3) Half-Life: Tack on CS and my infatuation with Half-Life''s deathmatch and I may have lost a year of my life to this game.
Excellent. I didn''t know anyone liked the vanilla deathmatch as much as I did. I hope we can get some games going in HL2 regular multiplayer.....if it even exists. 
I''ll have to go with alpha centauri (with alien crossfire patches).
The sheer amount of time I put into that game over three years of college is obscene.
More recently, Championship Manager 03/04 is promising to devour large portions of my life. Even though technically it''s not even a game it''s just excel with interesting column and row names and a nice interface.
Warhammer: Shadow of the Horned Rat
Diablo II
My top hour-logger has got to be Diablo I. That game was (almost) my entire life for about a year of university. The dorm I was in had just gotten wired for ethernet, and there was a group of about 8 of us around campus (including a couple right down the hall from me) who were on constantly. And by constantly, I mean wake up, play some Diablo - probably skipping breakfast - go to a morning class, play Diablo, eat lunch, play Diablo, skip afternoon classes, play Diablo, eat supper (at the computer if you could), play Diablo, sleep briefly. Repeat. It was pretty common to either call or be called at 2 or 3 in the morning because someone had died and didn''t want to close the game because they''d lose their stuff. It was by far the heaviest addiction I''ve had.
Civ (the original, baby!) came pretty close, but it was all single player, and while I was still living at home, which tended to limit my gaming hours.
Half-Life, considering time I spent playing TFC and CS mods.
Quake 2. I got it for FREE with the purchase of a new videocard back in the day, and I spent countless hours playing Threewave CTF, Cops And Robbers, and Lithium mods with it.
X-COM: UFO Defence
Legend of Zelda (first one and Ocarina of Time)
halo - still having lan parties regularly (with 4 projectors and a very big room = never gets old 
) in fact, doing a decent amount of single player revisiting since I got a halo cache editor.
diablo II - didn''t sap as much time away from my life as I wanted it too :P, but still stole a decent amount from me.
starcraft - same as diablo II
BG dark alliance II - that game is huge. I actually just picked it up about a month ago and I dropped everything else; Ninja Gaiden, Prince of Persia, etc. (and those games are all good!).
I spent a lot of time with all of the FF series games. But if your into rpg at all and you even remotely like the series, how can you not spend at least 100 hrs per game (the FIRST time through. I won''t talk about the second third and fourth times through FFVII).
And finally, believe it or not, Gran Turismo 3. That game keeps calling me back. Just when I think I''m finished with it I get myself into a car comparison test (in real dork fashion, I race almost every car I have, unmodified, on the same course and record time/wieght/hp; then I do it all again with mods. it''s rediculous), or I get into an f1 series race.
Diablo 2
Warcraft 2
Rainbow Six 3 on the Xbox (all on LIVE)
and any Madden game.
I''d have to say Diablo II and Baldur''s Gate II plus the expansions for both. They''re the only PC games I''ve played all the way through more than once.
Actually, the game that stole the *most* hours from my life (and my precious childhood!) was Baseball Stars on the NES. Everyday after school, entire weekend days wasted on making my team a mighty goliath. Honorable mentions: Starcraft, Counter-Strike (Yeah I bought the boxed version), C&C: Generals and Zero Hour, and lately Battlefield Vietnam.
PC:
EQ & DAoC - We''ve already discussed the ""value"" factor of MMOGs elsewhere, but I really saved a buttload of game-money by playing these and ignoring the industry. Lots of value for me.
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory - every night since I started a week ago. And it''s free. It''s tough to beat free.
Wizardry & Bard''s Tale - Played these forever, still play ''em emulated. What other games have a 20-year tug on your mouse/keyboard? Not many.
Intellivision:
Astrosmash - Ye Gods I loved this game! Played it til my fingers bled... no, wait, that was Bryan Adams and his first real six-string. Anyway.
Apple][+ :
Rasterblaster, Castle Wolfenstein, Lemonade (Stand?)
C-64:
M.U.L.E. - Best. Game. Evar. Except for...
Elite - Truly the best rpg ever made, even if it is really a space combat + trading game. Freelancer, eat your heart out.
And some other game about being a settler in the 1800 going west on a wagon train, shooting buffalo and trying not to get scalped. What was that? Oregon Trail?
PS1:
Tony Hawk - bought the machine for this game and it was worth it.
PS2:
Simpson''s Hit & Run - what a hoot. A Simpsons license that doesn''t suck! Even at full price, this one''s way worth it.
I tend to buy very few games, but play them to death, still never finishing them. For me, the play''s the thing. I don''t really care about the ending as long as I enjoy the playing.
As such, most games I buy are great values because I am so cautious about buying them in the first place. I''ll read probably 12 or more reviews on any given game before buying it, and I try it whenever possible first.
Edit: Oh yeah, Tetris on NES. Who didn''t spend hours/days/weeks building up thumb callouses and degrading their eyesight on that one?
I''ll add my list by year in college:
Freshman year: Diablo
Sophomore Yr: Mario Kart for SNES
Junior Year : Warcraft 2
Senior Year: Mario 64 and Goldeneye
Previous to school it was XCOM and XCOM2, afterwards, its'' been Diablo 2...
Probably Quake 1 (GLQuakeworld over a 28.8 with a rockin'' 4mb Monster 3D kicked ass).
After that, the BF series has consumed the most gaiming time for the money.
1. Angband (Vanilla). Been playing it on and off since 1990 (longer if you count Moria), and it''s free. I''ve still never won. And I still play it in ASCII mode.
2. DikuMUD on eltanin.caltech.edu for about a year, sometime in the early 1990s.
3. Half-Life.
4. Descent.
5. Doom.
6. Descent 2.
7. X-Com.
8. DAoC.
That''s certainly not my list of favorite games of all time, but when it comes to hours played/what I paid, that''s a pretty accurate list. That''s also not factoring in things like the cost of an extra year of college....
1. Halo
2. Wario Ware
3. Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
4. Tokyo Extreme Racer
5. Morrowind
6. Poy Poy
7. Project Gotham Racing
8. Jet Set Radio Future
Just off the top of my head, don''t get me started on the classics
World Soccer Winning Eleven Seven - I''ve enjoyed playing it so much, that I also enjoy leaving it on while the CPU plays itself while i''m playing...
Championship Manager 03/04 - .... which i''ve currently logged 25 days, 1 hour and 11 minutes on, according to the in-game clock.
Freespace 2 - I still go back and play the Campaign every year.
Virtua Fighter 4
and...
Grand Theft Auto (Series). I''ve wasted a ton of my life on that.
Intellivision:
Astrosmash - Ye Gods I loved this game! Played it til my fingers bled... no, wait, that was Bryan Adams and his first real six-string. Anyway.
Classic! That Shark Shark and Burgertime were my favorites.
It''s all about the Halo
A game called Disagea for the PS2. You can play this game forever. The last secret boss is level 4000.
Just keep playing and playing...
A game called Disagea for the PS2. You can play this game forever. The last secret boss is level 4000.
Just keep playing and playing... :)
How many hours? Playing through FFTA and Advance Wars 2 has really sucked me into the SRPG genre, and I''ve been wanting to check out Disgea for a while after hearing how amazing it is.
battlefield 1942 (much teh same as idgaf)
gryzor for my old amstrad cpc (a contra clone) i dont hink i have evr finished a game more times than this. all for £4!
Daikatana. Oh god, what a trauma. It was just the most hor...
Oh, value! VALUE! oh. Sorry, I read ""Valium"".
Pong, plain and simple followed closely by galaga
Giants: Citizen Kabuto. I''ve tried so many times to leave that game but it keeps pulling me back. Although now a bunch of us are developing are own patch/modpack since PlanetMoon has forsaken us, in order to help keep the game alive.
Disgea
The beauty of the game is about 30 hours could beat the story but the are 9 extra levels to unlock and the item world (Level up items by fighting IN them.)
Without a strategy guide to beat the final unlocked levels I would gues could take 200+ hours.
With a guide to get there it would still take 100+ to power game your way thru.
30 classes to join your party +30+ monsters plus you gain weapon skill experiance as well as fighting in the weapons to level them...
50 or so items types with 10-40 items in each type. Including god items that you can only get by beating the item gods within the best item.
It is bar none the best SRPG out there.
wow that was a mouthful.
Edit: Oh and they are rerelasing it in a month or 2 before the direct sequal comes out in august. Get this game while you can. It is phenominal.
I missed Disgaea the first time around and now that I want to get it it''s nowhere to be seen. Will the re-release have any additional stuff?
No particular order, and this goes through my history of games:
Zelda: A Link to the Past (original SNES edition) -- I''m one of those wackos who''s played this game every way imaginable. I''ve beaten it more times than I can recall.
Got the 000 finish score (this was only achievable by playing straight through without saving or dying) in one 6 or 7 hour sitting; no, I didn''t cheat and sit in Link''s house with my SNES on all night while I was asleep.
Beat it with only the 3 hearts you start with.
Beat it without bottles or upgraded armor.
Beat it without any items/upgrades except what you are required to get to progress through the game.
And so on and so forth. 
I did the same with Super Metroid
Goldeneye on the N64 -- this was the most-played multiplayer game for my friends and I in college. We put in more hours on this than I can estimate, and I also put many hours in to complete all the stages of the game on all difficulties in single player. Exceptional game design.
Smash Bros. on the N64 -- First game I ever imported from Japan; I had to have it, and at the time it was not looking like it would be ported to the US, so I imported it. My friends and I logged literally hundreds of hours on this game. The semester I got it, we honestly played it every night for several hours for about 3 months. The Cube incarnation fits in here, too.
Baldur''s Gate II -- self explanatory.
Master of Orion II -- I have yet another game going right now on this, and I bought it five years ago! Prior to me buying it, we often played hotseat multiplayer on my friend''s computer.
Heroes of Might & Magic III -- Infinitely replayable. Still installed on my pc. I play it periodically to this day.
Diablo II & LoD -- for the reasons given by others on this thread!
Gran Turismo 3 -- It''s disturbing how much time I''ve put into this one.
There are others, I''m sure, but that''s all I''ve got right now.
Unreal Tournament -- still play it at work over lunch
NWN
Total Annihilation
Fantasy General
Warhammer Universe (Dark Omen, Chaos Gate, Final Liberation, Shadow of the Horned Rat)
I just picked up Disgaea.
Its awesome! I cant wait till MMO designer''s get their heads out of their asses and start implementing fresh ideas found in modern strat RPG''s.
Create your own pets and level them (WoW''s hunter class will touch this briefly)
Entering an item''s ""world"" and fighting inside the weapon to level it up and collect special abilities by defeating special monsters inside
It has its own more complex version of Diablo 2''s gemmed and socketed items
It has its own version of FFXI''s job/class switching and advanced classes
Rite of passage Promotion tests that increase the potency of equiptment you can buy.
Formation party combo''s and special attacks. Percentage chance for all adjacent party members to attack with you. The percentages are effected by things such as terrain height. The more party members included in the combo the more insane the combo performed complete with throwing and bouncing the enemy around. (think of the combos of Killer Instinct applied to a SRPG)
Melee AOE special attacks that effect both player and monster positioning upon completion. Not only do melee characters not have to hit auto attack and go eat a sandwich, they can do attacks that push enemies back 5 20'' and or hit the enemy and then propel the hero back out of enemy attack range.
Simple spells and attacks level up and gain greater casting range and AOE properties. (not to mention over the top effect animations a notch above final fantasy)
Some characters gain multiple counter attacks (i.e. attack, counter, counter the counter, and counter the countered counter)
Spears can attack from 2 ranks away with a party member in between.
Ok Im out of breath. *pant*
PC:
CIV1
MOO1
MOO2
Doom2 (soooooo many nights up till 4am playing coop over a 9600 baud connection... god that was the most fun I can remember ever having on a computer)
HalfLife
Consoles:
Masters of Monsters
Herzog Zwei
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