Hands-on with OnLive on the WikiPad

I'm playing the best Prince of Persia game on an Android device. No, not that one. Not that one either. I'm talking about Prince of Persia 2008, the cel-shaded, can't-actually-die triumph that most people hate.

I'm playing it with buttons and analogue sticks, sitting as close to my router as I can physically get to make sure there isn't too much input lag. There's still a bit of input lag though.

OnLive and Wikipad are an interesting mix. Here's a portable gaming device you can decouple and turn into a workable Android tablet, and a cloud-based gaming service that feels about three years too early.

There's so much potential in the two, but at the moment you can't help but think it's unfulfilled. It's not really the fault of either party, it's just that the broadband infrastructure of the UK isn't really set-up to allow streaming games at the moment.

When the coupling works it's impressive. The graphics look a little washed out, perhaps, but there's a surprising smoothness to the action that makes you forget that you're essentially playing a game by proxy.

But when your connection is a little ropy, you need to learn to adapt. It makes a platformer like Prince of Persia a little tougher. Tap jump two steps before you normally would. Don't try and counter attacks, just make sure you hold down the right trigger to block.

It makes for a playable, but slightly more inept version of the game. And that's a shame. My connection is no slouch, but even the slightest wobble in speed results in the screen suddenly becoming a blocky mess.

The controller itself isn't perfect either. It feels like a morbidly obese Game Gear, a little too porky to sit comfortably on the hand. The analogue sticks are a little cumbersome too, not quite as refined and precise as the ones you'll find on a Vita.

Some of the UI is a little flakey, and navigating to the games you want to play with a combination of D-pad presses, taps, and swear-words isn't the most intuitive process.

But, and this is a pretty big but, there are two brilliant ideas at the core of this combination that make you wish you lived in the future.

We're on the cusp of cloud gaming being a workable reality. It's been a while since OnLive first told us all that we were going to throw away our attachment to boxes and special editions and live life in a digital-only streaming sky.

Of course it hasn't quite panned out like that, thanks mainly to a broadband eco-system that's several years behind the rest of the world. OnLive is just too slow at the moment to really replace traditional methods of game delivery.

And Android-powered gaming devices aren't quite there yet either. The WikiPad feels smarter than the likes of the Archos Gamepad, but it's still a bulky lump of plastic that doesn't feel sleek or slick in your hand.

Both things feel like they're a generation away from actually changing the way we play. It's a tantalising, slightly blurry glimpse into three years in the future.

And with each passing iteration there's new functionality that makes OnLive a more enticing prospect. You can cash-in Steam codes using CloudLift and play streaming versions of games you've bought on the service, with cloud-saves meaning you can pick up where you left off on your PC.

It all sounds great. It all sounds like exactly the sort of inter-connected entertainment delivery system we've been banging on about for years.

And it's nearly there. It's within reach. Just not yet. Not now. If you already own a WikiPad then sticking OnLive on it is a no-brainer. The two concepts feel like they were made for each other.

If you haven't, then it's probably not worth forking out for the device just to give the cloud-gaming a try. I wish I could tell you otherwise, I really do, but right now the future is a little too far away to really recommend.