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Rental Plan Features, Rental Title Selections, & Rental Arrival Times
Each company ships via USPS First Class with the Return Mailer prepaid with First Class shipping.
I tried to pick out of a pool of 12 games from all the websites (if available), which are Armored Core 4, BioShock, Burnout Paradise, Super Smash Bros: Brawl, Resistance: Fall of Man, Rainbow Six: Vegas 2, Tiger Woods PGA Tour 09, Ace Combat 6, SoulCalibur 4, Assassin’s Creed, Too Human and Metal Gear Solid 4.
GottaPlay:
GottaPlay has a great selection of video game titles for rent. They have games from all of the current generation consoles like Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii and Playstation 3 as well as last gen like Xbox, PS2 and Gamecube. You can even rent handheld games for the Sony PSP, Nintendo DS and Nintendo GBA. GottaPlay has almost all of the new game releases and their coming soon section shows more to come. The bad news, almost every game except for 1st year releases of the current generation of consoles, has a Short to Long Wait status. Out of the seven games I added to the GameBox (games in my queue), only Armored Core 4 (which was 6th in my queue) and BioShock (3rd in my queue) were shipped eight days after I signed up for GottaPlay. I received the games 3 days after they were shipped. No wonder GottaPlay states on their website that you should add 15 games in your Gamebox because you probably won’t get the games you really want in a desirable timeframe. I am not sure if GottaPlay is amazingly popular and that is the reason for your chance’s luck at getting anything good or they simply aren’t replete enough to satisfy gamers’ appetites.
GottaPlay sets itself a part by allowing customers to buy games they rent AND trade games they already have in for new ones. They use a point system called Gamepoints (original isn’t it?) and each game you trade varies in Gamepoints. I am not totally sure about the system though, I have not used it and I don’t plan to. Some newer games you would think would be worth a lot of points like GTA IV (at the time of this writing this review, is worth 25 to 35 GamePoints) aren’t, while some games you could get for dirt cheap like DeadRising (worth 39 to 46 GamePoints) are worth a lot. Worth noting is that most games you may want to trade for have a Long Wait status attached to them, so I’m not sure if it is worth your time to trade in that bad purchase of The Guy Game (you know you got it) in for GamePoints.
Pros:
- What seems to be like a great selection of video game titles; most of the new releases on all systems.
- Unique GamePoints game trading system; instead of trading your older games into GameStop for little store credit, trade them at GottaPlay for loads of GamePoints!
- When the games are actually available and are shipped, you get them fast!
- The only company out of the bunch (in this review) to carry Nintendo Gameboy Advance titles; good if you or your children have GBA’s.
Cons:
- You’ll have to wait a while to try any of those great games. Most titles have waiting periods that range from short (I’m debating if a short waiting time really means short) to long and that is simply unacceptable when you get charged monthly and only get to try two games a month.
- GamePoints trading system doesn’t tell you what it factors in to justify its point values of games. I doubt that Deadrising is in higher demand than GTA IV.
- Ten Day Trial is a joke, plain and simple; chances are you won’t get a game during those ten days.
Total Rental Arrival Time: 11 Days (8 Days to Ship; Arrived 3 Days after)