Rentals Memories

[Anonymous No.5842229]

What were your memories? good bad and weird.

Favorite places and Picks?

Rentals discussions of history, Could rentals of retro games
work nowadays?

[Anonymous No.5842234]

I used to rent from a local grocery store that had movies and games, and I rented Paper Mario every week with my allowance for a while.

This didn't use the memory pak, so I had to save my game on the cartridge itself, meaning that if I didn't get the game one week, someone else could rent and potentially overwrite the data

One week during summer I went on vacation with my family and someone rented it out, and I had JUST cleared the Crystal Palace and was ready to head towards Bowser's Castle

It came back around three weeks later - I put the game in, and the file name said JAKE... In slot two.

He kept my save file. Thanks for being a bro, Jake.

[Anonymous No.5842239]

>>5842234
ah ma and pa stores, I miss those even the shit ones

[Anonymous No.5842259]

Marshes, PM Videos, Movie Gallery, and Family Video. Playing Banjo-Tooie with my big brother, I would explore and encounter bosses that were too hard for me and he'd beat them for me so I could continue adventuring. I made it as far as Grunty Industries before it had to go back the second time.
Losing the manual for Blinx: The Time Sweeper and being convinced to pay a little more past replacing the book to outright purchase the game. Also buying Oddworld: Munch's Oddysee for my birthday when Walmart was either out of stock or wasn't worth checking in on.

[Anonymous No.5842264]

>>5842259
Renting Sonic Heroes and trading off with my brother who rented Morrowind goty and proceeded to rip the game right onto the hdd before returning. Beating SH 100% before returning it.

[Anonymous No.5842321]

I was 5, lower middle class, and still had an NES well into the 4th gen. My mother took me to Blockbuster to rent a movie and a game, but their NES section (which by then relegated to a single lower shelf) had only multiple copies of the same game available taking up all the space - The Jetson's: Cogswell's Caper. It was fine enough for a rental but my parents got the message, and for Christmas that year I got a Genesis. They really spoiled me to the best of their ability.

A year or so before that I had rented Super Mario Bros 2 from a different local rental place, expected another proper Mario game and got that weird ass trip instead. I miss those moments when turning on a game felt like opening a window to another world, where sometimes you'd get exactly what you were expecting and other times you were thrown for a complete loop.

[Anonymous No.5842406]

>>5842234
That twist ending warmed my heart :3 Did you end up finishing the rental copy?

[Anonymous No.5842795]

even though talespin isn't a great game for the genesis it was my first game along with sonic 1 when i got my genesis for christmas many years ago. the music in it is awesome....otherwise it's a flawed but still kind of fun game.

[Anonymous No.5844021]

I lived in a trashy part of town, so I only had bad memories of video game rentals.

>1
This one video rental store used to charge fees if you leave any save data on any game you've rented. This understandably pissed some people off, but what pissed them off even worse was that this policy was loosely enforced, ie. if they got lazy & just put the returns back on the shelves without checking, you wouldn't get charged. It's easy to surmise some people got dinged while others got away scot-free. The policy eventually got the axe, either after continuous complaints, or when the industry moved onto disc-based media.

>2
Several friends & classmates of mine openly admitted to renting PlayStation games that they already have. They would swap the discs because their original copies were damaged, while the rental copies were at least playable. I shouldn't give this much of a shit, but looking back, it just screams trashy. They wouldn't even need to do this if they just took better care of their personal belongings. Even if you have no moral qualm over this practice, that's still money lost in rental costs. All in all, it wouldn't even be so bad if it was just one friend, but it was several of them.

>3
Friends & I were trying to rent a PG-13 movie. They refused to rent it to us because we didn't have ID. We were all around 15 at the time, so we didn't have our driver's license (minimum age for a learner's is 16). The video store would, however, allow us to rent a T-rated game. Don't understand the rationale behind it, but we took it as a small victory.

[Anonymous No.5844031]

Rented games from the NES days through PS1/N64. Classic shit, but also some royal stinkers.
Brother and I, and some neighbor kids rode our bikes to a video store nearby one summer day, and I got Flying Warriors on NES. Had never heard of it, but ended up really liking the combat system in it. Got pretty far into the game, eventually bought it used at FuncoLand.

[Anonymous No.5844131]

91 or 92, famiclones were all the rage in my country. One friday night, the power in the whole neighborhood went off, but I still went to the video club, hoping power would come back later, I couldn't miss renting a game for the weekend. When I arrived there, to my surprise, other kids were also there, also wanting to rent games. The store owner used lanterns so we could see the carts and choose. I chose pic related (mario hack of MC Kids).
Power didn't come back that weened, but can you believe I was just happy holding the cart and looking at the label? Simpler times, man.

[Anonymous No.5844172]

>>5842229
I really miss going to my local rental video stores. So many memories gone. They all closed down thanks to netflix and expensive real estate rent in the bay area. I bought my copy of megaman 1 when they were selling off their old nes stock. I miss detailed hand painted shitty box art and watching vhs tapes with family.

[Anonymous No.5844179]

>>5844021
We had a box from buying a game from pm videos and I always felt bad for trading boxes once. I didn't switch the boxes because ours was damaged or anything but because we had a pink or purple sticker and Majora's Mask had a blue one.

[Anonymous No.5844220]

If I ever get my shit together and do that US roadtrip like I've always wanted, I think I'll visit the last remaining Blockbuster that's in Bend, Oregon.

[Anonymous No.5844285]

>>5844131
what country do you live in where you could rent famiclone bootlegs, I know in mexico you used to rent bootleg copies of movies and pirated american vhs with Spanish audio, until 1999, but never games?

[Anonymous No.5844295]

>>5842229
regarding OP's question about retro rentals, I am afraid it will not work at all because it will attract the same scum that ruined the retro vidya market, the WORDFILTERboys E-Speculators, that would try to infiltrate the whole thing, corrupt it from the inside out to make a profit and destroy it, and I believe the worst possible manner would be to create dog whitles so thief's can stole the games and put them on eBay to give in to the cesspool.

Its a damn shame, because in 2008 there was a local place that you could pay to play games for hours and they had some retro games, that he planned to include a retro section but never finished it, I rented 2 NES games he had, Mickey Mousecapade and Batman return if the Joker and I really felt like a kid again.

How we could make sure garbage people like I mentioned above don't fuck it uplike I fear they would, specially if rare or soft after games are put.

[Anonymous No.5844296]

>>5844285
Argentina, famiclone (or Family Game as they were known as) carts were pretty common. Nintendo had an official distributor here but NES wasn't successful since it was seen as the same thing as a family game but bulkier and more expensive. SNES was more successful because snes clones are rare, never saw one. We had our share of snes bootleg games though, they were also common at rental places. Super famicom cart shape but they'd fit on US snes slot.

[Anonymous No.5844309]

>>5844296
by curiosity, in Argentina did Nintendo marketed the NES under the Famicom look with the moniker Asia version? and included a green Famicom adapter to play the Famicom/Family titles on an American system?

[Anonymous No.5844310]

>>5844309
No, they marketed the regular US NES

[Anonymous No.5844312]

>>5844310
I had once a green Famicom adaptor and I swear I had some pics of a Famicom but had the regular US Nintendo logo, need to check it in my PC tomorrow.

[Anonymous No.5844314]

>Mom let me rent Donkey Kong Country 2 from my local supermarket
>Was determined to finish it to 102% in the two days I had to rent it, even skipping going to church on Saturday for it.
>Ended up having to take an extra day over the rental (I agreed to cover the late fee), but I did it. 102% with no guide or anything, just a lot of searching and trial-and-error.

That was a fun weekend.

[Anonymous No.5844329]

>>5842229
I remember my older brothers and I going out with my dad on the weekends to a small mom and pop rental store at a strip mall not too far from me.
Once we picked up pic related, and on one mission my brother nuked the computer's base. The game came to a screeching halt and the fps went to single digits. I just remember us laughing our asses off because before the nuke even hit the ground, all the enemy canine units died all in unison.

[Anonymous No.5844720]

bumpetty boo

[Anonymous No.5845713]

I think i remember all the games i rented from my childhood but only the NES games.

In Mexicali Mexico there used to be a place which was more of a Stationary Shop (Papeleria) but in the 90s they used to have NES games for rent for 1 day, not enough to enjoy but it was pretty cheap, and they later added SNES titles around 94.

I rented this titles

Adams Family
Batman
Best of the Best
Ducktales
Joe & Mac
Kickle Cubicle
Kirby's Adventure
Mappy-Land
Megaman 2
Megaman 4
Megaman 5
Megaman 6
Mickey Mousecapade
Rainbow Islands
Skate or Die 2
TMNT III
Castlevania 3

[Anonymous No.5845986]

>>5842234
I had almost the exact same experience with Paper Mario too, except I had to return it just before the Crystal Palace.

However, after being burned before by people deleting my files in the past I started playing on the 3rd save file. I figured people would most likely delete File 1 or 2 first before touching 3. It worked for me.

[Anonymous No.5845989]

>>5845986
>>5842234
I delete most of my game files, but with paper mario I left the previous owner's files, and only deleted 1 to use myself.
It seems the previous owner was a little girl, and by the time it took her to beat the game it seems she's better than me.

[Anonymous No.5845994]

>>5844021
Why did they care about leaving save data on rented games? What?

[Anonymous No.5846012]

>>5845994
Dumb old people that don't really understand video games and assume it's as much of an annoyance to delete existing save files as it is to rewind VHS tapes, I take it.

[Anonymous No.5846110]

>>5845994
>>5846012
Maybe they were tired of people leaving save data with characters named "FUCK" or "SHIT" or some other vulgarity, and they were trying to curtail it so that the next customer to rent it doesn't complain about how their innocent little angel was exposed to the word "FUCK" while playing video games.

Still a shit reason, but if I'm playing devil's advocate here...

And it just simply can't be a fair policy to enforce. There must be some games that use save data, but only ever overwrites, ie. impossible to delete. I remember some recent-ish games (Nintendo DS) games that do this, but I can't think of any /vr/-relevant examples.

[Anonymous No.5846118]

>>5842229
Used to rent games from an independent rental store a couple miles away from where grew up. Had a Genesis in the early 90s and rented games like Wolf Child, Joe and Mac, Mic and Mac Global Gladiators, Predator 2, and a bunch of other games. I miss than place.

[Anonymous No.5846171]

>>5842229
I remember when a Block Buster opened in my town and I checked it for the first time, nearly lost my shit when I saw a Mega Man X3 box on their shelf, only to be quickly disappointed because they only had one copy and it was rented. I believe I kept calling the place every week until eventually I was told it was available, told my mom and she quickly drove me over there to rent it. I quite enjoyed the game, managed to beat it and everything, but back then I had this habit of recording play throughs of my games to VHS, specially with rented/borrowed games (so I could have something to remember them), and didn't get enough time to do so with X3 before I returned it, so at some point I wanted to rent it again and it was never fucking available, I called and stopped by the shop itself many times over the course of several months, but nothing, some faggot must have rented it and never took it back.

Game became one of my holy grails since then, but thankfully I own a copy these days. Still, fuck that guy.

[Anonymous No.5846257]

Our main rental place before Blockbuster showed up was Alfalfa Video. It was great.

I remember one time back when Stunt Race FX came out I was going to rent a copy. They had 3 or 4 in stock. I was just about to go pick up a copy when some other kid picked up all of the copies and rented them all. What are you going to do with 3 or 4 copies of Stunt Race FX?

Outside of that I used to rent from a place around the corner called Video Village. It was a family run place and they had mostly older games like Atari and NES, even when the SNES was nearing the end of its life. I loved it because when most places had stopped renting NES games they still had plenty.

[Anonymous No.5846604]

>>5846171
>I remember when a Block Buster opened in my town and I checked it for the first time, nearly lost my shit when I saw a Mega Man X3 box on their shelf, only to be quickly disappointed because they only had one copy and it was rented. I believe I kept calling the place every week until eventually I was told it was available, told my mom and she quickly drove me over there to rent it. I quite enjoyed the game, managed to beat it and everything, but back then I had this habit of recording play throughs of my games to VHS, specially with rented/borrowed games (so I could have something to remember them), and didn't get enough time to do so with X3 before I returned it, so at some point I wanted to rent it again and it was never fucking available, I called and stopped by the shop itself many times over the course of several months, but nothing, some faggot must have rented it and never took it back.
>Game became one of my holy grails since then, but thankfully I own a copy these days. Still, fuck that guy.

Back when i wanted to rent DKC2, KI, Mario RPG and even DKC3, i used to have the same problem, and it was actually not uncommon that some customers would not return popular games in time and some of the games being rented as soon as they were delivered back, the issue was that of course there really was no real ''reservation'' system, but sometimes if the clerks were nice enough would hold up your copy.

But i never actually heard of people flat out stealing the games they rented, at least not from the big store cop chain places like Blockbuster, and oddly enough, where i live, games like X2 and X3 were almost NEVER available.

Btw, same anon as this >>5845713 i can even list all the games i rented from my local blockbuster.

Killer Instinct (1st game i rented)
Megaman X2
Donkye Kong Country 2
Super Bomberman (they even gave you the multitap, but in only have 2 controllers XP)
Yoshi's Island
Super Mario RPG
Donkey Kong Country 3
Krusty's Super Fun House)

[Anonymous No.5846702]

which one was the worse rental place? or the one that gave you weird feelings.

[Anonymous No.5847647]

bump

[Anonymous No.5847656]

>>5846702
I always wanted to sneak into the adult vhs porno tape section and look at naked ladies big boobies and bush but was to embarrassed.

[Anonymous No.5847662]

>>5846604
>But i never actually heard of people flat out stealing the games they rented
It happened. I actually kept a (bootleg) copy of Sonic 2 I rented. I rented it multiple times, but I always kept it for more days, sometimes week, and paid the extra charge.
Then this one time I didn't return it in like... forever. I didn't meant to really steal it, I was going to pay the extra fees, but at the same time I didn't think much about it. Then one day the guy from the store called up my house and said they'd come pick up the game, I said sure, come. He never did. Then later, I went to actually return it to the store, and it was closed, like gone, they closed up the store. I had no way to contact the guy so I just kept the cart.
I don't have it anymore though, not sure what happened to it.

[Anonymous No.5847770]

>>5847662
>thinking you wouldn't have gotten into trouble for pulling this stunts.

[Anonymous No.5847807]

>>5847770
>into trouble
What trouble? The punishment was paying extra charges and I was fine with that.

[Anonymous No.5848118]

>>5846110
The Final Fantasy games don't let you delete save files.

[Anonymous No.5848283]

Have any of you ever racked up late fees so high that it almost cost as much as buying a game? What do rental stores normally do when it gets to that point?

[Anonymous No.5850381]

>>5848283
I dunno.

[Anonymous No.5850550]

there is a thread with noar traction on /v/ sucker

[Anonymous No.5850972]

>>5846171
>I had this habit of recording play throughs of my games to VHS, specially with rented/borrowed games (so I could have something to remember them)
Did you secretly invent the Let's Play 15 years before those filthy goons did?

[Anonymous No.5851563]

>>5850550
>/v/
yuck

[Anonymous No.5852532]

who else had bought games that were from rental places, regardless if indirectional?

[Anonymous No.5852571]

>>5852532
As long as you Never remove the blockbuster stickers its a part of history.

[Anonymous No.5852584]

>>5852571
score!

[Anonymous No.5852649]

>>5852532
I got pic related. It was definitely a direct purchase; some store was closing down and selling off its inventory.

And I'm just noticing that this game has an E rating. Standards must've been different back then. In this game, you can beat people up with baseball bats until they bleed, and even kick them in the nuts.

[Anonymous No.5852723]

>>5852532
I ended up renting some NES games right before a local rental chain (Erols) shut down their store. No one to return them to, so I guess I ended up "buying" them.

Also bought a shitload of SNES games for pennies from a Hollywood Video right before they closed their doors. Nothing exactly memorable though. (A friend that worked there ended up getting the JRPGS aka the stuff that would eventually be worth money)

[Anonymous No.5852768]

>>5852723
>(A friend that worked there ended up getting the JRPGS aka the stuff that would eventually be worth money)
Are they still worth anything when the original cases are discarded and put into some generic rental container?

[Anonymous No.5852779]

>>5852723
>I ended up renting some NES games right before a local rental chain (Erols) shut down their store. No one to return them to, so I guess I ended up "buying" them.
Better look out for any outstanding warrants. For some reason, cops might try to arrest people who haven't returned rentals, even if the store has closed and it's been a long time.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/weird-news/man-arrested-overdue-freddy-got-fingered-video-rental-2002-n545366

[Anonymous No.5853064]

>>5852779
Renting, buying, or even watching Freddy Got Fingered is deserving of capital punishment.

[Anonymous No.5853105]

>>5853064
Worst movie I ever saw. Whoever made this trash deserves the chair

[Anonymous No.5853115]

I remember renting Super Metroid when it came out and getting pretty far in it, and I managed to convince my parents to buy the game for me since I liked it a lot. I swapped the new cart with the rental one so I wouldn't have to start over before returning it.

[Anonymous No.5853839]

>>5852779
wasnt that one of those ''lets go after some random smuck to put fear on those who commit the same thing but were are not doing crap'' kind of deals, like those alleged arrests over people reading manga online at mangafox? even tough we never heard more cases?

[Anonymous No.5853872]

>>5853115
>unexpected good Samaritan

[Anonymous No.5854423]

I used to rent SNES and Genesis games at my grandparents house from a place called Bob's Market. I would rent Gunstar Heroes, Streets of Rage 2 & 3, and some shitty mini-game collection with cat/mouse theming. I would get Butterfinger BBs. My mom and I almost beat Gunstar Heroes once.

There was a place by my trailer when I was really little called Mr Video that shared space with a place called Goalpost Pizza. I have some kind of false memory of a SNES Speed Racer game that had driving levels and action-platformer levels. There is a Speed Racer game for the SNES but it's not the thing I remember playing.

[Anonymous No.5854765]

>>5853064
>>5853105
pleb status: filtered

[Anonymous No.5856353]

>>5854765
Even Tom Green acknowledged it was bad.

[Anonymous No.5857650]

>tfw you remember the particular smell of the video rental place you frequented

[Anonymous No.5857836]

>>5845994
>>5846012

I think it's just the "be kind - rewind" thing with tapes and games thrown into the same basket.
People who didn't really understand that "vidya games" thing but if you rent a VHS please rewind it first before return, so if you rent a game please "rewind" that game first into its original state before return.

[Anonymous No.5857876]

Beat Chrono Trigger so I don't have to regret not buying it. Not buying it. Not buying it. What have I done.