Gamefly

Even though I don't have time or money for games, in August I let myself sign up for Gamefly, a Netflix-like video game rental site. I got sucked in by a one-month free trial and the awareness that I hardly ever let myself unwind with my PS2 (which is still our only console).

I only have two games out at a time and thought it would be a good way to figure out which games I like enough to buy, and to try games I know I probably shouldn't spend money on to keep, but am curious about anyway. I've had so little time to play that I've had the same two games out for two months; still, it's cheaper than buying the games (or renting them locally and getting late fees or feeling like I *have* to play them right away for two days straight).

One of things I like about Gamefly is that it's a good/fast resources for getting walkthroughs and cheat codes. Since I'm not an avid gamer I don't have favorite resource sites bookmarked nor do I have time (or the brains) to figure everything out on my own so it's convenient to just get all of that stuff on Gamefly, including instructions to print out (which are always mangled or missing from the local video store or absent when you buy used games). Since Gamefly obviously makes money through subscriptions, they don't sell ads like most gamer resource sites do so there aren't buttloads of popups and tons of distracting banner ads. For a novice, it's really nice.