Forum > Gaming Discussion > Videogame Time-sinks
Videogame Time-sinks
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Sat, 18 Jul 2009 03:05:37
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We all have them.  While we may not think of them as the best games, per se, there are those that have sucked an inordinate amount of time out of our lives, for better or worse.  What games have eaten up the most of your time, and what kept drawing you back?

There have been a few in my case.  First off have to be the games I have simply beaten the most number of times.  Tops in that category is Super Mario Bros. (NES) with what can only be nearly a complete guess as to the total of somewhere between 100 and 500 completions and the first game I ever played.

Next in line for completions is Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars with around 20.  Given it takes 10-20 hours to complete, that's 200 to 400 hours right there.

The primary culprits, though, have been sports games.  Leading the way were All-Star Baseball 2000, MVP Baseball 2004, MVP Baseball 2005 and NHL '96.  Due to the nature of sports games in that the entire game from start to finish is encapsulated in an approximately 30-minute time-span, combined with the extended goals of seasonal success and player records make them far too easy to go back to.

Similarly is my presumed #1 in total play time with Clubhouse Games on the DS.  With dozens of games, almost all playable it's a great value, but I'd be being facetious to say that the number of games had any significant impact in the game's longevity.  There was one thing that brought me back, and that was the ~2400 games of online chess I played (in case you were wondering at how I got good at chess, see my first online game I saved and then the last).

Et tu?
Edited: Sat, 18 Jul 2009 03:06:07

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Sat, 18 Jul 2009 05:20:58
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Oh God.... Ragnarok Online, Gunbound, RuneScape, and Albatross 18 are all games I've played for hundreds if not thousands of hours. Then there's stuff like PES, and FIFA and Final Fantasy as well.

And World of Warcraft, but that's really no where near as addictive or time consuming as people would have you believe. Actually it's a hell of a lot more casual than something like RO or RS, at least in terms of how much time you need to put into it. Getting to 99 on RO takes a hell of a lot (2, or 3, or more times) than getting to 70 on WoW and that was on a 3 times exp server! Then after you get to 99 you become a new class and get to do it all over again. -_-

I only made it to 95. But I was playing as a Monk. Nyaa

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Sat, 18 Jul 2009 06:06:11
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I guess it's worth also noting as a single playthrough that the honours go to Persona 3: FES.  ~94 hours to completion of the main game, throw in another 25-30 for the extended gameplay.

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Sat, 18 Jul 2009 07:06:09
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I estimate the amount of time I spent playing Animal Crossing: Wild World to be around 700-900 hours over a two-and-a-half year period. That was the worst gaming adiction I ever had, and I loved every minute of it. Happy

What drew me into the game so much was the whole world-changes-daily-thing, and trying to collect every item in the game, especially the rare stuff. Whenever I get another DS, I'll be right back to playing it daily again. Happy

Edited: Sat, 18 Jul 2009 20:20:45

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Sat, 18 Jul 2009 21:10:18
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Oblivion. I could and would have played more if the add on stuff worked without a hard drive. Even the standalone discs required one. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr....

Otherwise, animal crossing Wild world I played for like 9 months straight everyday. And now City folk I'm playing every day for 7 and a half months every day, twice a day.

Pokemon yellow was huge, I spent 100hrs on it. A black and white portable game, when I didn't even own a GB. I stuck that black and white relic into an N64 add on and still played it like hell because it was so addicting.

And Skies of Arcadia, 50 hrs through, twice. Love that game, hate the random battles. Should really get the cube version which fixed that.

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Sat, 18 Jul 2009 21:54:17
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Over the last 2-3 years I've been all about game completion, so I've avoided time sink games on purpose. The last game that ate my life like that was Animal Crossing: Wild World.

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Sat, 18 Jul 2009 23:33:28
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Animal Crossing definitely.  First wild world, now city folk ... for hours upon hours.  it's sad

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Sun, 19 Jul 2009 00:46:52
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Hmmm... for me:

Disgaea 1 & 3

Goldeneye

Phantasy Star Online (DC & GC)... I wonder... I played this game online on my DreamCast with a GameSpot forumite years and years ago... Was that Vader?! Edit: Yeah. It was you Vader. Wow! I've known you years longer than I thought I did!

Dragon Warrior VII here, too!

Edited: Sun, 19 Jul 2009 13:54:07
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Sun, 19 Jul 2009 07:02:23
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By far it would have to be Phantasy Star Online both on the DC and GC. I had about 300 hours into the DC version and another 200 hours on the GC version.  Leo if you played with a dvader that was me. I was on every single night, school the next day or not. I got out when the cheaters started to take over, damn dupers.

Now I never spend to long on any one game, I am jumping from one game to the next. Back in the day I would play the same game over and over cause that is all I had. I have played the original Zelda countless times. SMB3 a ton of times. Sonic more times than I can count. Sonic 2 probably even more.

I had Star Wars Galaxies for a month or two, that was scary how much I was on that. i dont have an hour estimate but it had to be over 200 hours.

Edited: Sun, 19 Jul 2009 07:02:38
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Sun, 19 Jul 2009 13:45:09

Once upon a time it was EverQuest.  That was the only game I think I've ever played continuously for 12 hours or more at a time.  I played off and on for about 2 years and I estimate I logged about 2,000 hours.  Fortunately it killed all OMMRPGs for me so the appeal is completely gone, and no game will ever get that kind of time from me.  

As far as console games go the game with the single longest amount of time spent played would be Dragon Warrior VII.  Not the greatest game, but good god damn it was long, and I played through it twice with both times hitting the 100 hour mark.


Harvest Moon would have the record as the series with the most time spent on it.  Particularly the early ones.  I can't tell you how many times I played through the original SNES version, and HM 64.  I've played at least 10 of them if you could the Rune Factory games and none of them got any less than 50 hours of attention from me (except maybe Harvest Moon DS which was just not that good).

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Sun, 19 Jul 2009 16:54:14

I can hardly guess with Doom, especially when ports that better support online play started coming out. Hundreds of hours, easily.

Runescape was a timesink I kind of fell victum to, when it was still good. I wasn't as dedicated as the archetype MMO player, though, as it took my over five years to get lvl 60.

Jedi Knight: Dark Forces 2's multiplayer and its thousands of mods kept me intrested for half a decade of frequent play.

Though I only played it consistantly for a year, there's no doubt I logged 100-200 hours in Shadowrun (360).

Special mention goes to Counter-Strike. If it wasn't for my love-hate relationship for it, I probably would have been playing it several days throughout the week since v1.4.

Edited: Sun, 19 Jul 2009 23:40:18
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Sun, 19 Jul 2009 17:11:08

Dvader said:

Back in the day I would play the same game over and over cause that is all I had.

I miss those days. You picked the very best games and replayed them at least twice. And back in the old days games had replayability, arcade like sensibilities so you could turn them on for a quick blast and play them again and again.

Oh yeah, Harvest Moon a Wonderful Life I spent 45hrs with. That's a lot for me.


And Endless Ocean I have at 45 hrs too and I would have played more if the red and green dot problem didn't ruin the immersion for me on my overheated wii.

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Sun, 19 Jul 2009 17:35:58

gamingeek said:

Dvader said:

Back in the day I would play the same game over and over cause that is all I had.

I miss those days. You picked the very best games and replayed them at least twice. And back in the old days games had replayability, arcade like sensibilities so you could turn them on for a quick blast and play them again and again.

Plus they were a challenge, you didnt turn it on and start from a save point. Everytime I turned on the game the question was, can I beat it. Sometimes I would, sometimes I would get close and sometimes I would do terrible. There was always that test to see how far you can go.

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Sun, 19 Jul 2009 17:48:14

Dvader said:

gamingeek said:

Dvader said:

Back in the day I would play the same game over and over cause that is all I had.

I miss those days. You picked the very best games and replayed them at least twice. And back in the old days games had replayability, arcade like sensibilities so you could turn them on for a quick blast and play them again and again.

Plus they were a challenge, you didnt turn it on and start from a save point. Everytime I turned on the game the question was, can I beat it. Sometimes I would, sometimes I would get close and sometimes I would do terrible. There was always that test to see how far you can go.

And then some people would still look for ways to work around no save points or passwords.  Remember Batman for the NES?  The one based on the Tim Burton movie?  The game was surprisingly good for a licensed game, but pretty freaking hard. It had unlimited continues however so that helped a lot.  A good friend of mine abused that a bit, by leaving his NES on for a week without turning it off in order to keep continuing from higher levels.  He did manage to beat the game, but his NES never quite worked right again.

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Sun, 19 Jul 2009 17:53:34

Dvader said:

gamingeek said:

Dvader said:

Back in the day I would play the same game over and over cause that is all I had.

I miss those days. You picked the very best games and replayed them at least twice. And back in the old days games had replayability, arcade like sensibilities so you could turn them on for a quick blast and play them again and again.

Plus they were a challenge, you didnt turn it on and start from a save point. Everytime I turned on the game the question was, can I beat it. Sometimes I would, sometimes I would get close and sometimes I would do terrible. There was always that test to see how far you can go.

Joy, the days before level selects.

Man those days were tough. R-type is still painful.

If you had the time for a playthrough it was okay, but there is nothing worse than getting halfway through and having to quit and lose all progress. That's why there should be a save state for all these old games on VC.

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Sun, 19 Jul 2009 18:05:20

gamingeek said:

Dvader said:

gamingeek said:

Dvader said:

Back in the day I would play the same game over and over cause that is all I had.

I miss those days. You picked the very best games and replayed them at least twice. And back in the old days games had replayability, arcade like sensibilities so you could turn them on for a quick blast and play them again and again.

Plus they were a challenge, you didnt turn it on and start from a save point. Everytime I turned on the game the question was, can I beat it. Sometimes I would, sometimes I would get close and sometimes I would do terrible. There was always that test to see how far you can go.

Joy, the days before level selects.

Man those days were tough. R-type is still painful.

If you had the time for a playthrough it was okay, but there is nothing worse than getting halfway through and having to quit and lose all progress. That's why there should be a save state for all these old games on VC.

there seems to be one by default.  if you just leave the game and go to the wii menu you start back right from where you left it last time (even if you switch off your wii and go back another day).  just don't reset the game

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Sun, 19 Jul 2009 18:08:25

bugsonglass said:

gamingeek said:

Dvader said:

gamingeek said:

Dvader said:

Back in the day I would play the same game over and over cause that is all I had.

I miss those days. You picked the very best games and replayed them at least twice. And back in the old days games had replayability, arcade like sensibilities so you could turn them on for a quick blast and play them again and again.

Plus they were a challenge, you didnt turn it on and start from a save point. Everytime I turned on the game the question was, can I beat it. Sometimes I would, sometimes I would get close and sometimes I would do terrible. There was always that test to see how far you can go.

Joy, the days before level selects.

Man those days were tough. R-type is still painful.

If you had the time for a playthrough it was okay, but there is nothing worse than getting halfway through and having to quit and lose all progress. That's why there should be a save state for all these old games on VC.

there seems to be one by default.  if you just leave the game and go to the wii menu you start back right from where you left it last time (even if you switch off your wii and go back another day).  just don't reset the game

It's only temporary and doesn't help if you die!

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Sun, 19 Jul 2009 22:46:00

Dvader said:

By far it would have to be Phantasy Star Online both on the DC and GC. I had about 300 hours into the DC version and another 200 hours on the GC version.  Leo if you played with a dvader that was me. I was on every single night, school the next day or not. I got out when the cheaters started to take over, damn dupers.

Now I never spend to long on any one game, I am jumping from one game to the next. Back in the day I would play the same game over and over cause that is all I had. I have played the original Zelda countless times. SMB3 a ton of times. Sonic more times than I can count. Sonic 2 probably even more.

I had Star Wars Galaxies for a month or two, that was scary how much I was on that. i dont have an hour estimate but it had to be over 200 hours.

Will you repeat your effort when Old Republic comes out?

At the moment, it's probably Rittai Picross that's completely absorbed me. I've got lots of games to play, but THAT's the one that I want to finish before the end of the year. I've nearly done it too - I'm on the last difficulty of puzzles.

And it's not just to beat the game either. I want to get the best rank on all the puzzles, so I can unlock all of them. It's gotten bad enough where my day would be bookended by the game.

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Mon, 20 Jul 2009 00:20:47

darthhomer said:

Dvader said:

By far it would have to be Phantasy Star Online both on the DC and GC. I had about 300 hours into the DC version and another 200 hours on the GC version.  Leo if you played with a dvader that was me. I was on every single night, school the next day or not. I got out when the cheaters started to take over, damn dupers.

Now I never spend to long on any one game, I am jumping from one game to the next. Back in the day I would play the same game over and over cause that is all I had. I have played the original Zelda countless times. SMB3 a ton of times. Sonic more times than I can count. Sonic 2 probably even more.

I had Star Wars Galaxies for a month or two, that was scary how much I was on that. i dont have an hour estimate but it had to be over 200 hours.

Will you repeat your effort when Old Republic comes out?


I dont know, I enjoyed it while I played it but looking back I realized I didnt do much of anything. MMOs are weird. Maybe Old Republic makes it more like a standard game, with a clear storyline or something. Plus it needs to be on consoles. I dont want to be on a computer for so long.

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