Best Video Game Rental Memories

[bikingjahuty]

Back when you could drive, bike, or walk up to your local Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, or independent rental shop, what are some of your most fond memories of renting video games from these bygone establishments?

[bikingjahuty]

Here are a few of mine.


- This one involves the video rental store itself and not something I actually rented. My local Hollywood video got a Dreamcast kiosk in several months before the system was set to release. I was floored by their Sonic Adventure demo, as well as Power Stone later on. I used to deliberately ride my bike up to Hollywood Video just to play their Dreamcast kiosk. Because of how expensive a new Dreamcast was, I had to wait until November when my brother got one for his birthday. And yes, I rented plenty of Dreamcast games from there over the years until they stopped carrying them.


- In 2001 a friend of mine and I were at a local Blockbuster on a Friday night browsing the game selection for something to rent. Nothing was jumping out at us, so we took a chance of Grand Theft Auto 3. I'd never played any of the previous games, but my friend had the first one on PC and according to him, it was a decent game. Keep in mind this is before GTA3 blew up and became well known as one the PS2's best games. So we rent it and holy shit, I'm not sure I've ever had so much fun playing a game with someone else. We literally could not stop playing. We stayed up for nearly 48 hours going on crime sprees, beating the games missions for the various criminal syndicates, and just having an incredible time. I'm shocked we didn't beat it given how much we were playing it, but we did get towards the end of the game I remember. We rented it again probably 5 more times until I was able to get my own copy, and while fun, the game had lost some of its novelty at that point, but I still really loved it.


- several days before I was about to start my first day of middle school, I was at a friends house and his mom let us rent something for the night. We decided to rent Foresaken and Biofreaks, both on the N64. Keep in mind, this friend's parents, particularly his mom, were very uptight about what my friend and his brother could watch and play, so I'm surprised Biofreaks somehow flew under her radar. So we go back to his house, watch some Dragon Ball Z, and then start to play the games we rented. We start with Foresaken, get bored with it after an hour and then out in Biofreaks. Not 10 minutes after we've started playing his mom comes downstairs and freaks out once she sees what's happening on the screen. Even though she'd the one who paid for the game and let us rent it, she goes off on my friend and I, makes me go home, and my friend is in tears. I found out a few days later she returned the game to Blockbuster and even yelled at the employees for letting children rent games like that. My friend was also grounded for a really long time. So yeah, something about Biofreaks really set this woman off, which is weird since my friend had games like Virtua Cop and Diehard Arcade where you're shooting people and beating the crap out of female NPCs. I laugh on it now, but I remember it really stuck with me when I was younger.

[jipsy]

Rented Tony Hawk's Underground from blockbuster sometime in the mid 00's. Never returned it, still have it. My favorite game of all time.

[kamikazekeeg]

I have the Dungeons and Dragons: Shadow Over Mystara arcade game audio burned into my brain because a local video rental store had the cabinet of that and the demo running for it.  I hung out there all the time because I just liked to browse or I liked to chat to the folks working there, I became buddies with one of them.

When Blockbuster showed up, I would go there to browse games and such, to the point that I'd kinda partially organize the game wall when it go too messy as I was browsing and wasn't being kept up, which I think helped me get the job there and I was pretty regularly making sure the game wall was organized and kept up when I could because it made things better for finding games lol

Also a favorite thing to do of Blockbuster employees, was the weekend would hit, and we'd rent like...5 to 10 movies and games.  Just the biggest fricken stack because there wasn't really a limit to what employees could bring home lol

[telekill]

Biggest rental memory was the Sega CD system. It had recently come out and I really wanted to play Sonic CD, but no way my family was going to spend the cash for the upgrade to play a single game. What they did do for me though, was allow me to rent the system and the game for a weekend. That's all it took for me to beat the game too. Fantastic weekend and great memory. One of the only times I got to haul a suitcase with technology in it as a kid.

[Cartagia]

Maybe not my best memory, but my most vivid memory was going to Hollywood Video on the Christmas Day I got my Nintendo 64.  Rented Resident Evil 2 and proceeded to play the hell out of it the next 3 days.

[emporerdragon]

My most memorable rental was Tales of Symphonia for the Gamecube. That game sucked me in so much that I managed to beat the entire game in a single weekend rental.

[bizzgeburt]

We got our first Xbox modded back in the days - an nearby video-rental offered 1,- € per day for a game, so we rented about 20 games, for a single day. We just zipped the games onto our Xbox and brought back the rented games the same day 

I remember first playing Elder Scrolls III Morrowind from this batch of rented games ...  so sweet memories ...

[conduit]

In my hometown, at one time, there use to be two video rental stores to choose from. I forget the name of the first one, but I distinctly remember browsing their shelves as a kid creeping out over the box art of Clock Tower on PS1. Being ~5 years old at the time it really stuck out to me. The second store was called Movie Gallery which had a small chain of stores outside my local area; no idea if they were nationwide though. They weren't around till my early teenage years. Their selection of games was mostly shovelware, as one might expect, although I did rent and enjoy a copy of Battalion Wars at one point. I was clocking a ton of hours on my Gamecube back then.

Each store had their own building, which still exist today. The first was repurposed as a thrift store while the other became a venue for churchgoers. I even managed to snag a copy of Clock Tower as one of my first games as a collector. It all comes full circle.

[tripredacus]

I only remember renting video games for NES.

A few times rented games from the Wegmans supermarket when I went to visit my dad. My NES was at his house. I rented many games, I can't think of that many but I remember one time getting Felix the Cat. I think also I had gotten either Robocop or Terminator, not sure which but whatever one it was, I didn't like it.

The other rental I remember was from a while later, I had moved the NES from my dad's house to my grandparents' house in the country. There was only one place around where you could rent games, a video store that was in a town that only had a church, a restaurant and a gas station. I rented one of the Dizzy games, I picked that one because I remember reading about it in a magazine. It did not work on my NES and I called that phone number on the NES console to see if they could fix it.

[redblaze57]

Never rented a game until Redbox was offering them. The rental store that was in my hometown closed long before I had got my first game system. Others were just I guess too far away.

Only real memory I have renting a game at redbox is that I rented Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5 before it snowed and the next day after it stopped snowing I was Shoveling out the driveway just so I could go return it.

[dhaabi]

During when renting was popular, I didn't really rent media all too much. One of the few instances that I particularly remember is renting Burnout 3: Takedown for PlayStation 2. I had fond memories of the few days I originally played it, so I bought it some time later only in recent years.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 4 for PlayStation 2 is another game I know I rented and remember playing it some. It was the only time I ever actually played the game, and it's the oldest save data (May 2003) I have across my console's memory cards.

Maybe not my best memory, but my most vivid memory was going to Hollywood Video on the Christmas Day I got my Nintendo 64.  Rented Resident Evil 2 and proceeded to play the hell out of it the next 3 days.

Were you gifted a new console without any games to go with it? Or was Resident Evil 2 that much more enticing than whatever games you were given?

[kashell]

The Blockbuster near our house had Mega Man X3, so we were renting that over and over. And over again. We never bothered to write down passwords so we always started from ground zero (heh) when we got the game back. The game was humbling because I knew Mega Man X inside and out, so I figured I'd be able to dominate X3. Nope - it took many a rental until we saw those credits.

[bikingjahuty]

The Blockbuster near our house had Mega Man X3, so we were renting that over and over. And over again. We never bothered to write down passwords so we always started from ground zero (heh) when we got the game back. The game was humbling because I knew Mega Man X inside and out, so I figured I'd be able to dominate X3. Nope - it took many a rental until we saw those credits.

That is so awesome you loved that game that much to keep on renting it and playing it from the very beginning every time. I loved Mega Man X back in the day, and it was my gateway game into that franchise. I unfortunately wouldn't play another X game until X4 on my PS1 years later. I really need to play more of the X games. I've only played and beat (or close to beating) X, X4, X5, and X6

[kashell]

The Blockbuster near our house had Mega Man X3, so we were renting that over and over. And over again. We never bothered to write down passwords so we always started from ground zero (heh) when we got the game back. The game was humbling because I knew Mega Man X inside and out, so I figured I'd be able to dominate X3. Nope - it took many a rental until we saw those credits.

That is so awesome you loved that game that much to keep on renting it and playing it from the very beginning every time. I loved Mega Man X back in the day, and it was my gateway game into that franchise. I unfortunately wouldn't play another X game until X4 on my PS1 years later. I really need to play more of the X games. I've only played and beat (or close to beating) X, X4, X5, and X6

We were dedicated to beat Sigma, darn it!

If you like X, I think you'll like X3. I never cared for X2 but it uses and adds some new touches on X's blueprint so you'd probably like that one, as well.