Hey vancouver community!
This is a c/p from a thread I made over on reddit, which I think might be of general interest.
Did you know the VPL has almost 1,800 video games on offer? (As of writing this)
I’ve never been happy with how difficult it is to find them and how little info is actually shown on the VPL website.
And I’m sure many of you either had no idea the library even had any video games available or potentially just gave up on borrowing one because searching is a bit of a pain.
All you need is a library card and you can borrow a maximum of 5 games at a time. The default loan period is one week and you can renew loans for games which are not in demand (on hold).
Enough with the intro, here are my collections on HowLongToBeat.
I’ve made collections for each console separately, so that’s it’s far easier to filter them separately, and searching inside said collections is also mostly instantaneous.
And here are direct links to them:
- PS3 games
- PS4 games
- PS5 games
- Switch games
- Wii games
- Wii U games
- Xbox 360 games
- Xbox One games (including Series X games with Smart Delivery)
- Xbox Series X games
Once on a specific collection page, it defaults to a “Rating” sort (this is community-driven, same with the “time to beat” shown for each game) and “Card View” (with cover / title / time to beat and notes), but those can be adjusted to your liking.
I’ve included links to the game VPL listing(s) in the notes for each of them, as well as the corresponding search filter on the VPL website.
NB: Some games are missing from HLTB, so it’s not a 1:1 match, but I’m working on that.
And please let me know if you see any issues / wrong links/games or if you have any questions!
Libraries rock and this is awesome. I have more games than I can handle between Epic/Indiegala/GOG giveaways, and Gamepass, but I would totally use this otherwise.
Come to think of it, I’ve been wanting to play Last of Us before I watch the show. Maybe I’ll take a look anyway…
BTW it looks like the markup for links is different here, or at least not supported in Jerboa. Growing pains!Nevermind: after commenting the links showed up.haha, yeah i’m also in the same boat, far too many freebies, as well as Game Pass and PS Plus Extra… but libraries are absolutely awesome!
fyi there’s no “adult” games at VPL, so no TLOU there, however i’m also coming up with similar lists for other libraries of the Lower Mainland where games are available (and TLOU Part 1 is available at Coquitlam fwiw)Oh interesting. I guess that makes sense. Checked the list and might grab Uncharted. I mostly play on Xbox and PC but I got a PS4 when Spider-man and God of War came out, but never picked up many games for it. Need to work my way through some of the other exclusives.
oh yeah, i’m very biased since i love the series, but Uncharted is great! VPL has a great selection of classics and indie games alike on PS4, so if you’re not sub’d to PS Plus Extra, it’s well worth it imo.
Yup, I have a hold on the Nathan Drake Collection, looking forward to diving into it!
Amazing resource, thanks for sharing!
I really wish the borrowing time was longer. 7 days isn’t enough. I played Triangle Strategy for the Switch and I simply couldn’t do anything else but play the game if I wanted to finish it on time.
Played many games this way though. I also wish they would accept donations but I understand how hard it must be to go through everything that gets donated.
Edit: I completely forgot to thank you for the list! Thank you a lot! ❤️
Agreed, a week is not nearly enough for a lot of games, which is why I really wanted to interface with HLTB.
If you want an excuse to get to Coquitlam, North Van or New West, for instance, you’ll see how most Lower Mainland libraries have longer borrowing times (usually 2 to 3 weeks) and pretty great selections too.I think on that same reddit post someone said that it used to be more than 7 days and they lowered it a few years ago. I will check the other libraries, thank you for the advice!