Game Debate to the Death! What's the game you've spent the most hours on?

Comment with Facebook

Comment with Dtoid

destructoid japanator | tomopop

Destructoid is gaming news, community, videos, and sometimes love. Take the tour or jump in with Facebook:

big news
rumors
originals
releases
reviews
previews
podcasts

faq

Home MMO

12:04 AM on 02.13.2008, Fronz

260 comments | 21708 views

Game Debate to the Death! What's the game you've spent the most hours on? photo

#Debate #Fanboys #First Person Shooter #MMO

Our last debate was a month ago, and I asked everyone to list their three most anticipated games of 2008. It took me forever to sort through the 500+ votes that were cast, but it was quite an interesting wall of text to read. Out of the 85 different games voted for, lots of the less popular games were mentioned more than once, but here are the games that managed to gather at least double digit point scores:

1st: Super Smash Bros. Brawl (145 points)
2nd: Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (130 points)
3rd: Grand Theft Auto IV (100 points)
4th: LittleBigPlanet (58 points)
5th: Spore (34 points)
6th: Fallout 3 (33 points)
7th: Starcraft II (28 points)
8th: No More Heroes (27 points)
9th: (Tie) Ninja Gaiden II & Left 4 Dead (19 points)
10th: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (16 points)
11th: (Tie) Fable 2 & Resident Evil 5 (13 points)
12th: (Tie) Final Fantasy XIII & Devil May Cry 4 (12 points)
13th: Street Fighter IV (11 points)
14th: (Tie) Ghostbusters & Too Human & Castle Crashers (10 points)

The huge list above should be a good indicator that 2008 has plenty of great games left to look forward to. For this week's debate though, we cast our sights back on the past. It's not so much a debate as it is a nostalgic unison of "thank yous" dedicated to the gaming industry that has given us countless hours of joy.

For this week's debate I want to know which one game has eaten up more hours of your life than any other game ever has. The type of game where you don't measure gameplay in hours, but in full days or weeks, or even years. Is it the FPS you and your friends played all Summer long throughout your childhood? Or that handheld game you played on every back-seat family vacation? Or maybe it's that MMORPG that made you flunk out and repeat a year of school? Or is there a single player game that you've never grown tired of, and have ritually played it every year for the past decade?

Which game have you played the most, and why? Fill us in on your obsession with that game, get some friends to share their gaming obsessions with us, and check back next week for the winner.

Bonus: What game do you predict will win this week's debate?

Continue: More MMO stories

Darksiders vs. Zelda: A compelling argument
204 comments

Game Debate to the Death: What are your favorite RPGs?
208 comments

Game SERIES Debate to the Death: Final Fantasy
151 comments

Game Debate to the Death! Favorite game of 2009?
128 comments

next 50 comments

259 comments | showing # 1 to 50

Aerox

It might be WoW just because I played for a year.

Barring that, it was probably either Chrono Trigger, FF6, FFTactics, or FF7. I guess that makes me a Square whore.

Murder64

Half Life 2. Played it a few times through on PC plus the XBOX and XBOX360 versions.

bigfatton

World of Warcraft, played through beta and a good year and a half after until I escaped. I think it'll win straight up

eternalplayer2345

WoW i think my last count was month of total playtime what a timesuck! mmo's are gonna dominated this list so you should make one for non-mmo's. and if it came to non-mmo's it might between smb3 or ssb64. smb3 because ive played that game on and off for like the past 13 years, and ssb64 because me and my friend had about 6km plus matches or something on that

jorge

CS 1.3-1.6 is tops for me, I'm pretty sure, with SSB Melee right behind it. TF2 is gaining ground fast though.

WoW sounds like a safe bet to win.

Guagloves

Rock Band. I've been playing it so damn much.

13thDragon

Elder Scrolls III : Morrowind GOTY Edition. Up until that point, I had never played a game like it and was literally sucked in. There's just so much to do, not to mention all of the extra stuff you can come up with on your own.

Trev

Armored Core as a series. I think Armored Core 4 has the most. Given that Armored Core 4 is actually game #11 (Armored core, AC: Project Phantasma, AC: Master of Arena, Armored Core 2, AC2: Another Age, Armored Core 3, Silent Line, Armored Core Nexus, Ninebreaker, Last Raven) and I've been playing them since I got a PS1 way back in 1997, I'm fairly certain that most time I've spent with a game is going right here.

Older armored core games were full of parts with a very obvious hierarchy. There were about a dozen bad missile launchers and two or three good ones. If you were going to use a machine gun, you used the good one or you got completely ruined by someone that was.

Armored Core 4 has less parts, but damn near all of them are good. My save file is somewhere around 380 hours of messing around with customization on the part of body construction, weapons, tuning... stabilizer layout. It helps to have a few friends that play it as well, so you have a real reason to tweak the robots until they couldn't possibly be better. They could always go faster or have a bigger gun, more nimble arms to reposition guns on the fly; messing with that is a hell of a time sink.

Crunshii

FF11 Online on Unicorn.

503days, 4hours, 2min, 9sec.

Shalashaska

WoW, by far. Easily the biggest waste of time ever. However, if you discount WoW the game I've played most is probably Starcraft. God I love that game.

Fleet3000

definitely Oblivion. I think I've put at LEAST 180 hours into that game. i'm pretty much an idiot, but its quite addicting.

bottled dark

pokemon.
i have like 5 different versions with over 100 hrs of gameplay each.

Samit Sarkar

Ooh, this is a good one! For me, it�d have to be one of the GTA games (I�m not sure which one between III, Vice City, and San Andreas, though I�m leaning toward the second one). Either that, or Perfect Dark, which is amazing when you consider the fact that I never even owned the game � I just played it (four-player split-screen multiplayer) at every day at a friend�s house after school for many, many months.

As to the guess for the winner, I�d have to go with World of Warcraft.

@Crunshii: Holy crap, that is epic.

Patriot SE

Oh god. Uh, It's pretty bad when your high school career is dictated by games. I spent a while with America's Army. too long with Halo 2, and way to much time with Wow.

I believe WoW consumed most of my time ranking somewhere around 60 days played on my one character.

urbanyeti

Holy hell, no contest. WoW has sucked the very soul out of my life for the past several years.
Shortly after that is Goldeneye 64. Every weekend in Junior High was spent at one of my friends house with this game on the TV. We would play for hours, fall asleep, wake up, play more, and eventually go home. I cannot even fathom how many hours I spent in Temple, the Complex, and Bunker playing Slappers Only.

That sounds dirtier then I expected...

mistic

my guess for the winner is WoW :-)

the game I spent most time in was RtCW ( Return To Castle Wolfenstein ), specifically the MP-part... I became clanleader of a 'funclan' but then we became a pretty good team and about 9 months later we were fighting ranked-matched every other day and practising all the other days... also did a couple of competition-LANs in that time where i played nothing but this game :-)

on the consoles its probably sonic for the master system, it was one of the first games that i personally owned ( as in possess ), also the first game I ever completed and the game that I have completed the most too ( at least once a year me and a friend get together and play through the game on the original MS :-) ) plus I've got like 9 versions of it nowadays with all the VC, XBLA, GBA, DS, XBOX, re-releases, and I've finished most of those too :-)

god I love sonic, that does it, gonna play some sonic now!

Quisling

Sadly, WoW takes it for me. I predict that as the winner, as well.

Aside from that, probably a Contra title. I still play NES Contra / Super C.

Fronz

For me this week, it all comes down to whether or not any game has consumed more hours of my life than Tetris has. I used to play it all day for weeks in the backseat of the three or four family road trip vacations before I got a GBA and played handheld games with actual plots.

And to add to all of those hours, there was also the Myrtle Beach Tetris Marathon competition me and my friends had one year. It was raining, so instead of a day on the beach we all sat down and agreed to play Tetris from start to finish one level at a time on Mode B -- where you have to destroy 25 lines before moving on. That's all ten difficulty sub levels for each of the main ten speed levels. Thanks to all those vacations I won by over a full hour -- I think I beat the whole game in a few minutes under or over six hours. You really start to lose your sanity by the last half a dozen sub levels. I remember in later years people telling me how hard Dr. Mario was for them to beat, but I managed to beat the hardest level in just a few tries.

The only things that come close are the three or four childhood Summers filled with repetitive Day/Night schedules of: Redeamer Scatter, GoldenEye 64, Dinner, Super Smash Bros., Kick the Can. I've replayed Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time a few times as well.

It's still an easy vote though. Go ahead and call me a grey gamer, I'm voting for Tetris.

thisissami

for me it was Call of Duty 4... i assumed it would be that here too, but after seeing all the above posts, it might be WoW... didn't know how many people played it...

m3ds

Mine would have to be Morrowind. Played that game for so many hours and every now and then still load it up.

Counter-Strike: Source and Halo: Ce would be close though.

ZeroTolo

Personally, I've spent more than 150 hours playing Star Ocean 2.

The winner I think will be World of Warcraft.

therob92

Diablo II, by far. Why? because its fucking amazing.

Bonus: We all know the answer is WoW, of course, I think it shouldn't count since walking is barely playing.

luciferific

Tekken 5: DR. I'm constantly playing people, although I hate online. Sometimes I'll go to the arcade to play, but not often.

Also, I spent a lot of time on FFX and Oblivion. Around 100 hours on each

Mr Lazy

gonna go with oblivion, spent so much time in that game, actually spent like 20 hrs playing around before i even touched the main story.

ceark

...I can't even answer. I think I spent atleast 1/10th of my living hours playing video games. Which is roughly 20000 hours.

holy shit I feel so insignificant thinking I've only been alive for about 200000 hours.

anyway, I'd guess WoW or CT would be the most played maybe?

Samit Sarkar

@urbanyeti: Fuck yeah, �Slappers Only�! Playing that mode in the crawlspace in Complex was epic.

HawtPawkitHero

WoW and Halo 2.

Aberrant Thought

Gary's Mod...

I spent... over... 30... mother... fucking... hours.. to get that damned replica of the mechanical human form working and BAM!!!!!

spinning items of goddamned death!!!1

Yeah... Gary's Mod... Fable a close second... Civilization, the first one, back in the day

Chaosye

Oblivion.
I spent an entire summer on it.
ME LOSING MY GAME FILE DID NOT HALP.
Also if Oblivion doesn't count, Disgea.

Also winnar of this shall be...WoW.

Lynx

It's a toss-up between Tetris and Super Mario Bros.
Tetris consumes bathroom time a lot, as well as in-between-class time. Super Mario Bros. is just one of those never-gets-old titles. I can't decide which one I waste my life away with more, so null my vote if you wish, I'm gonna say it's a tie.

Beaudman

I would have to say Elder Scrolls III : Morrowind. I've probably played it close to 1000 hours, but that includes making mods for it. After that it's probably a tie between Castlevania:SOTN and Super Metroid.

---AMARU---

golden sun 1 and 2- fire emblem 1 and 2 for gba- pokemanz- metal gear solid series-and finally super smash bros melee. recently its been team fortress 2, i love my class based multiplayers

Fronz

Oh yeah, and I predict WOW will win as well.

@Crunshii: Jeezzzzz.

@urbanyeti: I think you just gave me an idea for next week's debate. :)

superbeefy2050

There are four games that I spent so many f*cking hours playing. 4th place goes to COD 4 which clocks in however many weeks its been out since day 1. 3rd place goes to Super Smash Brothers (original) which clocks in for about 6 months. 2nd goes to Pokemon which prob. clocks in at 1 year 6 months.

And my vote, which is the longest game I've ever played (I remind you, game, not series) is Starcraft. It clocks in for almost 3-4 years. Holy shit, I spent 3-4 years on Starcraft....

Lord_Satorious

I'm not entirely sure, I know there's some PC games I played for years after their release. Something about PC gaming that you'll be playing the same game for _years_ after it's initial release. I know Diablo did that, same with Diablo II. Also, Quake and Quake II (mods mostly). I think overall though, I probably spent more time with DOOM than anything else. Hell, I _still_ play the original DOOM every once in a while, now with hardware acceleration, 3D models, and dynamic lighting. The fans still support the game with map packs and all sorts of mods, it's a testament how well-designed the game was. Good times, good times.

HarassmentPanda

Without a doubt Halo 2. I've played well over 6000 games on Xbox Live and that doesn't touch the LAN games. Halo 2 was the main way I kept in touch with friend from back home in college.

After that I would say either Super Mario Bros. or Super Mario Bros. 3--those are two games I've spent countless hours on over the last couple decades.

After that it would either be the original Legend of Zelda (I have beaten it countless times and even made it to Ganon without ever picking up a sword) or one of my favorite SNES RPGs (Earthbound, Chrono Trigger, FFVI, Shadowrun).

riomccarthy

I'd have to say World of Warcraft is my #1 game for time spent, as I've played for a couple of years now. My current play-time on it is 47 days, 1 hour, 51 minutes and 30 seconds. (Thank you /played.)

I'd have to say my next ones would probably be Final Fantasy VII, and Persona 3. Persona 3 I've only put in about 50 hours so far, but I will not stop until I beat that game so I'm guaranteeing over 100 hours by the time I get done. Although thinking about it.. I've put a fair share of hours into Rock Band as well. So here is my list in order.

1. World of Warcraft (1,129 hours, 51 minutes, 30 seconds.)
2. Persona 3 (Over 100 hours by the time I'm finished)
3. Final Fantasy (A good 70 hours probably)
4. Rock Band (Probably at least 40 hours as I play it a lot with friends and family, as well as clearing some of the actual levels.)

topcow

World of Warcraft - easy.

It'll win by far.

brainpower4

damn so hard to chose. first we have CS... enough said. Then Balador's Gate 2, my first real game outside of an arcade and I still replayed it 2 months ago. then we have Civ 4, ONE MORE TURN. and the winner by a hair is my new crack Sword of the New World (way better than WoW)If you up all the hours my characters were killing mobs you find it is more than school work and sleep combined for the 10 months.

brucie97

Diablo 2 by a far margin.

manta

It's going to be WoW. And that's the game I spent the most time on.

maxio098ui

CS: Source

topgeargorilla

I've put more time in Super Smash Bros. Melee than any other game. For about two years, it was in constant rotation. 4 hours a week, maybe, then 52 weeks, and I've had the game for four years....1016 hours? Seems low.....

oh, and I put 60 hours into Gladius. Best game ever.

and I'm pissed that Soulcaliber 4 didn't make the most wanted. That game'll be sweet!

GrayFox

FF7, FF Tactics, Team Fortress 2. All well over 100 hours played total.

Zer0 H0ur

Unreal Tournament The original UT, not the lesser sequels. My introduction to non-lan based multi player goodness. Still have it on my PC, still fire it up occasionally. Luckilly, I'm happy that I can't actually tell you how many hours I've logged as I'm certain I would be embarrassed. Honorable Mentions go to Quake and Battlefield 2.

Dan CiTi

BioShock, TF 2, TES IV: GOTY edition, Rachet & Clank series, God of War series, Kingdom Hearts series, Half-Life 2, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and Super Smash Bros. Brawl.

DynamicSheep

Smash Bros. Melee, followed by Final Fantasy VII (I just recently learned that once you hit 99:99 you can't breed a gold chocobo!), followed by Dragon Quest VIII. I have a feeling that Oblivion may top FFVII before too long.

r0ryb0ryalis

Super Smash Bros. Melee. I still play at least 2 or 3 hours a day.

Wghj55

I put around 350 hours into Gran Turismo 3...then my memory card got corrupted...epic fail.

Orionsaint

Oh Gears of War easily. I've been playing the multiplayer since launch, almost nonstop every night. There was a point last year where for 5 months straight. All I played was Gears of War. Laughing with friends, talking smack, about our daily lives. Being impressed by our skills. Just having a blast.

What sets Gears online apart from other online shooters. Are a few things,

One is the slow pacing, none of this quick running around with a dozen other players online, getting shot from God knows where. Here you can lean against a wall or kneel down behind something and take a peak, plan and setup kills. It's just beautiful.

Two is that it's only 8 players. So the experience is more intimate. None of this 16 to 32 players in a lobby just spouting out crap. You make friends faster in Gears.

Three and most important is Spectator mode. I like having an audience. I'm a showoff and I like to get a pat on the back. The compliments make me play better.

This is why I love Gears of War and HALO will always be a piece of shit to me!

prev	next 50 comments

Click connect and comment instantly!

get involved

register or login
post a blog
post a forum
enter a contest
contribute a news tip
suggest a feature
be a guest editor

support

new member's guide
login assistance
tech support
report abuse
email our editors
read our dev blog
nuclear crisis?

keep in touch

RSS feed
Twitter
Facebook
Myspace
Flickr
Game nights
Meetup+play online

seriously

about Destructoid
advertising
terms of use
privacy policy
jobs at MM
buy our crap

our network

Tomopop
Japanator
Despingation?

Destructoid is an independently-run publication forged by our love of video games and the gaming community's need of accountable enthusiast press
living the dream since March 16, 2006

New? SIGN UP - it takes 5 seconds

Comments policy

Destructoid is an open discussion community. You don't need to "audition" to post a comment - just speak your mind. We respect differing opinions on the site, so have at it. Be smart, funny, insightful, clueless, or cute -- but back it up with substance. Keep your cool, keep it fun. We only ask that you act respectfully and above all: don't be a troll and ruin it for everyone else. Don't bring down gamers or we'll, you know, gently shoot you in the face and stuff you into a flaming mailbox. Each comment is your opportuntity to make this community awesomer. Is that even a word?

Avoiding the banhammer only requires common sense: spamming, trolling, racism, NSFW stuff, and other forms of sucking will not be tolerated. If anyone is griefing please report abuse. Be good. Don't suck!

Got news? tips@destructoid.com | Dtoid Twitter

New Videos

Why not? Cloud Strife hacked into Smash Bros. Brawl

Sonic the Hedgehog 4 already exists on SNES

Finally! Plants vs. Zombies on iPhone ready for next week

Mega64: Say no to blue alien sex censorship

Rebellion tells you how to play Aliens vs. Predator

Stinky socks are no match for THQ's All Star Karate

P.A.D: Madden Bowl 2010 (Outsourced)

more videos

- The Dtoid Army is 56695 strong -

Showing Cblogs with 3+ faps show all

Call for entries: the Areas of my Expertise

New to Dtoid? Read the survival guide

Originals

Jonathan Holmes: Analyzing No More Heroes 2, part 2: The bosses, part 2
Destructoid interview: The music of BioShock 2

Indie games don't have to act like indie games

The art of The Journalism Show: Episode 03

Analyzing No More Heroes 2, part 1: The bosses

Ten things I didn't love about Final Fantasy XIII

Wah wah wah Sonic the Hedgehog 4!

Ten things I loved about Final Fantasy XIII

Rev Rant: Paragon/Renegade

Counterpoint: Mass Effect 2

The ugly truth: I may not be good at videogames

Is Heavy Rain doing videogames a disservice?

iPad: Likely to change gaming, just not yours

Rev Rant: the Wrex Paradox

The best indie games of '09 (that I forgot to mention)

Beyond Dead Space: Sledgehammer Games

How Darksiders is blatantly better than Zelda

The making of The Journalism Show: Episode 02

The simple math of review scores

The art of Once Upon a Pixel: Mega Man

More Destructoid Originals

We are Destructoid tips@destructoid.com
	Nick Chester Editor-in-Chief	Niero Founder, Big Boss
	Jim Sterling Reviews Editor	Hamza Aziz Community Manager
	Dale North News Editor	Rey Gutierrez Destructoid Video EIC
	Anthony Burch Features Editor	Brad Nicholson Managing Editor
	Tom Fronczak	Colette Bennett
	Ashley Davis	Ben Perlee
	Conrad Zimmerman	Chad Concelmo
	Jonathan Holmes	Jonathan Ross
	Brad Rice	Jordan Devore
	Will Maddock	Matthew Razak
	Josh Tolentino	Joseph Leray
	Topher Cantler	Samit Sarkar


	Adam Dork Daniel Lingen Hollie Bennett	Joe Burling Mikey Turvey