RentZero Review

About RentZero

The third video game rental service I tried out was RentZero. Signing up for RentZero is a 4 step process. In Step 1 you enter your email address and select a password for your account. You also select your Parental Controls from the following options and select a password that you will use if you need to change the controls later on:

• Everyone
• Teen
• Mature
• Rating Pending
• Everyone 10 or older
• Adults only
• Early Childhood

Step 2 is where you will enter your shipping info and select your membership plan. RentZero offers a monthly option and an annual option. The prices are as follows:

Monthly
Silver $13.95 a month, 1 game out at a time
Gold $19.95 a month, 2 games out at a time
Platinum $27.95 a month, 3 games out at a time

Annually
Silver $119.40 a year for 1 game out at a time (works out to $9.95 month)
Gold $191.40 year for 2 games out at a time (works out to $15.95 month)
Platinum $263.40 year for 3 games out at a time (works out to $21.95 month)

RentZero offers a 14 day free trial.

Like the other services, the pricing includes shipping and there are no late fees. Keep the games as long as you like.

In Step 3 you are asked for your billing information and in Step 4 you confirm your order.

After signing up for the 14 day free trial, I started selecting the games to add my game queue. I have had nothing but problems with RentZero's website. After a few minutes of browsing the game selection, I started getting the following error when clicking any navigation button, even the one to logout:

Server Error
The Server encountered an internal error and was unable to complete your request.
JRun closed connection.

I finally gave up and had to return several hours later to add games to my queue.

RentZero Video Game Selection and Console Support

Searching for games on RentZero brought up several other problems.

The search results page shows 12 games with no option to increase this. It does not show you how many games it turned up or how many pages of results there are. There is only a Prev|Next link at the bottom of the page for navigation. A large amount of games do not have images of the game box. They say, "Image Coming Soon". A lot of time and money goes into designing video game box covers for a reason...they help sell games. I found myself bypassing the games with no image without even looking to see what the game title was.

You can search games by console. RentZero has over 4000 titles for rent and supports PS3, PS2, XBox, XBox 360, Wii, and GameCube. It does not rent games for handheld's. You can also narrow down the search by these genres: Action/Adv, Children's, Classic, Driving/Racing, Fighting, Flight Sim, Other, Role-Playing, Shooters, Simulation, Sports, Strategy/Puzzle, and War. These search features do not work well at all! It's kind of difficult to explain, but I'll give it a shot. Take a look at this screen shot for reference:

The consoles are listed at the top under the yellow search box and on the left navigation bar under browse. Categories are also listed on the left navigation bar. Selecting a console from the top or the left will bring up a list of all games for that console. You should then be able to select a genre to only show games for the console and genre you selected. That's not what happens. I'll use PS3 and the Sports genre as an example.

I select PS3 as my console and see a list of all PS3 games. I then select Sports. Instead of seeing a list of all PS3 Sport games, I am taken to a list of all sports games for all consoles. I have to select PS3 again to see the list of PS3 Sport games. But, I have to select PS3 from the top menu only. If I select PS3 from the side menu, I get a list of ALL PS3 games, from every genre.

Also, if you try and browse by "New Releases", you get the message, "No games found matching search criteria."

Video Game Information

Under the game image you will see the game title, ESRB rating, Availability Status, Release Date, Trade-In value, and options to "Add to Queue" and "Trade Now". RentZero allows you to trade in games you own for credit to your RentZero account. Clicking the image or game title will bring up more information on the game. The additional information includes a box to rate the game as "Very Bad", "Bad", "Okay", "Good", and "Very Good". It also shows you the current rating from 1 to 5 stars. There is also a game description and Instructions. About half of the games I looked at had a blank box for the instructions. This isn't that bad, since RentZero includes the game manual with all rented games. It is the only service out of the three reviewed here to do so.

RentZero Shipping

So how well does RentZero do when it comes to shipping rented video games? I don't know...one week into the 14 day free trial and I'm still waiting for them to send me a game. Several of the games in my queue show a status of "Available Now", so that shouldn't be a problem. I also submitted a support request on the third day of the trial to see what the problem was. I'm still waiting on a response for that as well.

Summary

Pros - Lowest Monthly Price. Offers an annual option for an even lower price.

Cons - They NEVER shipped me a game during my 14 day free trial and NEVER responded to my customer support inquiry.

Searching for games is not user friendly. Many games have no images and not enough information.

Does not rent games for handheld's.

Conclusion

Obviously I can not recommend RentZero. If they do not ship games or respond to support requests, I don't know how they stay in business. GameFly is a much better option.

Visit GameFly