It’s 2011 and there are already big games coming out: Dead Space 2, Mortal Kombat, KillZone 3 just to name a few. With games retailing at $60 and the economy still in a recession, what’s a gamer to do?

You rent. That’s right, rent. I first did this when COD: Black Ops came out. The game was fun but wasn’t worth the retail price. I rented it for about 4 days at my local video store and it cost me $10 ($2.50 per day). I took my time beating the game and even tried out the online play. I still play games I’ve bought a long time ago like COD 4 and Halo: Reach but that’s far and few in between. The reason why I still play those games is because of the deep online play. But games like Red Dead Redemption and God Of War 3 have no replay value.  They’re fun games but I’ve beaten it once and won’t be playing it anytime soon.  And to be honest, most games aren’t worth keeping.

Another reason why you should rent is that some games really get great reviews, we fall for the hype and they turn out to be  okay or crap. Take for example, COD: Black Ops. Most outlets gave it great reviews and described it as “setting new standard for first person shooter”. My friend bought the game at midnight for $66 (including tax) because he loves first person shooters and it got positive reviews. Once we played it, it wasn’t as great as the reviews stated. Controls were clunkier than the previous COD, the physics were worse  but they were right about the solo mission, it was great. He sold the game on eBay the following week and for $45, losing $20. If only he rented it first. He would have only spent $2.50 for one day a couple more bucks for several days.

Even if you rent a game that you want to keep, it’s still worth losing the extra $2.50. I’d rather risk losing an extra $2.50 rather than lose $20 if you bought the game and sold it within a week.  Also, you can try out gamefly.com, they charge $15 for 1 game or $22 for 2 games per month.  They also have a free 10 day trial here. I currently re-subscribed for the 2 game deal because so many games are coming out. I already returned one crapper, Star Wars: Force Unleashed and I”m expecting to receive Assasin’s Creed 3 tomorrow. I’m still keeping NFS: Hot Pursuit, because it’s fun. Once I return Hot Pursuit or Assasin’s Creed 3, next on my list is the Little Big Planet 2! But let me just warn you that Gamefly’s service isn’t as fast as Netflix. It usually takes them two days to process a return and send in the next game. So turn around time is around three days.

If you don’t have a local video store with up to date games and don’t want to try Netflix, you can always go to your closest Redbox.  Most kiosks have games for rent now.  Although they’re limited in titles, new games can still be found for $2 per day.

With today’s economy and how fast games can be beaten, the only rational solution is to rent. You’ll be saving money and playing more games…in the end, that makes us happy gamers!

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