Online Games

Many already rent PS2 games online. Maybe you even noticed a recent increase in advertising from companies like Gamefly, but having no past experience with them, or perhaps with any online video game rental service, then asking if you can get your money's worth is certainly a fair question.

I will answer that by saying yes, but it depends on two things: what your expectations are for a video game rental service; and which service you select. Let's discuss these one at a time.

First, what do you want to get out of an online service? Rent PS2 games until you drop? Try an almost endless number of game titles (old and new) to see if they are worthy of being added to your game collection? Get a game, beat it and return it for another? Get a game, love it and keep it at deeply discounted prices? Or are you just trying to make sure you can rent video games with a plan that allows everyone in the household to have something they like to play... without all the arguments?

Well, if any of those are on your expectations list, then yes, an online video game rental program could definitely be a good choice for you.

What about the service itself? Although most membership programs offer rental packages to meet different needs, if you do not want to be tired to a monthly fee, then an online rental plan probably isn't for you.

Likewise, if you'll only play a couple games now and then it won't be worth it. If you think you'll forget to drop them in the mail, or even question how long the program will keep your interest, then I wouldn't recommend signing up. You'll probably get about as much enjoyment from renting video games at the local movie store, without having to worry about monthly fees from an online company.

To make an online video game rental plan worthwhile, I think you need to use the service as much as possible, return any games you are either tired of or simply do not like, and try to rent ps2 games as quickly as you can get them. Sounds simple, but not doing that already happened to me with movie rentals, so I just wanted to make sure I mentioned it.

Second, all game rental plans are not created equal. Gamefly is probably the largest, and perhaps even the best, but there are certainly others. In fact, Blockbuster is seriously testing this market right now, which probably explains why so many Gamefly commercials were being aired on the radio as I recently traveled across the country.

With any service that allows you to rent video games online, the first thing I look for are shipping costs. It makes no sense to sign up for a cheap plan, then spend a fortune getting the games to you and back to them. Enough said on that.

The next thing I look for is how many games can be in my possession at once. One game at a time will leave you with nothing to play when that one is in the mail. At the same time, too many waists money in monthly membership fees just to have games sitting around waiting to be played. There should be a happy medium in there for you or the plan isn't worth joining.

I also check to make sure I can keep a game without worrying about late fees. Other than picking a game that's boring, there's nothing worse than having to turn a game in before I'm ready.

Finally, I check to see if there's an option to purchase a game title I rented at a good price. After all, I'm probably not the first person to play this copy, and if I love the game, and it works great in my system, then why turn this one in just to go pay full price at the store.

If your expectations, the plan you want to rent video games from and the above service checks meet favorably with your budget -- then I'd say you have a winner. I'd start with Gamefly or Blockbuster (assuming you are in their test area), and compare other services with them. Read the fine print; especially in the areas mentioned above, and then get the best deal you can. If anything sounds too good to be true, or the service just doesn't stack up, go to a different one. And if you simply aren't certain you can rent ps2 games online and be happy, then rent them at the local video store instead.

Hope that helps answer the question if renting video games online is a good choice for you. And by the way, I like to rent PS2 games, but Xbox 360, Wii, PlayStation 3 and many others are available online well.