Why Buy Games Game Rental Review

Review of Why Buy Games Game Rental

BLASTING onto the UK games rental scene like a gigantic pixellated superhero in blue and yellow spandex, WhyBuyGames.com has taken us all by surprise by offering a games rental service to rival the big guns like Lovefilm and Swapgame.

With an astoundingly large catalogue of games titles for rent - over 6000 at last count - the stock at WhyBuyGames.com for DS, GBA, Wii, PS2, PS3, PSP, Xbox and Xbox 360 pretty much covers every game released including a very impressive back-catalogue of Xbox games.

Blu Ray too

And it's not just games.

WhyBuyGames.com is also the only dedicated UK games rental site at the moment currently stocking Blu-Ray films for you to watch on your PS3 (or Blu Ray player if you have one). While the list of titles falls slightly short of Lovefilm's range of 483 Blu Ray titles (and 239 HD-DVD movies), WhyBuyGames.com's tally of just under 300 Blu Ray movies will keep your entertained for a few years at least and offers more than a roadside attraction to the rental games available.

Free trial

When we first took a look at WhyBuyGames.com, they offered a rather measly 10-day free trial - a length of time we have long argued is not worth its weight in salt, as it doesnt safely give you enough time to test out more than one cycle of the games rental process - but pleasingly this has been extended to 14 days now.

A full two weeks should allow you to safely rent 3 - or at least 2 - games and get a feel for the way WhyBuyGames.com's games rental service works.

Better still, you do not have to return the games before the trial is over - just make sure they are returned within 7 days of canceling your trial.

Excellent service and fast turnaround

One of the biggest complaints with UK games rental services is that they neither stock enough popular titles nor do they turn around titles fast enough.

WhyBuyGames.com appears to have blasted those two complaints out of the water - well almost.

In terms of title turnaround, WhyBuyGames.com excels. They operate a 6-day a week schedule, so your games can be processed and sent out on a Saturday.

The extra day offered by Saturday processing makes all the difference, and we were pleased to see titles popping through our letterbox at a pleasingly swift rate.

While no games rental service is immune from lack of popular titles (it would never make sense economically to stock enough popular titles to send to every subscriber on a whim), WhyBuyGames.com appears to have - at the present time - a healthy balance between not having too many subscribers whilst still holding a decent stock of new and popular releases.

What this means is that we were receiving games high on our queue list almost all of the time.

Clumsy in places

While we were thrilled with WhyBuyGames.com's actual game rental service, we were less enthralled by their sometimes clumsy website and order system.

The process of adding multiple titles to your queue is cumbersome, to say the least, with no option to return to where you were browsing before you hit the 'Rent It' button.

The lack of anything more than basic sub-genres along with a painfully-simple-to-rectify absence of star ratings make browsing a bit of a chore.

While this is not a problem at first, once you're out of inspiration and have played all the games you want, it becomes a bit of an annoyance.

Nice touches

The WhyBuyGames.com games rental service is not without its nice touches though.

You'll be emailed every time one of your games is dispatched (although oddly, you aren't told which game it is) as well as every time a game is received back at headquarters (which does tell you which game it was).

Additionally, if you're going on holiday or you find the landlord is bugging you for rent money, WhyBuyGames.com allows you to postpone your account until times are not so hard!

Earn a free month

WhyBuyGames.com also boasts a decent referral scheme whereby you earn a free month for every friend you get to sign up.

Corral 12 of your easily-influenced friends and you could pocket a whole year of free games rental.

In short, we are pleased to see a reliable and comprehensive games rental site socking it to the big boys.

With a few tweaks here and there (and a redesign that isn't so dark and gloomy) we'd be hard pressed to find a better UK games rental service.

Free trial details

	Why Buy Games offer a free trial of 14 days. The free trial is only available on the 1 game at a time 'Beginners Package'. It's free, so...

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At a Glance

Our Rating
No. of Titles	6,000 +
Free Trial	14 days
DVDs at once Max / month Unlimited £9.49 Unlimited £12.49 Unlimited £14.49

	Game Types Available:
	Sony PS3		Sony PS2
	Sony Playstation		Sony PSP
	Xbox 360		Xbox
	Nintendo Wii		Nintendo GameCube
	Nintendo DS		Gameboy Advance

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