Rent Niko and Take a Spin through Liberty City

What's a recession hit gamer to do when he hasn't yet played the biggest videogame releases of 2008 even if the gigantic titles of 2009 are knocking at his door and ready to claim share of their wallet? Renting games, although frowned upon by videogame publishers, is clearly the way to go here and companies Rentrack and Home Video Essentials have tracked the data to tell us which were the most rented videogames of 2008.

The data shows that Grand Theft Auto IV, created by Rockstar and published by Take Two, is the game most gamers rented last year, probably thanks to the incredible amount of hype that surrounded its release and to the fact that it arrived early in the year, when major releases were quite few and far between. The version most players wanted was the Xbox 360 one.

In second spot, we find Call of Duty: Modern Warfare from Activision and Infinity Ward, a game launched in 2007 but which enjoyed a wave of popularity last year, especially due to its multiplayer potential.

At number three stands another shooter, Halo 3 from Bungie and Microsoft, which was also popular because of the multiplayer action it saw over Xbox Live.

The list also included (in descending order of positions): Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2 from Ubisoft for the Xbox 360; Army Of Two from Electronic Arts for the Xbox 360; Mario Kart Wii from Nintendo for the Wii; Super Smash Bros Brawl from Nintendo for the Wii; Fallout 3 from Bethesda Softworks for the Xbox 360; Assassin's Creed from Ubisoft for the Xbox 360 and, finally, Mario Party 8 from Nintendo for the Wii.

It's interesting to see that while Nintendo gaming consoles and Nintendo releases are leading the way in sales, when it comes to renting, the Xbox 360 dominates, with seven titles in the top ten, also taking the premiere top positions.