Gaming Black Holes

[Wicky_42]

Battleships Forever. A relatively simple and free game made on game maker, it has a sandbox ship maker. There is just FAR too much time you could spend building fleets of spaceships and watch them blast literal chunks out of each other. Plus, every time I sit down to work I keep thinking up new ideas and designs that scratch away at my concentration... grr, damn it for being freaking awesome.

 

[geldonyetich]

Good thread to inadvertently discover the games that are really good at being games. Only when the flow is really assertive does the game seem like a real black hole.

Surprisingly little mention of MMORPGs or Strategy games thus far.

MMORPGs are, by their very subscription-based nature, games developed to be massive time sinks. I put about 1400 hours into City of Heroes, according to XFire... and I didn't have XFire installed for all the time I played that game, it's probably closer to 1600-2000.

As for Strategy games, it's interesting how quickly the hours will vanish when I'm playing a RTS or a game like Civilization. Dwarf Fortress is pretty good at this if you can get into it.

I'm actually a bit put off from playing these games because I'm not sure all that suddenly vanishing time was really worth what I got out of them.

 

[Naeo]

Morrowind.

Over 500 hours. Didn't know it until I looked at the number after I got tired of it (somehow).

 

[Slayer_2]

Fallout 3... IS OWNAGE IN A CD CASE. Finally a shooter that I can play for hours on end without every getting a hint of Deja vu or worse, boredom.

 

[varulfic]

Kings Bounty: The Legend

Everytime I sit down, it's always "One more battle, then I do something else... oh, lost a few units, just gotta fill up then I'm done... but I have almost leveled, it'd be a shame to leave now..."

And so on. Great time consumer, gonna go play some of that right now.

 

[Clemenstation]

Heroes of Might and Magic 3. Been playing it solidly since it came out (1999). In fact, I'm gonna stop everything and go play it now!

Oh man! I thought I was the only one who stuck with HoMM3... although 5 wasn't too bad.

Still, 3 has given me the most 'oh jesus christ is that the SUN RISING!?' moments of any entertainment product, ever.

 

[Jalepeno Shogun]

Fallout 3, Oblivion, SSBB (I have no idea how)

 

[Fightgarr]

Bubble Breaker and Peggle. They will eat your life. You will forget to eat and you will die so hard. Oh god... the days... where did they go?

Heroes of Might and Magic 3. Been playing it solidly since it came out (1999). In fact, I'm gonna stop everything and go play it now!

Oh man! I thought I was the only one who stuck with HoMM3... although 5 wasn't too bad.

Still, 3 has given me the most 'oh jesus christ is that the SUN RISING!?' moments of any entertainment product, ever.

I also happen to love this game.

 

[AuntyEthel]

Heroes of Might and Magic 3. Been playing it solidly since it came out (1999). In fact, I'm gonna stop everything and go play it now!

Oh man! I thought I was the only one who stuck with HoMM3... although 5 wasn't too bad.

Still, 3 has given me the most 'oh jesus christ is that the SUN RISING!?' moments of any entertainment product, ever.

Try this [http://wakeofthegods.strategyplanet.gamespy.com/]. A fanmade expansion pack that includes some elements from the newer ones. I think you have to have some of the original expansions for it to work.

 

[Bored Tomatoe]

I beat Bioshock in one sitting. Fallout 3 had me pulling all nighters, and before WoW got boring for me, I was hooked on that too.

 

[fix-the-spade]

The Valve shooters are my gaming black hole.

For instance, on TF2 I've racked up mroe than 200 hours with the Engineer and Sniper.
That's a slightly depressing thought.

 

[Oisnafas]

I had gone through Resident Evil 4 about 15 times one summer and continued to play it every now and then for a good year.

dont feel bad. for about a month i completed it at least once a day every day.

 

[1337mokro]

TF2 would be my gaming black hole along with the battlefield series.

I easily spent over 600 hours with each of those games because it was so much fun.

But for the all-time black hole I have to say pokemon (stands up boldly, chin up high). We may deny it but any gamer older than 15 has played the crap out of pokemon and most likely spent 5 of his childhood years trying to 'Catch em all' before they realized you can't, because they would fuck us over by releasing 100 new pokemon that we had to catch all in every new game just when we finally had all 15 billion.

 

[Baonec]

COD4, CODWAR, Halo2,3, the dynasty warriors series has taken in excess of 320 hours of my life, baldurs gate, pokemon, AOE, AOM...theres too many.

 

[Ruzzian Roulette]

I an entire 6-day break from school playing KOTOR about 7 times through.

Best break of my life.

 

[Nigh Invulnerable]

Knights of the Old Republic (both of them) have been a huge time consumer for me. It was always play through the story once as the good guy. Then play again as the bad guy and discover that being evil means being an utter ass to everyone all the time and not conniving and manipulative. Both of these games managed to keep me up for too long on nights when I had class the next morning or some other function to attend.

Currently, I'm pretty consumed with Shadow Hearts: From the New World and have logged about 35 hours in the last week or so. That's frightening when I see it written out.

Back in the day I could spend hours with games like FF7, Warcraft 2, and Guitar Hero. GH is still awesome, I just don't feel the need to conquer the next song/set quite as much. That may have something to do with the third game having really lame sets at the beginning and then an impossible one at the end.

 

[kickin wiing]

I had gone through Resident Evil 4 about 15 times one summer and continued to play it every now and then for a good year.

dont feel bad. for about a month i completed it at least once a day every day.

i dont know what it was but i just could not put it down! i mean i knew exactly what was going to happen and yet i found it was still an exciting experience each time i played.

 

[Mr_Powers]

Starting from now and working backwards;

Fallout 3: at around 150 hours and not nearly done with it

Morrowind: 100 hours, but forced myself to quit playing because of school

Oblivion: This was the worst, around 600 hours over the course of a pleasant year in Cyrodiil, and yes I did play Morrowind after oblivion

Then long ago,

The original Empire Earth: I really don't know how long I put into this and I don't want to know, It was however about the first good game that I ever had, also I enjoyed it more than Starcraft

EDIT: Looking back at this I just have to say, DAMN YOU BETHESDA!! You have stolen my life away...I wonder if I could sue them for that, like fat people sueing McDonald's?

 

[Dugarel]

Fallout 3 and Oblivion have both equally consumed weeks of my life. But nothing compares to a rather ancient MUD called WoTMUD that I litteraly sunk half a year into. Yes it's a text based game and I have no idea why it was so edicting, but it was.