I have always found that renting games is one of the best ways to play the most recent games. It’s good for a number of reasons, whether you are a little bit strapped for cash at the time of release, or maybe you are just unsure about the game. Even if it’s neither of those reasons, renting is still a good option, my example would be with the Lego games, despite being really great games, they are short, and with no multiplayer, I find myself completing them in a number of days. So I would much rather pay £5 to rent it than have to pay £40 and have it sitting on the shelf.

This aside, renting games isn’t perfect for every game, some games are just so long and so good that you wouldn’t want to rent them and then pay even more when you decide to buy it. So I thought I’d just give you a list of some games that you really should buy and skip the whole renting stage.

The first one that comes to mind would be the fairly recently released Red Faction: Guerilla. Not only is this game great, but it has a huge storyline. The game is split up into several sections of the map, each section needs to be conquered by completing the campaign missions, but then there are also a huge number of side missions for each section. This game can last for weeks, especially if you like smashing things up with a sledgehammer. But wait, it doesn’t stop there. Once you’ve completed the single player campaign, there is still the online multiplayer where you can face gamers around the world in sledgehammer warfare.

These next two are pretty much classics, Halo 3 and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. These two games should be in pretty much every gamers’ arsenal. Each of them have outstanding single player campaigns which you will enjoy playing over and over again. Bu then, just like Red Faction, once you have moved past the single player, then you get onto the multiplayer, that’s where the fun really begins. Halo 3 and CoD4, despite each one being released over a year ago, are still the biggest multiplayer games being played, that’s how good they really are.

Next up is one for the slightly older gamer, although many people don’t actually consider the age ratings, it’s Left 4 Dead. Now Valve are known for their brilliant FPS games, first it was Half Life, then Counter Strike Source, then Team Fortress 2, now Left 4 Dead. It has to be one of their best yet, still using the great Source graphics engine, it’s such great fun to play this game. It’s got single player, online multiplayer, offline multiplayer, and it’s all while shooting the hell out of some zombies.

However, if shooting zombies isn’t really your thing, then maybe a slower paced game would be better, bring on Fable 2. The first Fable game was pretty good, but this second title is amazing. The new world is huge, dozens of towns to visit, houses to buy, items to buy, plus, with the huge amount of choices you are asked to make in the game, you can shape the ending of the story around your decisions. This means that the game has a huge number of possible endings, if it actually ends that is. Once the main story is complete, you can still roam the towns, buying things and completing side missions, that is until they release another expansion pack. The guys at Lionhead Studios are doing a brilliant job of extending the game’s life until the release of Fable 3, which was announced at GamesCon this year.

The final one that I’m going to go into depth with is a collection of games really, the Guitar Hero and Rock Band series. Although I consider the Rock Band series to be better for making the game longer as they have a huge library of available songs for download, which will be reaching 1000 song by Christmas, both of the titles are brilliant. Whether you like singing, drumming, playing bass, or guitar, with either one of the Guitar Hero or Rock Band games, you can simply pickup and play for 5 minutes or several hours. The fun doesn’t stop with just one instrument though, you can combine your musical talent your your mates to play as a complete band, or, take your talent online and play against the world. Your choice.

Hopefully you’ve found all that helpful and maybe you’ll even buy one. However, if you do, don’t just limit yourself to these, there are loads more out there that are brilliant for buying, not renting. Some that come to mind include Grand Theft Auto 4, Skate, and Fifa 09.

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