Sep 28, 2015

Just Playin' Around on Playster

Disclaimer: I was given access to this service temporarily for free in exchange for an honest review, this in no way altered my opinion or review.
Recently, I was contacted by Playster.com to try out their new awesome subscription site during its BETA. This service is available to the public but is still in BETA.

So what is Playster?
It is a subscription service for all sorts of things there are Games, Movies, Music and most importantly for me...Books!

Here is more information from their Press Kit


The service is kind of like a bunch of others all rolled into one. With a subscription you would have access to all sorts of entertainment. I tried it out for a week for free in exchange for my honest opinion and was not disappointed. It seems like a wonderful idea and I am excited to see where it goes as they come out of testing.

When you log into the system you are greeted by a bright and colorful array of images for all of the categories. The set up is similar to other media subscriptions, you scroll through the page to choose your media - games, movies etc. then move into more detailed lists, like genres within those categories. It was easy to scroll through and being a visual person, I loved the covers for things right there for the user to see and access. 

You also have access to various menus on the top of the page, including a place to see past history and queue, a place to immediately get you into the type of media you want, and when you are in your media section there is a drop-down for easy access to genre so you don't have to scroll.

Playster also gives you a search function for ease of use and will be available for use on computers, tablets, and smart phones.

Games
The games section consisted of a bunch of strategy, hidden object, and puzzle games for your computer. I am on a Mac and was able to download and play the games very easily. The download time was quick and the playback of the games was seamless.

The download itself installs a player and the game to your computer while you are subscribed to the service and will make it un-playable after your subscription ends - as would be expected.

Movies
The movies section, in my opinion, was still lacking at this point. I already subscribe to Netflix, Hulu, and HBO which gives me access to HBOGo, so I am pretty covered in the movie department anyway so I wasn't too disappointed to find it such. 

However, if you are looking for this service to be a catch-all, which I think it could someday be, you may need to wait for them to really get going. As of right now their selection is mostly older movies and low budget films. Not all bad, just not what I would be looking for.

Songs 
I did not peruse this section for very long, but from a quick glance through their options, it looks like Playster will offer a good variety of choices for listeners.

Books
As an avid reader, this was the section I was most excited about looking through and I was not disappointed. Playster gives you a great deal of options in the books section including (but not limited to): bestsellers, movie related titles, romance, young adult, graphic novels and comics, cooking, biographies, non-fiction, history and the classics.

Within those categories there are numerous options for readers. When you click on the titles they give you all the important info: author, the book summary, the number of pages, and even recommendations based on the book you are looking at - which I thought was a pretty cool feature.

As far as I could tell, the "Juvenile and Young Adult" section was pretty good and included a lot of the more popular series like the Cassandra Clare's Infernal Devices and Mortal Instruments, Jenny Han's Burn for Burn, and there are a bunch of R.L. Stine and Nancy Drew to choose from.

Overall I think that you should check Playster out. It might be an easy way to condense some of your other online subscriptions.  For more info head over to the site and check out their Features.
 
Many thanks to Playster for giving me the opportunity to play on the site!

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