OnLive out in the UK today

OnLive, the gaming service that streams games over an Internet connection, is out in the UK today, throwing cutting-edge titles at your PC, Mac, TV, iPad or Android tablet.

When you play a game using OnLive, your in-game movements are sent to the OnLive servers over a Web connection, where muscular gaming machines do all the tricky processing bits and bobs before pinging the action back to you.

That means you can play OnLive's selection of games on just about anything with a screen, including -- as we mentioned above -- tablets such as the iPad 2 or Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. We're told apps for both are in place and ready to go, though as you'd expect, not all games will work too well with a tablet's touch interface.

The service is free to register, then you have to start paying for the games. Right now there's a rather stonking deal on where you get your first game for a quid. Deus Ex: Human Revolution for a pound? Don't mind if we do. After that first purchase though, you'll be paying full price. Expect to fork out £35 for the blockbuster titles.

There's a subscription service too. For £6.99 a month, you can access a library of over 100 games, and BT customers will get the first three months free.

If you don't want to play games on your computer, a console that plugs into your telly can be acquired for £70 from the OnLive website. It comes with an Xbox-style wireless controller.

That's an impressive range of deals and ways to play, but this new service will have to stay versatile and cheap if it wants to trouble Sony and Microsoft's mighty consoles.

We've had the chance to go hands-on with OnLive, and our first impressions are that it's extremely cool to be able to jump in and out of different games, and playing something like Split/Second on an iPad is fairly mind-bending.

We did notice some lag though -- whether gameplay is smooth and responsive will be what makes or breaks the whole service. More testing is needed -- woe is us.

We're beavering away at our OnLive review right now, so keep it CNET UK for all the latest.

Will you sign up to OnLive? Or would you rather cosy up to an Xbox or PS3? Play around in the comments section below, or on our Facebook wall.