It happened at least once to all of us, well, almost all of us. A game so addicting, so enthralling that you could just play it for days straight and toss almost everything else aside.
Did you knew there's some World of Warcraft Guilds that require you be online at least 8 hours a day, everyday, or else you get kicked out? That's serious! The only way I could play that much on a day to day basis would be to have a completely inexistent life! Not that I consider my life pretty exciting these days though *cough* but that's another topic.
My first (and last) game that really hooked me to a dangerous level was Phantasy Star Online, back in the Dreamcast golden year. Oh man did I loved that game, playing ONLINE with a CONSOLE was something that I couldn't even imagine (Note that it was a time where dial up 56k modems were pretty much the standard connection for everyone, you had to be in some big city to have access to broadband...)
Only 4 different locations, limited gameplay, not very entertaining missions; what was there to love in this game? Well if you didn't had the chance to play online I'd probably say NOTHING, but if you could live with getting yelled at by your parents for jamming the phone line to connect on the net, then you where in for an experience that was otherworldly: basically it was Diablo 1, in the future and in 3D, which made the game totally badass.
I have characters that easily exceed the 1000 hours of gameplay, even though they had reached the max levels since aeons, all the fuss was about the ones who had the best, rare gear (until hackers came in at least). I have spent white nights just grinding my mags and eating ice cream, I skipped school just to raid the Ruins countless times with my friends to find the elusive Spread Needler (aka the rape machine). This game was the Everquest or Ultima Online of consoles, and it reigned supreme since there was NO competition. Literally.
But since I was, and am still, poor like hell, once the game went to version 2, requiring players to pay to have access to levels 101 to 200 and the new difficulty level; I kinda dropped the game, and the Dreamcast altogether.
I can now happily say that I'm clean since 6 years, but strangely enough I'm craving for a game that will offer the same kind of ecstasy that I experienced while playing PSO...
Eck I'd even pay for it this time!
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It was seriously addicting... dangerously so
@SouGr8pes: The PSO days are long behind us I'm afraid, since PSU bombed horribly... There are just so many better alternatives now I guess... Although all the sci-fi ones are boring as hell.
Around the time I got online with PSO was when I first came across G4 (when it was good mind you.) but those were like the last 2 years of the PSO life on the DC. Every now and then a few of my friends get together and play the GC version. I have PSU....can't say the story mode is interesting to the say the least. Apparently the new expansion released last month was going to have PSO maps. but i'm interested to see how that will go.
At any rate, politics aside (I was very proudly a unilingual anglophone member of the Parti Quebecois, but that was before I learned to speak the damn language) we're here to talk about Phantasy Star Online.
I must admit, that game was a huge disappointment for me, but I think that's because I've never been a fan of the Diablo style of gameplay, and I was expecting an epic roleplaying experience along the lines of Phantasy Stars one through four. I loved the character customization options, but I couldn't really get into the style of gameplay, nor the departure from the Phantasy Star canon.
I wonder if, now, I could go back and enjoy it more... the multiplayer, of course, isn't available any more. I heard Universe wasn't much of a game, either. Did you get into that?
And PSU would have worked and been good had it kept the MAG's. Damnit people, ghetto pokemon SELL!