NotebookReview.com Takes a Look at Impulse
Wednesday, May 12, 2010 by Island Dog | Discussion: PC Gaming
The fine folks over at NotebookReview.com have taken a look at Stardock’s Impulse, and have given their review which gets 4 out of 5 stars!
“Stardock Impulse is a well-rounded game download service. The program interface is coherent and easy to navigate; the glass look is right at home in Windows 7. The fully integrated store is a highlight of Impulse; game downloads and installs are nearly seamless. The community features are sufficient for gamers though not a replacement for Facebook. At this time Impulse lacks an in-game overlay which will hopefully change soon; Stardock recently introduced its Reactor overlay service which developers will hopefully start integrating into games.
Overall we find a lot to like about Impulse; it is a viable alternative to Steam.”
Read the full review over at NotebookReviews.com.
Reply #2 Thursday, May 13, 2010 6:16 AM
They aren't saying you should/must use facebook, they are saying that the community features of Impulse are not a replacement for Facebook. Everyone has a familiarity with Facebook, so it is an easy benchmark. I would love a gaming service that provided me with the means to easily keep up with what my friends were playing, talk about games, and invite them to new games. Impulse and Steam both have taken steps in this direction - meaning they want to have Facebookish features - but neither has really come full circle with them.
For the same reason you don't care about the facebook features, you wouldn't care about the overlay. 
It is crazy nice to be able to bring up an overlay to message a friend, as opposed to alt-tabbing back and forth. Overlays can also let Stardock run stats/achievements for games, instead of that responsibility being on the game developer to integrate in. Adding in extra pages in game for profiles and statistics is quite costly, while overlays are pretty easy to develop.
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Reply #1 Wednesday, May 12, 2010 4:47 PM
The community features are sufficient for gamers though not a replacement for Facebook.
Why do people always assume one should/must/is use(ing) Facebook? I don't give a shit about community features, no matter what the game or software. As long as you can use text chat in the multiplayer, and preferrably in the lobby, that's enough for me at least. Why should the features even be a replacement for Facebook or compete with it? I don't understand, i don't understand... I won't understand.
I wonder if that site has reviewed the new Steam UI.
This reminds me... is there a way to make the store page to skip straight to catalog? Or make the link bigger at least >< Hate how i miss it.
Why is in-game overlay so important? Even if such feature existed, i wouldn't be using it. I don't need such.