video rental store memories

[RoleyDre]

friday and sat nights,i wud live and die by the rental store growin up ,its funny i never liked the games i had back then,i always wanted to rent games and stuff,the video store i went to had like a whole wrap around section of snes games,so i always found sumthin i liked ,i usually rented super black bass,(i purchased it resently) love this game ,and metroid and battletoads ,just to name a few,loved goin to the video store...so what are some games yall member renting growing up?

i do member renting lots of ps1 games,but i cant member any i did ,and my cousin and i use to go rent nes games when we stayed at my gparents house,i member we rented double dragon 2 alot,haha that was a fun 2 player game for nes

[PizzaKat]

Same here. It was such an event for me when my mom would rent me a NES game. I picked games solely on the cover box or screenshots in the back, just like most kids did. That and having McDonalds on friday night was pure fun for me. waiting to get home I was so excited to pop that cartridge in. Even if the game did suck I never complained, just playing a new game was always fun. Now its whatever I can simply drive and go get a game or get one on EBay and look on all the reviews on it before I decide to buy. Man what difference 25 years make.

[RoleyDre]

Same here. It was such an event for me when my mom would rent me a NES game. I picked games solely on the cover box or screenshots in the back, just like most kids did. That and having McDonalds on friday night was pure fun for me. waiting to get home I was so excited to pop that cartridge in. Even if the game did suck I never complained, just playing a new game was always fun. Now its whatever I can simply drive and go get a game or get one on EBay and look on all the reviews on it before I decide to buy. Man what difference 25 years make.
hell yea,right you are,the cover art was big deciding factor for pickin games...haha,i wish i cud member more games i rented so i can buy them now..

[Darkwing]

I'll never forget the first time I ever had to have a parent with me to rent a game. I was 11, it was September 1996, and I had walked 15 minutes to Blockbuster to rent Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 for the SNES, which had just come out in the summer. I spent enough quarters at Aladdin's Castle over the previous year and I decided it was time to bring it home. Blockbuster had become incredibly strict when it came to renting out games with "T" or "M" ratings to younger kids when they started the ESRB system two years prior. It was depressing to have to walk back home, have mommy drive me back up there, and have her rent it with me.


The one place I LOVED going to was just five blocks away - Mt. Tabor Video. Not only were there always video games of all systems for rent, you could also buy or trade your games, as well as rent five VHS movies, five days, $5, excluding new releases. There were a few arcade machines, pinball tables, and pool tables as well. It was a cool little hangout, it was cheap, and they were much less strict about renting out things like "R" horror movies to me. Hell, I even had my name on the account. It's been gone for at least a decade now. If I can find pictures of this place, I'll surely add them later.

[RoleyDre]

I'll never forget the first time I ever had to have a parent with me to rent a game. I was 11, it was September 1996, and I had walked 15 minutes to Blockbuster to rent Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 for the SNES, which had just come out in the summer. I spent enough quarters at Aladdin's Castle over the previous year and I decided it was time to bring it home. Blockbuster had become incredibly strict when it came to renting out games with "T" or "M" ratings to younger kids when they started the ESRB system two years prior. It was depressing to have to walk back home, have mommy drive me back up there, and have her rent it with me.


The one place I LOVED going to was just five blocks away - Mt. Tabor Video. Not only were there always video games of all systems for rent, you could also buy or trade your games, as well as rent five VHS movies, five days, $5, excluding new releases. There were a few arcade machines, pinball tables, and pool tables as well. It was a cool little hangout, it was cheap, and they were much less strict about renting out things like "R" horror movies to me. Hell, I even had my name on the account. It's been gone for at least a decade now. If I can find pictures of this place, I'll surely add them later.


haha,that is cool,sounded like an awesome store,i member the rating for the games too,my mom wud look at all my games and make sure they werent rated m,she didnt care about teen rating,but she was anal over the m rating,she never let me rent mortal kombat,and i member my neighbor had MK3 ,i would have t go to his house to playn it...

[Rickstilwell1]

In Northern Seattle on Fremont I found an independent video rental store that is still in business.

[RoleyDre]

In Northern Seattle on Fremont I found an independent video rental store that is still in business.

aw cool,that is awesome,the one i use to go to has been long gone for while now

[Arkanoid_Katamari]

I remember having sleep-overs with my friends when I was 13 or 14, and we'd always go to the video store and rent one movie, and one game, either for PS1 or N64. Usually something stupid like WWF. But we loved those retarded games! I do distinctly remember renting Battletanx: Global Assault, most likely for N64.

My favorite memories were renting an entire N64 just to play Goldeneye 007. And I'd spend my whole weekend on that one game. I had a Playstation back then, cuz I was into action games, obviously, and as we all know, the Playstation had a huge load of them, but it did not have Goldeneye. My friend and I had loads of action games to play on PS1, but for some reason we played Goldeneye more then anything else, which was only 1 of 2 action games on the system, at least from what we thought.

No one knew anything about what games were out back then, unless u had magazines. I used to get the Playstation magazine, and kinda wish I still owned all those issues.

[GhostDog]

I didn't have the privilege of renting games but I loved going into a video store and just scanning all the boxes for games that interested me. I was most amazed at the newer generation stuff at Hollywood video I remember as I looked through the PS1 games mostly and maybe Saturn and N64 games as well. No way owning a PS1 or the other systems was even on my radar back in 1996 or 1997 as I got a PS1 maybe in September 1998 with my own money.

[RoleyDre]

I remember having sleep-overs with my friends when I was 13 or 14, and we'd always go to the video store and rent one movie, and one game, either for PS1 or N64. Usually something stupid like WWF. But we loved those retarded games! I do distinctly remember renting Battletanx: Global Assault, most likely for N64.

My favorite memories were renting an entire N64 just to play Goldeneye 007. And I'd spend my whole weekend on that one game. I had a Playstation back then, cuz I was into action games, obviously, and as we all know, the Playstation had a huge load of them, but it did not have Goldeneye. My friend and I had loads of action games to play on PS1, but for some reason we played Goldeneye more then anything else, which was only 1 of 2 action games on the system, at least from what we thought.

No one knew anything about what games were out back then, unless u had magazines. I used to get the Playstation magazine, and kinda wish I still owned all those issues.


hhaha,that is cool,i use to always see the consoles for rent in the video stores but i never saw anyonerent them ,and i never rented one,hahai didnt think anyne did ...but glad you did

yea,i use rent rush 2 extreme racing for n64,its the one that me and my friends just played the stunt course the whole time tryin to rack up points,and i recently bought that game ... which is soooo much fun with a friend...

and 007 nightfire on ps2 was one me and my buddies played alot,mainly cause of the guided missles,which was so much fun,it put you in the missle and you controlled it,man total awesome!!!

[RoleyDre]

I didn't have the privilege of renting games but I loved going into a video store and just scanning all the boxes for games that interested me. I was most amazed at the newer generation stuff at Hollywood video I remember as I looked through the PS1 games mostly and maybe Saturn and N64 games as well. No way owning a PS1 or the other systems was even on my radar back in 1996 or 1997 as I got a PS1 maybe in September 1998 with my own money.

parasite eve was an underrated rpg for the ps1,and i played it not to long ago on my ps2,it ran great and the picture didnt detiorate at all,great game,and hard

[8-Bit Archeology]

Sick days in school my mom would take me across the highway from the road we lived on to Bay Video. I always rented nes games. For some reason marble madness was the one I always went for if I was sick.

A few years ago I had purchased a milk crate of nes games at a yardsale and low and behold, there it was. Marble Madness with the Bay Video sticker on the back. It is one of my priceless games. I love having that big part of my gaming history and nostalgia in my collection.

[Arkanoid_Katamari]

hhaha,that is cool,i use to always see the consoles for rent in the video stores but i never saw anyonerent them ,and i never rented one,hahai didnt think anyne did ...but glad you did

yea,i use rent rush 2 extreme racing for n64,its the one that me and my friends just played the stunt course the whole time tryin to rack up points,and i recently bought that game ... which is soooo much fun with a friend...

and 007 nightfire on ps2 was one me and my buddies played alot,mainly cause of the guided missles,which was so much fun,it put you in the missle and you controlled it,man total awesome!!!

I own Nightfire on Gamecube, but haven't actually played it yet. I'll hafta fire it up one of the days. Just so many games, I can't get to em all. Me and my friends at that time were so deep into FPS's that a lot fell under our radars. I remember my buddy had a SNES, Dreamcast, PS2, Xbox, Gamecube, AND N64, basically for all the shooters.

This was 2000, which was kinda the heyday for shooters, I think, when the market wasn't totally dominated by Halo and CoD. I remember we played Goldeneye and Perfect Dark on N64, Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament on Dreamcast, Halo 1 on Xbox, Turok on Gamecube, and Red Faction for PS2. Red Faction was cool because u could blow up walls and find different ways thru the levels.

I also remember my friend's mom coming down to yell at us when we had Goldeneye going at 2am and she was tryin to sleep. I still haven't gotten around to pickin that one up again yet. I'm sure it'll surge so much nostalgia. Just too many games. Perfect Dark certainly does.

[Arkanoid_Katamari]

What also amazed me was that my buddy would rent games all the time, and beat them within the 5 day rental period. I remember him doing that with Silent Hill on PS1. At the time, I couldn't imagine beating a game taking such little time, possibly because my skills weren't as good as they are now. Even today I hafta really commit to a game and play it hardcore to beat it that quickly. The 3 quickest beats I can remember of recent were Catherine, Metal Gear Rising, and El Shaddai. And those each took maybe 5 or 6 days of just goin' at it. Mainly cuz those games were all so fantastic that I couldn't put it down. Catherine, especially. One of the best games last gen.

[Doonzmore]

Sick days in school my mom would take me across the highway from the road we lived on to Bay Video. I always rented nes games. For some reason marble madness was the one I always went for if I was sick.

A few years ago I had purchased a milk crate of nes games at a yardsale and low and behold, there it was. Marble Madness with the Bay Video sticker on the back. It is one of my priceless games. I love having that big part of my gaming history and nostalgia in my collection.

When I read this thread title one of the first memories that came to me was a sick day back in the 3rd grade (1999/2000). It was a friday and I was fighting a nasty cold, the kind where it feels like your nostrils are closing off. I went into town with my dad because he had to stock some of his vending machines. Afterwards, we stopped at the local video store, which still carried a decent amount of Snes/Genesis stuff at the time. We owned an N64 and a Dreamcast then, but the older games were 3 for 5. My dad picked out College Slam and I picked out DKC 3 and Aladdin. We had rented both Slam and DKC 3 before but Aladdin was a new game for me. That night I was messing around with the password screen and actually input the final level password totally by accident, which I still remember: Aladdin, Jasmine, Abu, Saltan.

A few months later the store started selling off a large portion of their Snes/Genesis titles for 2.99 each. That leads me to my next memory: going nuts whenever the local video store was selling their games. Back then I didn't have access to the dozen or so 2nd hand stores that are around now, so it was a prett big deal when it happened. It always seemed like I would discover these games the first day they went on sale. For the sale mentioned above, it was a Sunday morning in April 2000 and my mom and I were in town. I asked her if we could go to the video store and we arrived about when it opened. I'll never forget the rush of excitement at seeing all those resealed snes/genesis boxes lined up on the shelves. I rushed back to the car and breathlessly asked my mom if I could have 5 dollars and ran back in and purchased Virtual Bart. Not the greatest game, mind you, but at that age, being the Simpsons fan I was, It was destined to be mine. My brothers and I had rented it before and we really liked the Tomato/Egg throwing level. Some of the other titles I remember purchasing later during that sale were College Slam, Ultimate MK 3 and Fatal Fury 2/Special.

That video stores sold off the last of their Snes/Genesis games in the Fall of 2002, and that time I rescued:

Snes (boxed):
Aladdin - Same copy I rented a few years prior. Front label's torn and the back half of the cartridge is yellow, but I have no desire to replace it. Box is in great shape though.
Cool Spot
The Mask
Super Bomberman 2

Genesis (boxed except for Dragon, which was complete):
Battletoads Double Dragon: The Ultimate Team
Pink Panther Goes to Hollywood
Earthworm Jim 2
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story

I have many more stories like this with that same video store, but this post is long enough for now. Man, thank you for bringing back such fond memories. Makes me wish I could go back to those times.

[RoleyDre]

thanks guys,this is great,i like hearing yalls stories,and it gives me ideas for games to get,haha

ive got aladdin for snes,it is a fun game,i actually beat it a few times,but it is a fun game to play

yea i had a buddy that cud beat games quickly,i always had trouble beating games,and i had a short attention span,i wud play another game fore i finished the last one,but i really didnt beat that many games growing up,wish i did

and 007 nightfire,the multiplayer mode is actually similar to golden eye,it is fun, lots of different weapns and stuff,and those guided missles,haha

i knew my sig was to big,sry mods

[xelement5x]

Sick days in school my mom would take me across the highway from the road we lived on to Bay Video. I always rented nes games. For some reason marble madness was the one I always went for if I was sick.

A few years ago I had purchased a milk crate of nes games at a yardsale and low and behold, there it was. Marble Madness with the Bay Video sticker on the back. It is one of my priceless games. I love having that big part of my gaming history and nostalgia in my collection.

That's an awesome story! I love ones like this.

My copy of Chrono Trigger the the one I picked up when the rental place I went to as a kid was selling off their older stuff. I was in high school at that point and had some cash, I wish I'd picked up more stuff when it was being sold off now.

[PreZZ]

Well I still go to my video store every week! We still have a big chain of video stores called Videotron Superclub in Quebec, and they have good sales too, just bought 20 blu ray movies at 3.33 a piece of recent movies like the great gatsby, pain and gain, etc. Half the store is called Microplay and they sell and rent videogames, kinda like EB games, but better!

[RoleyDre]

Well I still go to my video store every week! We still have a big chain of video stores called Videotron Superclub in Quebec, and they have good sales too, just bought 20 blu ray movies at 3.33 a piece of recent movies like the great gatsby, pain and gain, etc. Half the store is called Microplay and they sell and rent videogames, kinda like EB games, but better!

man,that is cool as shat,wish i had a store i cud go to like that,3.33 each for a blu ray... thats practically a steal,man thats awesome

haha,chronotrigger,one of my friends played that game,i never saw him play it though,he jst told me about it,he said it was pretty epic,its pretty expensive last time i saw it...

[Arkanoid_Katamari]

man,that is cool as shat,wish i had a store i cud go to like that,3.33 each for a blu ray... thats practically a steal,man thats awesome

haha,chronotrigger,one of my friends played that game,i never saw him play it though,he jst told me about it,he said it was pretty epic,its pretty expensive last time i saw it...

My roommate has a copy. A few xmas's ago he gave me his old SNES and a stack of games, altogether valuing at over $100, so that was real cool, and one of those games was Chrono Trigger. I mentioned it a few months later, when he asked which games he gave me, and says, "fuck, i gave u chrono trigger? I meant to keep that." But not cuz of its value, he wanted to keep it for sentimental reasons, he wanted to hold on to all his Squaresoft games. Yea. That's a real gamer. Needless to say, I gave it back to him. He did give me some great games tho, and it started my SNES collection off well,

DK Country 1, Mega Man X, Killer Instinct, Street Fighter II Turbo, Ren & Stimpy Veediots, and a few others.

[Arkanoid_Katamari]

And on the topic of valuable video games, and rentals, he actually rented Action 52 back in the day, and naturally said its awful. Now, if he had just forgotten to return that one...

[RoleyDre]

My roommate has a copy. A few xmas's ago he gave me his old SNES and a stack of games, altogether valuing at over $100, so that was real cool, and one of those games was Chrono Trigger. I mentioned it a few months later, when he asked which games he gave me, and says, "fuck, i gave u chrono trigger? I meant to keep that." But not cuz of its value, he wanted to keep it for sentimental reasons, he wanted to hold on to all his Squaresoft games. Yea. That's a real gamer. Needless to say, I gave it back to him. He did give me some great games tho, and it started my SNES collection off well,

DK Country 1, Mega Man X, Killer Instinct, Street Fighter II Turbo, Ren & Stimpy Veediots, and a few others.

he didnt know what he had....but thats cool you gave it back to him,shows you are a good person,i forgot i have killer instinct gold ,i def need to try and get chronotrigger,thanks buddy

i too had a buddy give me some snes games but they were all not very good,pinball,wrestling and ken griffey basball

[thegamezmaster]

I have many fond memories of them from back in the day. Miss the mom and pop stores that got killed off. Then started going to Blockbuster as they were the prominent chain around us. That's where I bought a few games and still have them. Mario RPG for the snes and Clay Fighter Scultor's Cut 63 1/3 exclusive to Blockbuster. Remember them having a whole bin of Sega Saturn Christmas Nights for 99 cents! Now the only rental store anywhere near us is an half an hour drive. But did manage to get Metroid Prime Trilogy almost complete for $10. Still miss those days.

[Arkanoid_Katamari]

he didnt know what he had....but thats cool you gave it back to him,shows you are a good person,i forgot i have killer instinct gold ,i def need to try and get chronotrigger,thanks buddy

i too had a buddy give me some snes games but they were all not very good,pinball,wrestling and ken griffey basball

I'm pretty sure he knew wat he had, but he kept it moreso for the sentimental value, from putting lotsa time into playing it. He's into emulations now, so that's why he gave me his SNES. Even so, the game isn't as valuable as other RPG's are. It'll sell for around $85 loose, which is a lot of money for one game, but in comparison to some games out there, it's not too insane. It's only $25 more then a brand new PS4 game, if u think about it that way. It is a valuable game, don't get me wrong, but it's no Stadium Events.

[Gameguy]

I remember when Chrono Trigger was a $40 game, the last time I had any spare copies it was hard to get more than that for a copy. I used to find them for around $5 or less too.

[megasdkirby]

A few rental memories, thought the most prevalent was when I rented E-Swat for SMS at the now defunct, Professional Video Store.

It was a great game and I loved it. But naturally I had to return it, and being a kid at the time, it broke my heart. I always hoped to get the game again... Then one day the same Video Store was liquidating it's SMS games and my brother picked up the same copy of E-Swat we had rented! It was complete in box, great condition, barely played. I was ecstatic and I could not believe it was the same copy of the game, but it was.

Another memory was me being desperate to play Shinobi (SMS). That day I rented it from my local supermarket early in the morning (around 6:30am). We play a bit of it until 8:30am, since I had to go to my First Communion. I recall just wanting the ceremony to end just to get home and play the game.

Ahh, it was great being a kid.

[RoleyDre]

I'm pretty sure he knew wat he had, but he kept it moreso for the sentimental value, from putting lotsa time into playing it. He's into emulations now, so that's why he gave me his SNES. Even so, the game isn't as valuable as other RPG's are. It'll sell for around $85 loose, which is a lot of money for one game, but in comparison to some games out there, it's not too insane. It's only $25 more then a brand new PS4 game, if u think about it that way. It is a valuable game, don't get me wrong, but it's no Stadium Events.


oh ok my bad ,i forgot to put a question mark in there....thanks for the info buddyrow

i remember shinobi on ps2 i think it was ,my buddy had it and he brought it to my house to play,that game was awesome,kinda like bujingai(forgive my spelling)which was awesome too,and i did like mark of kri,i rented that one several times fore i got it

[Tron 2.0]

Memory fuzzy on renting video games but i use allot of for the nes,genesis and snes.Often it were places that were video rental and most now have gone out of business.The last time i really rented for a console was the PS1 and sega saturn.Then it got to the point,where i was buying games so much i didn't need to rent any more.Good times though and even after i completed the game,after renting it id often buy it any ways.

[Greg2600]

I so enjoyed renting games back in the early 90's, and that was really the ONLY period it was good. In the late 80's, with the NES explosion, there were all those tiny mom and pop video tape rental stores. Most of those sucked because they never had more than 2 or 3 copies of the biggest movies. So at that time, they were the only stores that began carrying games to rent, all NES. Their prices were crazy, and they never had anything.

By the early 90's, larger though localized chains opened up. We had Palmer Video stores, which were sold to West Coast Video (on the East coast no less). They always had a great selection of NES and SNES and Genesis games. Somehow it seemed like they would have 1 copy of even the most obscure games. Was really a great time, especially before FuncoLand and being able to buy used games.

When Blockbuster took over, that was the end really for me. They would sell all the old games off, and so you were left with just PS1 or N64, and they never had the good games in stock. What's funny is that around this time, I was longing for many old games that I had sold off to Funco or whatever. Well, though I had totally forgotten about it (I never rented there as a kid), our local Pathmark grocery store had a rental section. Even more strange was that their selection of VHS and NES games were basically the same as they had been for a decade. And so I began renting old games and VHS cartoon shows at a pretty cheap rate for a few years. Then they (wisely I guess) gave up on it. But it was really nice while it lasted.

The last game I rented was from Blockbuster, probably for the N64, and definitely before the year 2000.

[FrankSerpico]

I remember scoring X-Men 2: Clone Wars for 3 bucks when a local chain called Showtime Video, later Moovies, went under. Anyone remember the days when mom and pop rental stores that were a one stop shop not only for videos but furniture, big screen TVs etc. were around?

[SparTonberry]

I rented from Blockbuster a ton in the SNES days.
Last time I rented from Blockbuster was when I got an N64 right before the GameCube came out. I rented Ocarina of Time and Paper Mario.
Actually I remember I rented a couple GBC games from them once before that: Rainbow Six and Donkey Kong Country.
I remember that because I was surprised BB had started renting GBC games as when I was a kid, the grocery store was literally the only place I knew of to rent any portable games (and even then they only had literally a handful of GB games).

[wiggyx]

Video Synthesis. Best rental place on the planet. They had TONs of imports (it's actually here I bought my first Super Famicom) and a great price ($4.00 per game for 7 day, or 3 games for $10.00, any system). I practically lived there after school during my 7th and 8th grade years.

I remember them having SMW running in their window on a Super Famicom right when it came out in Japan. I'd barely read anything at all about it up to that point and can recall driving by with my mother, seeing it playing in the window, and then nearly having a total mental breakdown when I realized what was going on. When we got home I hopped on my bike and rode my ass there (it was like 1/4 mile from my house). I never pedaled so hard in my life.

They also rented travel videos and rented camcorders, which was actually their primary business for years (no idea how that kept them afloat). The games were all in the basement for a long time, then they just took over damn near the whole store after the SNES launched and the travel vids were stashed in the dark, sorta creepy pink and purple neon lit basement.

Good times.

[StealthLurker]

Didn't start renting games until the 16bit era. Went to blockbuster quite a bit for SNES and a "mom n pop" independent game shop to rent Super Famicom games. Discovered Macross Scrambled Valkyrie through that shop.

At the time had a Super Famicom backup unit (basically a device to copy games to 3.5" floppies) from a trip overseas with my grandmother. Sure did copy a lot of games back then!

.

[BlastProcessing402]

Fortunately for me, Family Video is still alive and well, or I'd have had nothing to do with my shiny new Wii U this past Christmas thanks to Zelda only being a download code and the eshop crapping out for 2-3 days.

My first Xbox games were Christmas day rentals too, though those were at Hollywood Video (RIP) I think.

This one time, at Blockbuster, my friend went to buy a used Steets of Rage 2, and confused the clerk a little because he didn't have a membership at that location.

There was this place by my grandparents house that rented the japanese Mega Drive Batman back before the game was brought over for the Genesis (and when people assumed that thanks to the NES version Nintendo had strong armed the publisher into not releasing it at all). I thought that was really cool when I rented that.

Going even further back, there was actually one place I found back in the day that rented Turbografx 16 games. There were a few I only got to play thanks to that, like Dungeon Explorer.

[RoleyDre]

man!!! i got all my systems out and hooked them up to my receiver (nes,snes,n64,and ps2)and got all my accessories and games and put them ina cabinet,and i wanted to play rush 2 extreme racing,and that fracker has just vanished,i turn my house upside down looking for it....couldnt find it,i called my buddy cause we played it at his house not to terribly long ago,and he doesnt have it either...man i was freaking out,i use to rent that game all the time and just play the stunt course,which is what i wanted to do ,man i was so pissed,still lookin though...sigh

these stories are great by the way,thx alot!!!

[Neb6]

I never did have a SNES, but I always wanted to try one out. So I went to the video store and rented a SNES console and the game "Operation Logic Bomb". I was suitably impressed. That was a pretty exciting time.

And if it wasn't for the video stores, I never would have discovered GunGriffon for the XBOX. That's still my favorite Mech combat game.

[kikenovic]

Good and bad memories from the video store. They wouldn't tell you if a game was absolute crap and there were no returns. The classical excuse of "this game doesn't work" would work depending on who was attending the store.

I could have a fantastic weekend playing Turbo Racing then have a weekend ruined by Dick Tracy or Battletoads.

Few stores had Genesis games then, and by 94 they would start getting rid of their inventory. Funny thing is they would keep their NES games until sometime in 97.

[SparTonberry]

Good and bad memories from the video store. They wouldn't tell you if a game was absolute crap and there were no returns. The classical excuse of "this game doesn't work" would work depending on who was attending the store.

But wasn't the point of renting so that if the game sucked you were only out $3 and not $60? :P

[ggallegos1]

I recall renting every single N64 game over the course of a year or so. There was a blockbuster down the street from us and my brother and I would be allowed a couple of rentals per weekend if we did our homework and chores. All the shitty games we played the shit out of them and returned them promptly, but the classics and the greats we would convince our parents to buy them. I still have the original N64 and carts, and one of mine even has the gigantic blockbuster sticker all over the back.

I also remember renting a Playstation one time to see what the hype was about, and it came in this massive plastic case. I felt like opening a treasure chest when I finally got home and opened it, and upon playing syphon filter and final fantasy vii I was hooked.