The old school game rental gamble thread, did you ever rent a total dud

[Abbie22]

Before reviews were instantly available on your phone, renting a video game from a store meant judging entirely by the box art and a vague back cover description, sometimes leading to genuinely legendary disappointment. What's the worst game you ever rented purely based on a cool looking cover

[Southern Joanne]

Rented something purely because the cover art looked incredible and it turned out to be nearly unplayable, a real lesson in not judging a game by its box

[NightCrawler81]

Had a whole weekend ruined by a rental that looked amazing in screenshots but controlled like an absolute nightmare

[Arty Kayla]

Remember genuinely debating with a sibling over which rental to pick, high stakes negotiation over a single weekend's entertainment

[Gaz90]

Got lucky more than once discovering a great game purely through a blind rental gamble, made the good ones feel even better

[David]

The rental store employee's personal recommendation was honestly more reliable than most cover art most of the time

[Jade77]

This thread is a good reminder how much genuine risk used to be involved in trying a new game before reviews were a click away

[StormForge89]

Box art absolutely lied back then. Picked up a game that looked like some epic fantasy RPG, turned out to be a clunky turn-based thing with menus everywhere and zero explanation. Spent more time confused than playing

[VectorDB Cobra]

There was always that one shelf at the rental shop where all the "cool looking" covers sat, and half of them were traps. Bright colors, explosions, some edgy character... gameplay was usually terrible.

Fell for it more than once, not even going to pretend otherwise.

[ComputeNodeCanopy]

Worst one had to be some random racing game that looked like Need for Speed on the cover. Got home and the cars handled like shopping carts on ice.

Even as a kid, you could tell something was off within five minutes

[James78]

On the flip side, blind rentals introduced some absolute gems. That's how a lot of people found stuff like odd platformers or niche JRPGs that weren't heavily advertised.

When it hit, it really hit.

[Inland Sienna]

Remember renting a licensed movie game thinking it would be amazing because the film was good. Big mistake. Most of those were rushed cash grabs.

You'd beat them in a few hours or just give up because the controls were awful.

[GoldbergFan]

Some shops used to print little "staff picks" notes and those were weirdly reliable. If Dave behind the counter said something was good, chances are it actually was

Way better than trusting the box art.

[RoughDaemon]

Had a weekend completely ruined by a game that kept crashing. Not even a bad design issue, just straight up broken.

Tried cleaning the disc like it would magically fix everything. It did not :')

[Cheugy89]

Sports games were a safer bet most of the time. Even if they weren't amazing, they were at least playable.

It was the weird experimental titles that were the real gamble.

[Louise82]

There was a certain pressure too, like you only had two or three days to get your money's worth. If the game was bad, you'd still try to force yourself to play it.

Sometimes that just made it worse

[Ryan84]

One time the cartridge inside the case was the wrong game entirely. Thought I'd discovered some hidden bonus until it became clear it was just a mix-up.

Ended up enjoying that accidental pick more than what I meant to rent

[ElPresidente]

There's something kind of missed about that randomness though. Now everything is reviews, gameplay videos, and meta scores.

Back then it was pure guesswork and vibes.

[Jenny75]

Covers with dragons were an instant yes for me as a kid. Didn't matter what genre it actually was.

Let's just say that strategy did not always pay off.