Boomerang Rentals – Review | Game Rental Service

Today’s review is something a little different – rather than a game, accessory, or hardware, we’re looking at a rental service – Boomerang. Sometimes referred to as Boomerang Rentals or Boomerang Games, it’s a video game rental & sales service available in the UK.

I tried out the 21-day free trial which you can sign up for here and the Value 1 package of their rental service. It’s worth keeping in mind that there is also a more expensive priority service, which is meant to give faster service.

The Service

Boomerang Rentals has four packages. Within the top three, there’s the option to pay more to rent multiple games at once. Renting more than two games at a time requires your account to be a certain age first.

The packages are:

• Priority
• Unlimited
• Value
• Value 1

The short version is that priority and unlimited give you access to any games and you can rent an unlimited amount of games per month, as long as the previous game is returned first. Priority just gives you a better chance of receiving your top choices (more on this later) and new releases quickly in addition.

Value and Value 1 packages only let you rent older games – ones three months and six months since the release date respectively. These have a maximum amount of games you can rent per month, even if you return them early.

As an example, the Value 1 package only lets you rent one game per month and the game must be over six months old. That said, it only costs £3.99 per month, which is much cheaper than the other packages starting at £7.99 per month. Postage and packing are included both ways.

Finding Games

I signed up for the free trial for my 21 days. The only major limitation with the trial was not being able to rent new releases or PlayStation 5 / XBox Series X games. This is understandable, considering it’s free. As a note, it looked like it had directly sent through a charge when signing up for the trial, but it seems this was just a pre-authorization. Checking later, it had disappeared from my bank statement.

The first thing I needed to was to set up a list with my choices. This was fairly easy if knowing what games I wanted – it’s as simple as typing the name into the search box and clicking. That said, they could certainly use a better layout for discovering games. There is only a short list of genres and it’s only possible to browse within a platform. So if I have an XBox and PlayStation (which I do), I have to browse XBox shooters and PlayStation shooters separately. And if I want to look for a JRPG, I have to browse a mixed RPG/Strategy category. Platformers seem to be split across Action/Adventure and Kids/Family without consistency.

Don’t Be Picky

After building the list, it’s needed to choose one of these options:

• TOP CHOICE – Receive first choice in your list.
• TOP 3 – Receive any game in your top 3.
• TOP 5 – Receive any game in your top 5. Service may be slower.
• TOP 10 – Receive any game in your top 10. Service should be quick.
• ALL GAMES – Receive any game in your list.

These determine which games Boomerang Rentals will send out. It also determines how quickly you’ll see any of the games you’ve chosen.

When you add games to the list, it will give you an estimate of how long it takes to send out. For example, when I looked at Gal*Gun 2, it claimed a 0-3 days wait. When adding Spiderman Miles Morales, it claimed a 6+ days wait. The latter was my first game and I chose ‘Top Choice’ so it was the only game they could send – it was sent 8 days after adding it to the list and arrived 10 days after.

To test out their customer support, and as my choice was at 6+ days wait, I asked support (without them knowing I was writing anything) if they had a more accurate estimate. They couldn’t provide one, but they said to get in contact when I got the confirmation email, so they could add any days wasted back onto my account. It’s very nice that they’ll do this.

Not a Short Wait

My next choice said it was in stock. So I sent Spiderman Miles Morales back on Monday midday, I got a message saying they received it on Thursday at 12PM and then the next game was dispatched at 2PM on Friday. I received it on Monday. 

In short, the first game with a wait took ten days to reach me. I sent one game back and it took a week for the next one to reach me, even though it was immediately in stock, with no listed wait. I received a final game after another long wait. 

The speed of the service isn’t amazing, though upgrading to the priority service may help. In theory, I could’ve rented four games between the free trial and the month I paid for, but I only managed three due to delays. I didn’t keep any of them for that long, with the first only being rented for the weekend. If I was more flexible about which titles I wanted them to send, I may have been able to fit in a fourth.

I took a look at the wait time of about twenty titles, with a focus on mainstream games and anime titles. The majority of the mainstream ones claimed a 0-3 day wait unless very new, while the majority of anime-related titles claimed a 6+ day wait.

While I didn’t get to take advantage of it, there is a system that gives you points for days waiting if a game isn’t dispatched within 24 hours from their receiving the return. These can be saved for bonus rentals and free months. But time in the postal system doesn’t count and the number of points I received was tiny.

Surprisingly Good Library

While the wait time is somewhat negative, their library of games is certainly a positive. Boomerang Rentals didn’t have every game I wanted, but it certainly had the vast majority of them. This included more niche ones like visual novels and even older titles like the original Atelier Ayesha on PlayStation 3 or two of the three Shadow Hearts games on the PlayStation 2. They had every newer game that I checked for.

When it comes to older niche games, they can be surprisingly expensive to buy. It can be a great deal just to rent them out instead, especially if you complete them within the month.

For newer games, renting is still cheaper in most cases, as long as it’s completed quickly. It costs more per month for access to the new games, but for anything like an RPG where it’s complete once and then done, it works out nicely.

Return or Keep

Boomerang Rentals offers two choices – return the game or keep it. Keeping it was never a particularly good deal for those I checked, but I have heard of some finding value here. On checking a few, I’ve always been able to new copies of titles cheaper though. In one case, buying it new from Amazon was even half of the price of Boomerang’s cost to buy an ex-rental.

Boomerang Rentals send out an envelope that can be used to return the game. This is nice and convenient, but they do recommend (and require if canceling your account) a Certificate of Postage when sending games back. This is free when sending from the Post Office, but it does mean that it’s safer to send via the Post Office rather than just drop the game in a postbox. This then covers you if the game gets lost in the mail. Personally, my closest Post Office is about a 5-minute walk away, but this might be much more inconvenient for some people.

Verdict

Overall, I feel like Boomerang Rentals is a good deal. Yes, it can be slow and you’ll only get the most out of it if you’re very flexible with what games you want. Some seem to always be in demand, so even being flexible won’t completely help. But it has a huge library of games and the low-end option still gives access to the vast majority of these. And while I doubt it happens to everyone, some people on the top tier even can access brand new titles on release date. For me, I’ll be using it every now and then to rent a JRPG I missed out on, like Atelier Sophie 2 which Isaiah so highly recommended.