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"Try before you Buy!"

Renting a game has been with us for a very long time and is a much cheaper alternative to going out and spending forty quid on a game. But is renting a game all that it is cracked up to be. Let's take a look.

First of all, what are the good things about renting out games. Well, the first reason is pretty obvious. It is a hell of a lot cheaper than buying a game, that's for sure. Why spend forty quid on a game that your not sure about, when you can rent it for a couple of days for about £2-£4 to see what it is like before you buy it.
This then gives another good reason for renting games. Trying out the game to see what it is like before you decide whether to buy it or not. This, in fact, is a brilliant and important reason. Let's take the first Army Men game on the PS2. There may have been some of you who were waiting for the ultimate Army Men game (as the others were really bad), and thought that with the power of the PS2, this could be a good game, if that is possible. Instead of buying it, you decide to rent it to see what it is like before you decide to part with your hard earned cash. You play it, and feel really glad that the word 'rent' exists. It turns out to be the same as the other, total and utter pants.
The reason above could also apply to good games. Don't follow. Ok then, survival horror games such as Resident Evil don't have a particularly good life span do they. So when another comes out, instead of buying it and completing in the first couple of days having it, you can rent it, and complete it in the couple of days that you have it for. Now do you see.

With good points come bad points, although not many of them.
Hmmm, let's think, ah yes. Couldn't renting a game ruin the joy of the game when you buy it. I know some of you may disagree with this, but I find that renting a game could ruin the suprise of when you buy the game. I know it sounds stupid, but it could be true. This happens with me, so I only hire out games that I know that I will not buy. Of course, I could find myself buying a stupidly bad game, but hey, as long as I like it, it doesn't really matter.
I suppose there is the point of the popular games always being out, and this is quite a common occurrance. When I went in to Blockbuster on the release of Red Faction, every one was hired out. And every time that I have been in there since, Red Faction hasn't been there. This can be really annoying if you want to buy the game, but want to see what it is like, but you have to wait about two weeks before you get to hire it. I expect that there are some of you out there who feel the same.

Well, that's it. Please feel free to add anything that I have missed, as I bet some of you have your own good or bad points about renting out games.

I'm hoping that Nintendo have demo disks on the GC, something that was not possible on the N64.

It gives the gamers incentive to try out new games and it also meant that I could try a game out for myself instead of releying on a magazines hype.

I rented Zelda!

Good job too or i would of bought Silicon Valley instead.

I hate renting games, as when I have I no longer feel the urge to buy the game as I haven't competed enough to finish it but then the amount of game left is so litle that it ceases to warrant spending £35-£40 on the game. Therefore, it ruins it.

That's why I only play demos.

Ive rented quite a few games this year like ISS Pro 2, Simpsons Wrestling, DinoCrisis 2 and a few others. Renting for me means that I get to play the new games on a limited budget. However when you buy a game you have the luxury of being able to play it anytime you want, which is great if you can afford it.

As a general rule one player games are good for renting whereas multiplayer games are more suited to the classical buy the game from the shop.

Eventually there is talk of a pay per play service being adopted by games companys. This wont happen until broadband appears, however I dont believe its a good thing as I like to own my games like Perfect Dark...having to pay per play would cost me dearly.

However there are advantages to this model, piracy would be eliminated and games would be better as bugs could be continually ironed out to prolong a popular games life. The downside would be that less popular genres may be neglected as a result of the pay per play model.

I rent PS2's for £10 a week.

I rented zone of the enders because there was alot of hype about how great it was and a free demo of MGS but people have different opinions about whats good to them.

I liked zone of he enders but was so tired that i don't think i played it that much but anyway yeah renting is a good way to try games or even finish em if they're not too long but i really think demos are the best way to try before you buy.

I think getting a magazine is a better option. The price is roughly the same and you find out how good loads of games are instead of just one (as well as cheats, tips, previews, news and other things that come in mags). There will probably also be a rolling or playable demo so you can make further decisions. If you're still not sure you could rent the game out, but that's unlikely.

My local Blockbusters is too far away. Also, it doesn't stock any N64 games. What's going on?

Renting kicks rectum, especially if you're still undecided wether or not to buy the game.

shaneo wrote:
> Bonus wrote:
> You could always play OPS2's demos or go into
> your local game store
> and ask them to let you try it.

Like
> they're gonna let you borrow it!

No, not borrow it, let you try it in the shop.