Get Your Game On

The next generation of games is more cinematic, networked, and addictive than ever. And it's arriving now, in the living room, on your PC, and in the palm of your hand.

New Games: Try Before You Buy

Tired of shelling out cash for console games that don't live up to the hype? Subscription services let you play console and portable games at home, for as long as you want, for a reasonable monthly fee.

Gamefly.com does for gamers what Netflix did for movie lovers: You pay a monthly membership fee, and the company ships you one to three games that you keep and play to your heart's content. When you're done with the game, you mail it back, and the service ships out the next game in your queue.

Gamefly.com offers three subscription plans. For about $14 per month, you can have one game out at a time; $22 gets you two games at a time per month; and $30 gets you three. The service offers games for Sony PlayStation 2, Nintendo GameCube and Game Boy, and Microsoft Xbox.

Check out Gplay.com and Angelgamer.com as well (both services let you have two games out at once for about $20 per month). Both Gamefly.com and Gplay.com offer free trials, so you can make sure that the service has the games you want in stock and can deliver them in a timely way before you commit.

If you like to pick your games in person, check out Blockbuster's Game Pass program. The $20-per-month fee entitles you to try out an unlimited number of games from your local Blockbuster store (up to two titles at a time). With this program, however, you will have to walk a bit farther than your mailbox to return them.

Wataru Maruyama has been writing about games for the past ten years. His money is on the PSP to become an ungodly success.