set up and.... to be honest.... i was really worried i had made a grave impulse decision. I had quite abit of visual lag and latency using my ancient Ubuntu laptop wired in via Ethernet. Using both mouse/keyboard and an Xbox controller it was pretty unplayable about 50% of the time which isn't ideal. I'll also point out straight away that i don't have a HDR/4K set up so i was just looking for a solid 1080p look.
Thankfully as soon as my Chromecast and Stadia controller turned up my experience changed dramatically. It was super easy to set up and worked flawlessly which really surprised me. A lot of talk has been about how unplayable Stadia is but in this set up i couldn't tell the difference people it and my Xbox which is crazy impressive this early in its life.
It terms of eco system, Stadia is very lacking at the moment. There's no achievements, browser/chromecast store usage, A LOT of its advertised features such as Stream Connect and Youtube connectivity and Google could really of avoided being criticised for this if they had just said this was Early Access at the moment. On a positive note what is here is very slick and clean, its very simple to buy a game and be playing it immediately which shows me the crazy future we could have if these Cloud services take off.
Now Games! With Pro i got Destiny 2 and Samurai Shodown so whilst i have been hesitantly testing the service i have stuck to just these two games right now. As i said earlier, once my Chromecast set up arrived my experience was great and actually ended up playing a good 10 hours of Destiny 2. A great aspect of Destiny is that you have make your characters cross save so i was able to pick up straight from my Xbox character and keep playing from there which is great. There isn't a whole lot of point me reviewing Destiny 2 but if you liked it on other platforms then you will love it on Stadia. The player count is starting to get up there now too and the community, being so small, is super friendly right now! I played a game of Samurai Shodown and... well... i suck at it. But it looks and plays great so theres that!
With PRO next month we get Farming Simulator and Tomb Raider DE so i am looking forward to playing something abit more Single player focus and seeing how that experience holds up.
Overall im fairly impressed with Stadia so far. It needs more of its features and some more games but the tech is already in a great place. Would i recommend it? unless you're an early adopter... no i dont. Stadia Base will be free in 2020 and i think that will be the best time to jump in. Gylt is the only exclusive right now and at £30 it is rather over priced to just try out right now!
I look forward to seeing the service expand and don't you worry, i will review a whole lot more when there is more to review!
