demagogue on 27/10/2019 at 14:33
Well if Sulph Tomi is going to post about sadly neglected games, it stands to reason we should have a thread on the other side of the coin, games we (for some time at least) obsessed over and played way more than one typically plays a game, e.g., way beyond just "finishing" the game.
For me that list would include
- Minecraft, when I was dabbling with mods like Buildcraft and fan maps.
- Subnautica, when I was building the perfect base
- Avorion, when I was building the perfect ship (I see a theme developing)
- Civ 3, for obvious reasons.
- Victoria 3. I don't know. Alt-history is fun, I guess?
- Skyrim. I like aimlessly riding horses.
- GTA3/SA/5, and driving cars.
- Thief 2, for the FMs.
- Deadly Rooms of Death, also lots of fan levels.
- Edit: Also Mirror's Edge and Shattered Pixel (a Roguelike on Android) for just replaying for its own sake.
- Back in the day, I can recall games I played ritually, 1080, Bard's Tale 2, a game called Rags to Riches.
dj_ivocha on 27/10/2019 at 14:52
StarCraft!
I'd just gotten my first PC back in 1998 and StarCraft was the first full game I played. I was pretty bad (Keyboard shortcuts - what's that? APM over 20 - haha, yeah, no!) but still managed to finish it and Brood War, then all the custom campaigns, then I played all the multiplayer maps vs the AI, first Free for All, then Melee (all vs me), then I played them all again, multiple times, but with cheats. What cheats? "Black sheep wall" for showing the entire map and "Staying alive" for the game to keep playing after I'm eliminated. Then I'd pick Terran, set Free for All, have my SCVs kill the command center and then each other and then I'd watch the AI players duke it out. So yeah, I was spectating games before Twitch.tv and before it was cool!
Also Heroes of Might and Magic 3. Several years ago I'd estimated my total play time since I started playing it in 1999 and it came to at least 3000 hours, maybe more. My first PC was a Pentium 200 MMX with 32MB of RAM and when I played one of the largest maps in melee mode, it would take literally 1-3 minutes per turn to complete the AI turn. Good times, good times.
WingedKagouti on 27/10/2019 at 16:27
Excluding various board games, my top 5 most played games on Steam are:
Terraria with 1500ish hours. I can just sit down with that game for half an hour, or several hours, and just plug away at exploring a world, building some housing, or fighting bosses. The core gameplay loop in the unmodded game hasn't gotten boring for me yet.
CiV has some 550 hours, and well it's a Civ game so yea.
Champions Online has 400 Steam hours (and who knows how many times that from before I started using Steam to log in). The game is now over 10 years old and of the Superhero MMOs, this has the character building mechanics I enjoy the most. Not the best animations or cutscenes, but that's only something that bothers me while those cutscenes are playing.
Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen has 272 hours according to Steam, and I've gone through the main story of both the base game and the Dark Arisen DLC several times. It just lends itself to repeated playthroughs for me. Also the first game with Monster Hunter-type gameplay I played.
Warlock - Master of the Arcane modern version of Master of Magic, lacks some stuff compared to MoM but also has some other stuff. A decent game, as is the sequel.
And while it may be a fair bit down on the Steam Playtime list, Morrowind has been a permanent install on all my PCs since I bought it back in 2002. And I've played more characters than I can remember. But while Dagoth Ur has been vanquished more than 10 times, I've only completed the Tribunal main quest once and the Bloodmoon main quest twice.
Sulphur on 27/10/2019 at 16:36
Yeah okay. I've got like a few games I keep revisiting forever. Not on the order of a pilgrimage or obsessively mining for truths, but because they feel a bit like... returning home. And so they're never going off my hard drive: Homeworld, Prince of Persia: SoT, and Okami. They're never going to get old for me, so playing them's essentially a yearly/two-yearly ritual.
Also, there's N, which has been fantastic (and free) since forever, and its levels are always good for a quick bit of excellence when I need a short, precise platforming fix with unnecessary self-violence.
icemann on 27/10/2019 at 17:06
I've been obsessed with QUITE a few games in my life time:
Alien vs Predator 1 & 2 - These games just have something special about them. Played both of them a fair bit.
Doom 2 - This one is mostly due to mods which kept the game going strong for decades after it's release.
Civilization 1 - Back when I still played DOS games a lot, this I played a lot.
Command and Conquer 1 & Red Alert 1 - Cheesy but awesome FMVs and fantastic gameplay. I was hooked on these games for years. Hell I still love to play them nowadays.
Fallout - New Vegas - I love the Fallout games. Well everything up to and including New Vegas. After that no. But New Vegas just grabbed me more than the rest, and I love returning to it.
Half-Life 1 & 2 - Another one that is primarily due to the mod scene. So many great singleplayer mods for it.
Quake 1 & the Expansions - For me id Software was at their best with John Romero. As soon as he left the quality level dropped and the magic was lost. Sure I was far more into Doom 1 & 2 even back then, but Quake 1 was great in it's own way, and zomg the machinema scene that appeared round then.
Shadowrun (SNES) - Man I was OBSESSED with this game when I first came across it. Played through it so many times that I've lost count.
Starcraft & Broodwar - Blizzard was top of their game when they released this. I was OBSESSED with this game for years. Singleplayer and multiplayer.
Syndicate & Syndicate Plus - This was the first game I ever played, that had you playing as the bad guys. I played this game to death.
System Shock 2 - Duh. The scene here and nowadays FAR more so over on systemshock.org has kept me playing it often.
The 7th Guest - This game is just so unique. Haunted mansion, good FMVs, progressively harder puzzles as you proceed. Played this game so many times.
Wing Commander 3 & 4 - I love FMV games, and these 2 games had Mark "Luke Skywalker" Hamil in them. Flying a ship against bad guys. Enough said. 4 in particular was imo one of the best FMV games of all time.
Warcraft 2 - Warcraft 1 was good, but 2 is where things got great. 3 went 3D and more RPG-like in nature, so it's 2 that just hooked me. I played this game ALL THE TIME.
Wolfenstein 3D - This was my first taste of FPS games. I love the style of it, how it doesn't even remotely try to be realistic. It's just an awesome game. Been playing it on my break hours at work. The "Wolfendoom" TCs for Doom 2 extended my love for it also.
X-COM: Terror From the Deep - I completely get that this game is almost broken. And it is hard as hell. But that's why I love it, and keep coming back to it. This game was my light in the darkness during crap times in high school (of getting bullied). This game was my escape. If I remember right, my first proper play through of it went for 6 months. I kept stubbornly attacking every UFO expecting to proceed, but nope I had to go to an alien base and capture a lobsterman technician.
henke on 27/10/2019 at 17:10
Quote Posted by demagogue
Well if Sulph is going to post about sadly neglected games
That was Tomi!
I actually don't have a lot of these, not for the last decade at least. Seems like most gamers have some game in their Steam account they've spent hundreds of hours with, but the only one I have that cracks the 100h mark is
Frozen Synapse, at 106h. I usually just finish a game once and then move on to the next thing. FS was one of the rare occasions I got hooked on a game's multiplayer mode.
I guess the closest thing to an unhealthy obsession I've had for the last few years would be
Desert Golfing, on Android. Yeah, the game where you're just golfing through the desert endlessly? I finished it. Only took around 150 hours. It is one of my most cherished gaming achievements.
Here, let us peer into my madness together...
[video=youtube;ZPYhV3ixK6M]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPYhV3ixK6M[/video]
Pyrian on 27/10/2019 at 17:44
Ooof, I have a lot of these.
Half Life 1. I dunno, for a long time it was like comfort shooting.
Deus Ex 1. Man I've played that game way too much, trying all sorts of paths.
Dark Messiah. Again, so many valid ways to play, and so many terrible ways to play that I still tried anyway.
Mirror's Edge. This is sort of different from most of my obsessions. More like HL1, in a sense.
FTL. Ooof. It took me some 400 hours just to unlock the Crystal Cruiser. And then the Advanced Edition came out.
Invisible Inc. I wish this were a genre now.
Into the Breach. I keep thinking I'm done with this.
Renault on 27/10/2019 at 22:08
Easily Don't Starve for me. Almost 500 hours on Steam. In addition, I've bought it on PS4 and on the Switch. I think I downloaded the GOG version too just for convenience. I don't know what it is about the game, maybe because it's easy to jump back into it at any time. Or maybe the obsession is because it can't actually be finished or solved.
Others that probably qualify - Far Cry 3/4, Skyrim, and Dying Light. All huge open world games that I have to find every single little nook and cranny that exists.
Also, Hyperlight Drifter. Played it a couple times through on PC, and then bought it for Switch and did the same. I just love the world and the soundtrack. Now that I think about it, I did pretty much the same with Hollow Knight as well.
Shadowcat on 27/10/2019 at 22:30
Quote Posted by henke
Desert Golfing ... I finished it.
So after 150 hours you finally got
out of the bunker and
landed in the water hazard. I mean, that's a rough time on the links if ever I saw one.
demagogue on 27/10/2019 at 22:34
Quote Posted by henke
That was Tomi!
Oops! Mea culpa. I evidently went by the last poster rather than the first, sorry Tomi. I'll fix it.
HalfLife 2 and Tomb Raider 4 (I think it was 4) had fan levels that I got into to some extent, but they weren't systematized like Thief 2, Minecraft, or Skyrim's mods. I mean different ones installed differently, or (in the case of HL2) they were all over the place theme-wise. So I guess that's why they didn't get on the list for me.