video rental store memories

[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.