Game rental memories

[Anonymous No.4675284]

As a kid, I mostly rented my games, which meant they were usually due back in three days. Friday was my favorite day because I'd get to pick a game to play all weekend.

Looking back, it's kind of insane how much free time I had would have to beat a giant RPG or action-adventure game in such a short span of time. Doing so was an accomplishment.

There was significantly less pressure once memory cards became commonplace and you no longer had to worry about losing your progress upon returning the game. Of course, this was rarely the case on the N64, since the Controller Pak was not well-supported, so finishing a game like Ocarina of Time or Banjo-Kazooie still demanded total commitment. You didn't even have the luxury of enjoying a single-player game together with friends, because you didn't have any time to waste watching them die or get stuck over and over.

Still, it was better than paying full price for a game that you'd beat and get bored of in a month or two, or worse, ending up with a game you didn't even like.

What are your memories of renting games as a kid?

[Anonymous No.4675298]

Used to get a rental and pizza with my brother every friday after school during snes and early N64 era. Truly amazing times were had.

[Anonymous No.4675313]

returning a game on the due date 15 minutes before closing and getting a late charge because the fuckers didnt empty the drop chute until the next day. so glad that CockBusters went out of business.

see what I did there? I replaced Block with Cock

[Anonymous No.4675319]

A lot of the time the best games would be all rented out unless they had 20 copies of it. I always wanted to rent mario rpg but it was out every single time I went

[Anonymous No.4675417]

>>4675298
There was a pizza place right next to a Blockbuster back where I grew up. My dad would take me and my brother to rent a game and get pizza on Friday nights.

[Anonymous No.4675426]

Box Office video had Super Bomberman, complete with a multitap. I would rent it over and over and force my siblings to play with me.

[Anonymous No.4675543]

When I was in high school in the early 2000s it was really difficult for me to choose a game to rent. When the big games are GTA 3 and some other games I can't remember, it would take me some time 30 minutes to figure out what to rent. I have many memories of my mother getting so pissed at me because she had to wait a half-hour out in the car for me to pick a game

[Anonymous No.4675583]

My mom and dad took me to Blockbuster all the time when I was a kid. A lot of my memories of showing up for a specific game only to be bitter that it was rented out happened during a non-vr time, but I have memories of being a younger kid renting N64, PS1, and GBC games. I remember my dad letting me rent Conker's Bad Fur Day and being disturbed by the swearing and puking. I miss the gold old days, getting a game, Munchos, a Dr. pepper, and a box of candy for the weekend. I loved sitting in the car on the way home reading the back of the box and picturing the game. Does anyone else remember when they used to print descriptions on the box? I feel that they only did that with a few games.

[Anonymous No.4675589]

>>4675583

It was like Christmas morning when you'd rent a game and they'd actually have the manual for it in the box

[Anonymous No.4675590]

I remember that I rented paper mario 64 in 2002. I live in Mexico and somehow Paper Mario didnt come to stores in my town.

I remember when I was in the chapter of the flowers and clouds and next week. Some fucker deleted my save file.

[Anonymous No.4675594]

In the early 90s I lived in the suburbs on a hill above a Lucky's grocery store that had a game and movie rental department and a big magazine section. My mom would drive me and my sisters down there (~age 8) sometimes and we'd usually rent one of the Disney NES games (Little Mermaid, Chip and Dale, etc.). I'd run over to check the game magazines for codes and tips, then we'd swing by Little Caesar's to get a pizza to take home.
Childhood was so great.

[Anonymous No.4675618]

>>4675313
From your story, it sounds more like CLOCKbusters, what with the timing issues and all.

[Anonymous No.4675650]

>>4675594
Sounds very similar to my childhood, right down to the grocery store NES rentals to the Little Caesars (for some reason we always got the pizza that was cut into rectangles). The game I remember renting was The Incredible Crash Dummies and a few different Starwars games.

[Anonymous No.4675658]

>>4675284

Still remember renting Super Metroid and saying up all fucking night to play it while my brother slept.

That memory will stay with me until the day I die. Honestly, sometimes it hurts to think about it, the nostalgia gets to me.

[Anonymous No.4675704]

Going to a video rental store was always a fun event. It would generally be after my family would go out to dinner and manage not to argue about something stupid. Throw TCBY into the mix and it was perfect.

I rented Cool Spot for genesis enough times to just buy the game, which I ended up doing years later. Along with a game I was allowed to get one movie too, and it would usually be some sketchy anime like Wicked City, since my parents didn't think Blockbuster would be slinging such weird shit and they'd never sit down to watch an animated film with me.

[Anonymous No.4675834]

I remember renting Jet Force Gemini a lot. My cousins and I would fuck around in multiplayer, and there was always someone who 100%'d the game with data still on the cart. I remember being too young to understand the menus and deleted their files on accident.

As time went on and GC/PS2 became the new hot shit I rented Evolution Worlds and Scooby Doo Night of 100 Frights pretty often.

I never really had the nostalgia for a rental store, as my family was really falling apart when I was turning 9. Bitter divorces suck, lemme tell you.

But Scooby Doo Night of 100 Frights cemented a love of that fucking dog in me. The game was pretty great too.

[Anonymous No.4675937]

I never had a good experience renting games as a kid.
The only place close to me either had a shit selection for cartridge games (sports, racing, sports, racing) or the CDs were all scratched and nearly unusable.
I'd just trade games with the kids at school or buy a new one with my pocket money.

[Anonymous No.4676120]

>>4675284
My mum worked in a nursery, and during the summers me and my brother would have to go into work with her.
Luckily they had a tv room which was used maybe once a week, so we could set up our megadrive, and later ps1 in there.

There was a blockbusters 2 minutes up the road, so we would get to rent games all through the summer. Go to greggs and get chicken pasties, woolworths for a pushpop and cherry coke, and then just play our new game all day.
It was the comfiest of times.

[Anonymous No.4676213]

I rented games mostly from video clubs or vidya stores, blockbuster didn't arrive where I live until 1996 or so (just in time to rent N64 games, which other stores didn't carry).
Most of the games you could find on these video clubs or stores were bootleg copies. That was actually good because sometimes you'd find some japanese games. One of my favorites was DBZ Super Butoden 2. I rented this a lot of times. I didn't really know how to play but the game's story mode lets you finish the game even if you lose all your fights (albeit with a bad ending). At the time, only original Dragon Ball was on TV, I knew about DBZ, the "adult version of DB", but I didn't know any of the characters besides Goku. So in a way SB2 was a gateway to a mysterious world of the future of what I was watching on TV. I remember being stranged and very wonderous about the characters in the game (Vegeta, Piccolo, Trunks, Gohan, Cell, etc).
The game was in japanese so I had 0 idea about what was going on in the cutscenes, although I imagined and figured out some stuff. Cell seemed menacing as fuck, I didn't know who he was but I understood he was fearsome.
I own a (bootleg) copy of the game now, a friend of mine sold it to me many years ago, it was his childhood's game, and we still play it when he comes over. I actually kind of like that it's a bootleg because it's like the one I used to rent.
When I actually learned how to play this game I realized it's actually pretty good on its own, besides the fact it's a DBZ game.

[Anonymous No.4676228]

>>4676213
Ah, I had a similar experience.
We got DBZ Ultimate Battle 22 (PS1) when DBZ was still in the early episodes of the Namek arc here in my country.
We used to call SSJ3 Goku "Bananas Goku".
Can't really remember how many times I watched that intro.

[Anonymous No.4676238]

>>4675284
we had an independent rental store that offered 2 for 1 rentals after 11pm. So me and my friends would have sleep overs and wait till 11pm to go rent 2 games and 2 movies.

Then we would play all night till early morning and watch the movies the next day.

[Anonymous No.4676252]

>>4675658
I have a similar memory of renting Super Metroid and playing it late at night on my tv in my room. It was raining outside and I had the window open. Very atmospheric type of feel.

[Anonymous No.4676698]

>>4675618
OH SHIT! That's a good one. God damn.

Wait,wait,wait. Blockbusters, what're they, Jenny on the Block?

[Anonymous No.4676861]

>>4675284
I remember renting Mega Man X3 from my local block buster, was my first time playing an X game since 1 and I fucking loved it. Thing is, I could only rent it ONCE, because some time after that I tried to rent it again and it was never available. I remember calling almost weekly for like a month and just being told it was not available, I'm guessing some cheeky cunt just rented it and never gave it back.

From that point onward and well into the PS1/N64 era, X3 became my holy grail.
If I stopped by that BB for something else, I would always glance over to the video game section and look for it, even after they started phasing out SNES games in their selection.
If I went to a store that still carried SNES games, I would look for it.
If I went to a pawn shop or flea market, I would look for it.
If I met a new kid, as soon as we started talking video games I would ask him if he had that game.
When I got a computer and learned about emulation, one of the first things I tried to emulate was X3, but it wasn't supported by ZSNES until a few years later. I even tried that shitty Genesis bootleg.
When I learned about IRC, I would go into the chatroom where people in my town hanged, and would incessantly spam the chat asking if someone had a copy of the game and would either sell it to me or let me borrow it.
When I learned about eBay, I would constantly search for used copies at a price that would fit my underage budget.

Regardless to say, all my efforts had only limited success (at some point I managed to get a bootleg copy of the inferior PSX port, and some time later, I found someone that actually let me borrow the game for 1 week but never saw him again) , but I'm happy to say that I managed to get a copy for a reasonable price about 12 years ago, before retro prices started inflating as bad as they are now. Still, to this day I always relate my memories of BB to that game and vice versa.

[Anonymous No.4677218]

me and my brother got mystical ninja kn n64 and a pizza from a local pizza place not to far from BB. A great weekend that was

[Anonymous No.4677273]

>>4677218

I used to rent Mystical Ninja all the time back then but I didn't have a controller pack so I could only get just past the first castle everytime

[Anonymous No.4677315]

There was a local video club one street away from my house. did great during the vhs era and even in the dvd era, but they started renting bootleg dvds and it all went to shit.

anyway i rented snes games there but i only had them for one day, so i fucked up a lot and a lot of times since i was a retard. rented altp and didn't even enter the first temple, always had to go to a neighbor who was 2 years older than me and who would help me with the games.

then my dad had much more money and he bought me the n64 and games, no longer had to rent, although i did rent a few, the one i remember the most was sillicon valley.

[Anonymous No.4677451]

I remember having to renew this bitch a dozen times. I felt like a man among boys playing this one.