The other day ex-Kotaku editor David Wildgoose tweeted that he had spent almost 500 hours with Civilization V. It got me wondering — what games have burned up the most time in my life? I thought I’d ask you all the same question.
In terms of raw hours, I think I spent the most time with Halo 2. I think I probably pushed that close to the 500 hour mark. I was never really sucked into any MMOs, so I’ve never had that true time sink game. Halo 2 came closest I think.
Outside of multiplayer games, I’d say possible Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge? I’ve played through that game a terrifying number of times. Maybe over 15 times from start to finish. Same with Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Super Mario World as well. I think all those games hit at a time when I literally spent all my spare time playing video games!
Anyway — what about you guys and girls? Let us know in the comments below.
Comments
103 responses to “Tell Us Dammit: Most Played Games”
the METAL GEAR SOLID series! Particullarly Metal Gear Solid 3!!!
The X-Wing, TIE Fighter and XvT trilogy. Probably XvT in the lead. Can’t imagine how many thousands of hours I spent on that game, playing and developing and sharing custom missions and campaigns.
Haven’t had that kind of free time for generations, though. Current gen: probably Dark Souls, actually (70ish hours in total).
My main man.
TIE Fighter…
World of Warcraft probably. Been playing it on and off for over 7 years now. For non MMOs, I’ve sunk a few hundred hours into L4D2, as well as about 180 into the original L4D.
Same here with WoW i think my total play time was something like 110 DAYS into it over 6 years, a lot of that is probably AFK, used to sit in areas overnight and bot MIne while i was at work.
But the most for actual play would be Counter strike, i’ve hit over 1000 hours easy from CS and C:SS.
Yeah, I had a look at my /played time not long ago, which only records actual time in game, and was horrified to see that it was actually years.
I think that’s how it pans out for any MMOs, though. Steam tells me how many hours I’ve played some things. Defiance I’ve somehow managed to get 107hrs in. Fallen Earth was 212, Rift 377hrs. It’s not surprising that even MMOs I’ve considered to have played incredibly little still streak ahead of non-MMOs for ‘hours played’. 21hrs in DCUO, for example. A look over the 700’ish other games in my library indicates an average of maybe 10hrs for the ones I’ve actually played.
A few stand-out entries, though:
Plants vs Zombies: 197
Zen of Sudoku: 168
The Sims: 111
Skyrim: 86hrs (I wish I had a way to include the dozens of hours I’ve spent browsing, installing, tweaking mods.)
Borderlands 1 (68hrs) and 2 (79hrs).
Nothing else breaks 40hrs.
Most hours overall would probably have to be World of Warcraft, back when I played it hardcore and did raids.
Most hours in a single player game? Hrmmm, I can’t really remember from the top of my head but it would have to be between Fallout New Vegas or Dark Souls.
Oh wait, what am I thinking? Most played Singleplayer game would have to be BG2 & the expansion.
I just bought that on gog. On my first play through. Amazing game.
For the BG Series, I’m looking at about 4000 hours or more. And i still play it. Started in Candlekeep again last night, in fact.
Multiplayer Goldeneye and Mario Kart 64. Oh to be young again and on summer holidays.
200+ hours on each of Oblivion and Fallout 3. Probably similar numbers on COD4, Battlefield Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 3.
Pro Evolution Soccer doesn’t record how many hours you put into it as far as I know, but I’m sure every version of that I’ve owned would be right up there, too.
Xenoblade. 124 hours and 38 minutes.
I’d say scarily enough, Grim Fandango… Completed that game more times then i can remember… Just loved the crap out of the universe
“Intimidating? Me? But I’m your friend!”
“My name is Manny Calavera, I’m your new travel agent”
“Oooh, my boat’s got a rusty anchor,
Rusty as she can be,
Every port I go I drop her,
But she always come back to me.
“Oh, rusty anchor,
Goin’ down, down, down,
Oh, rusty anchor,
Guess I gotta hang around.
“Now, I love that rusty anchor,
But, man, she don’t love me,
And this mornin’ I woke to find us both,
A-driftin’ out to sea.
“And every chance I get, I thank her,
For never leavin’ me,
Well, my bones are carved of driftwood,
But she won’t never set them free.
“Oh, rusty anchor,
Goin’ down, down, down,
Oh, rusty anchor,
Guess I gotta hang around.”
Diablo, Quake, LttP, and ChronoTrigger
Man, I think I’ve finished LttP at least 10 times across different platforms starting with the SNES – I LOVE it.
Halo, Halo 2, Morrowind, Monster Hunter Tri / 3 Ultimate, and World of Warcraft jump to mind.
World of Warcraft being the most insidious, naturally. Spent quite literally a month or more worth of cumulative time on that game. Probably a couple of months. Can’t quite remember, as it’s been a while since I last played.
I’m pretty sure my wow played time was over a year! how i did that, I’m not sure.
Most played game because it was aweso me, not addictive like an mmo? Master of Magic. I was so excited when elemental was released, a supposed sequel. But it had none of the fun of the original.
Easily Team Fortress 2. I still fire that up occasionally, especially over Halloween and Christmas for the special events.
Outside of multiplayer, I’ve played through the Monkey Island games multiple times and Full Throttle about a dozen, followed closely by The Dig.
I’ve put a fair bit of time into the new Xcom, FarCry 3 and Lego City Undercover, but unless I have enough motivation to play the again, they’re not exceptional.
EDIT: Special mention goes to the Commander Keen series, my favourite series growing up and, as I’ve recently learned, still very playable. (Thanks, Steam!)
snap.
the valve guilt counter tells me i have over 1500 hours ‘invested’ in TF2. but hey, don’t I need 10,000 to be an expert? still a way to go.
second would probably be nethack.
Yep TF2, but hows this… the 360 version, there was about half a year there where I couldn’t enough of it. If I could get it together enough to get a 360 controller adapter for my laptop then I’d have more time up on the steam version.
Trials HD/Evolution in recent years. Always scares me when I see the comparative number of hours I’ve put into Evolution.
I know for a fact that I’ve spent 500 hours in Halo Wars and 37 days in Halo: Reach (complete opposite to Halo 4 which is 6 hours). But most of that is multiplayer though.
Games like Fallout 3 or Skyrim have an easy 100 hours in them.
Diablo 2 on LAN. Super Mario world. Doom at Uni. Dr Who pinball The dungeons and dragons gold box series, Airborne Ranger as a kid. Though I reckon Sid Meirs Pirates on various platforms would top them all.
Oh God, you just reminded: Quake III at university. Spent so much time playing that over the course of 4 years that it really should have appeared on my transcript.
LOL. You jusy reminded me of Quake 3 too and Unreal tournament! Yeah I spent many a night on Quake 3.
Damn, everyone at our college was playing Unreal Tournament on the college network. Even the girlfriends who weren’t normally gamers. (This was the late 90s, early 00s. Being a geek wasn’t cool, like it is now!)
TIE Fighter.
Mechwarrior 4 and Halo ODST more recently.
I’ve spent all the time since ODSTs release looking for players!
Guitar Hero 3 holds the crown on my Wii with over 200 hours played. At some point I worked out that I’d probably spent 500 hours across the series (3, 4, 6, Metallica, though not sure if it counted my custom version of 3 featuring the songs from 2).
On my 3DS, I think RE: Revelations is the top contender with about 120 hours now.
It’s hard to say whether I’ve spent more time on other games in my younger days, back before timers were such a common thing. But I’m fairly confident in saying nothing’s sucked up the hours like GH has.
I think the game I’d spent the most time in was Dead Island with a measly 90 hours, the game I’ve finished the most would either be Yoshi’s Island or God of War
Yoshi’s Island is beautiful.
I’d say Halo 3 multiplayer. I had a LOT of games played between 2007 and 2009 when I became obsessed with MW2. I don’t know the stats anymore because Halocharts.com no longer exists, but I had probably more than 5,000 games played, at a conservative estimate. If we assume around 10 minutes/game, that works out at about 833 hours. It’s probably really up around 1,000.
Next in line would probably be my aggregate total of playthroughs of Fallout 3, which I estimate to be around the 300 hour mark.
I spent a lot of time on Oblivion – probably 250 hrs. I spent about 125 on Skyrim, and about a hundred on FO3.
I’ve played through Final Fantasy XIII and IX twice. Both games took about 80hrs on the quicker play through, so at least 160 hrs for each of the games.
I finished Metal Gear Solid on the PS1 probably ten times. I also finished Metal Gear Solid 2 six times: Five on the original release, and again on Substance.
I think I’ve played through the Donkey Kong Trilogy on the SNES probably 20 times.
My most time spent on a game was probably Goldeneye or Perfect Dark. I couldn’t tell you which, but there was a three year period where three mates and I would play Goldeneye and then Perfect Dar when it was released for about 20 hrs EVERY weekend.
It just struck me how little time I spend with games these years, partly because online multiplayer does nothing for me…
I spent a lot of time with Pokemon over the years, I’ve realized. I play it whenever a new one comes out, and when one doesn’t for awhile I’ll probably pick up HeartGold or Emerald down the track.
I wouldn’t consider it to be one of my top games or anything, I’ve just played it a lot.
150+ days logged on my main character in World of Warcraft. Not sure how many logged in my other characters it would top 200+ days though easily. Though I quit back in November last year, it was time the game was dead, it was a pure grindfest at max level and my friends had started to quit, so I was over it.
Other than WoW; 200 hours logged in GTA IV, and another 60 in The Episodes from Liberty City. Then+ the usual few hundred hours in TF2, then there’s Left 4 Dead 1 & 2, Saints Row The Third, L.A. Noire all with 50+ hours logged and then Driver San Fancisco & GTA Vice City which both have about 40 hours.
I love all those games, mentioned and have played them all through twice (where there’s a main single player story)
Final Fantasy XII probably, my playing time was like 130 or 150 hours, can’t remember.
685 on skyrim, 285 on fallout new vegas, god knows how long on the mass effect series.
Christ, I’d forgotten about the Mass Effect Series…
Roughly 40 hours per game X 3 games X multiple playthroughs… damn.
ha. yep. had to do paragon and renegade. mercifully ME2 had less sidequests than ME1 to dig around for.
I’m sure this topic has come up in TAY before.
For me it’s Pokemon. As a series, hours would be uncountable. As for individual games, I maxed out the in-game clock (999 hours) on Pokemon Blue, Sapphire & Emerald.
Same for me, on Emerald and FireRed
I don’t really look at times, just how much I enjoy it. Though, I’d probably say WOW, because MMOs are huge timesinks and that’s why I stopped playing. Outside of it, I’d have to say that it’s probably Final Fantasy VII or maybe Shadow Hearts by dint of number of playthroughs. Or possibly Borderlands 1/2 given that I play it regularly with friends.
The Shadow Hearts games are awesome 🙂
I get depressed whenever I remember that there won’t be any more of them :'(
Road Rash 2, Battlefront, Call of Duty 2
Road Rash… that’s time well spent!
Have you road redemption?
I was looking through steam greenlight and saw a game and went “bah, that looks just like road rash with pretty graphics”
Then may brain caught up and went
“OMG, that’s just like Road rash with pretty graphics” as I throw my wallet at the screen
Probably Lord of The Rings Online for me. For most people I would be surprised it is not an mmo. I recall a few people in my old WoW guild that had over 1 year /played. Crazy stuff.
I’ve spent around 945 hours into Fallout 3 and I still do.
Second place goes to GTA IV (176 hours), third is Pokémon Silver(123 hours).
Haven’t played WoW in years but I must’ve easily done a couple thousand hours over the time I did play. Second to that would be 600 hours or so in Altitude and then probably a couple hundred in Rock Bands and Guitar Hero’s. Single-player game I’ve played the most would be Pokemon Red given how many times I’ve beaten it!
Fallout 2.
Vagrant Story for me. Over 500 hours easily. It’s been a year or two since I’ve gone through. I stil have a couple titles to knock off (use each weapon 5000 times, kill 5000 of each enemy type)
Multiplayer
WoW – Vanilla through to Cata on and off over the years
CoD4 – Unstoppable back in the day 🙂
BFBC2 Vietnam – loved sniping in that game…sadly that skill didnt carry over to BF3 🙁
BF3 – Currently the only game I play online…and I might only jump on once a week now.
Singleplayer
Metal Gear Solid 3 – All time fav game.
Final Fantasy 9 – Sheerly because my young mind couldn’t get pass many boss fights which resulted in many tantys and maybe tears.
You guys still count your game time in hours? How cute.
*injects another can of mountain dew in his arm and returns to world of warcraft*
Dude! You forgot your Doritos!
You still play world of warcraft? How cute.
not really but i had to make the joke.
Around 700 in Super Smash Bros Brawl, probably a little more than that on StarCraft 2. If I’ve played around 1800 ranked matches at 20 minutes each that puts it down for 600 hours, not including campaign and custom games. As far as single-player games go, Mount and Blade Warband has about 160 hours played. So clearly most of my time is spent in multiplayer games.
Back in uni I spent around 8 hours a night playing Starcraft (1…yes I’m old), for about a year. So it’s actually probably that tbh, but hard to keep track. I definitely have played a lot of WoW. As for other games I’ve played a lot of nethack over the years. And kingdom of loathing I’ve sunk a lot of time into but that’s another mmo (sort of).
You’re not old. You’re a seasoned vet. :p
Definitely World of Warcraft :S 6 years in a leading raid progression guild before I called it quits and I saw the days rack up in the hundreds.
Animal Crossing WW and Runescape.
HAHA! I would never think to include something like Animal Crossing but that game does suck up plenty of time. Short bursts though so it’s difficult to tell.
Has to be World Of Warcraft, followed by Warcraft 3/Dota.
After that it’s likely Super Smash Bros Melee, been playing that since the day it was released in Australia to the present as it’s our go to fighting game, and multiplayer game in general.
And you finally hit single player, I’m tempted to say Fire Emblem 7 or Advance Wars 2, or maybe Tales of Symphonia but I can put a definitive number on Dark Souls at 450+ hours over the PS3 and PC versions, so I’ll go with that.
It’s a combination of hundereds of flight hours with Wing Commander III/IV/V & Darkest Dawn, Freespace 2 and Freelancer, 500 hours plus with the Strike Fighters/Wings Over series sims. Years of Civ, Civ 2 & 3 Alpha Centauri & Railroads!, RTS games like the early C&C series (Generals: Zero Hour from 2K3 and I still played mods regularly up to 2012).I still play San Andreas, and that’s gotta be at least 500+ hours since 2K5. I also have an emulator on every machine I use (including my work one) and I still hammer away at Road Rash, Shining Force 2 (since 1995) and FIFA 94 in the dead hours. Currently I’m looking at 250+ hours on Skyrim, Payday The Heist and both L4Ds. And I met a hot brunette and married the shit out of her somewhere in all that. And with the Romulans becoming available in STO from May 21, I think I’ll play the hell out of them until I remember how much STO bores the hell out of me 3 weeks later.
Any one of the PSone era Final Fantasy games, but mostly FF7 with Chocobo breeding and racing, the Battle Square, and trying to master various types of materia.
Probably FFVII. First time on the PSX in the 90s, then again on the PS2 at least a couple of times, and then again on the PS3 when the digital version came out. There may even be more playthroughs I’ve forgotten.
These days it’s been wow but prior highest hours would have been goldeneye on N64. Looking at steam stats my 3 year old has sunk over 800 hours into saints row 3 just driving around.
hmmmm I’m not sure which game I’ve played the most but it has to be out of: Age of Empires, Halo/Halo 2, Tony Hawks Underground, Final Fantasy X, and Oblivion.
200+ hours on Dark Souls, weeks (or months) on WoW, 100+hours on Demon’s Souls, 100+ hours on GT5 …. i’ve wasted my life… wait. what?
Skyrim would be up there. I remember it being a big deal in my life when I removed it from the disc tray of my 360 several months after release, and it’s been back in a few times since.
Racked up a stupid amount of time on Goldeneye/ Perfect Dark back in the day. Used to play multiplayer with my mates almost every afternoon after school.
Bit of a weird one, but I spend 100’s of hours playing WWF No Mercy on the N64 too. Making characters and playing ridiculous matches, not sure what it was about that game but I just couldn’t put it down.
Dark souls I am in about 150 hours totalled. Most played through would prob be mgs1 to unlock everything.
No idea about the amount of hours, but definitely 200+ on each of the following:
-Oblivion
-Fallout3
-Skyrim
Mainly because they have no ending (Fallout3 with dlc’s) and you can keep exploring and having fun in the sandboxed world.
In terms of the games I’ve finished the most times:
-Day of the Tentacle
-Monkey Island 1, 2 & 3
-Half-Life
Steam says 650 hours of Skyrim. It’s closer to 900.
600+ hours of New Vegas, probably more in FO3.
At least 500 hours in oblivion.
Huge amount of time into the Mass Effect Series
But the big one is the Baldur’s Gate Series. Oh God. Easily 30+ playthroughs of BG2 alone. At lets say, average 75 hours per playthrough (30 x 75 = 2250).
I don’t know about hours, but I’ve played through Max Payne 1 & 2 basically annually since they were released.
On Steam, I’ve put the most hours into Batman: Arkham Asylum at about 80, mostly accrued while playing the challenges on my work PC every lunch time for about a year.
Deus Ex, the original. I think i’ve only finished that game 4 times but done the first 3/4 of it at least 30 or 40 times. One of the best FPS games I’ve ever played, even today.
Fallout 3. 3 saves each with around 150 hours. Rock Band, I spent months playing nothing else trying to perfect songs on the drums.
Bioware and Obsidian take it- Baldurs Gate, Fallout 3 and NV, Mass Effect. Just keep going back to those wells and they just keep giving.
Also Street Fighter 2 Turbo on SNES, Worms on PC and Tie Fighter.
SKYRIM!
Lost count after about 800 hours.
Championship Manager most nights of the week minimum 2-3 hours since 1995……
Definitely Warband, over 700 hours played, most of those in Napoleonic Wa.
Next would probably be Garry’s Mod
CIV – several hundred hours
CIV 2 – probably the most time I have spent on any game, but closely followed by…
Diablo 2 – played it during my uni-time, so there you go. Both easily 500 hrs+
Jedi Knight 2 + Academy – played team and single ladders, so a lot.
the X-franchise, X2 probably the most, several hundred hours.
Further down the list titles like Q3A (LAN, online), Gothic 3, Skyrim, GTA (til San Andreas), Descent 2 (LAN)…all of them easily over 100 hrs.
My first thought.. Morrowind. I put sooo many hours into that game.
My second thought.. well, atm on Steam, my “most hours” game is Saints Row The Third.
But then realisation struck.. World of Warcraft. Yeah. Gotta be that. Couple of hours a day, at least but sometimes a lot more, for the last 6/7 years. Yeah.
Well I’ve finished the Mass Effect trilogy at least 5 times on the 360, ME 1 & 2 another 2 times on PC.
650 hours on Borderlands 2 (Probably 100 or so for B1 on xbox)
163 on Skyrim
334 on Star Trek Online
61 on Trials Evolution Gold (Plus probably triple that for the Xbox version of Evo & HD)
60 on Deus Ex Human Revolution
206 on Fallout New Vegas
100+ on Fallout 3
Been playing Star Wars The Old Republic since the early access, probably over 700 hours worth
Countless hours of older games like Syndicate, Ultima, Lucasarts’ SCUMM games, TIE Fighter/Xwing, Neverwinter Nights 1/2, Baldurs Gate etc
Then again I have no life so these numbers are largely skewed by that fact
Well in recent years for me personally it would have to be Mount and Blade with over 100 hrs
Topping that might very well be torchlight but that is shared with my wife. Between the two of us we have put 690 hrs across both the game
Overall the civ series could have to be up there starting with full lunch times at high school on the original and many sleepless nights on other versions. Almost 80 hs on Civ 5 so i’m a long way from Wildgoose’s figures
~400 hours in Morrowind. Approaching that in Skyrim.
World of Warcraft. I was only in it for a couple of years but I was a hardcore raider for part of that time so ’nuff said.
Single player… the original Civilization or Alpha Centauri would be most likely. If i could count all the Guitar Hero and Rock Band games together then they would win in a landslide.
Oh, and the other contender would be Tekken Tag Tournament due to all the arcade time I put into it while I was at university.
DOTA 2… 350+ hours.
Baldurs gate 1 and 2 – least 300 hours each with two different mates.
Metal Gear Solid 3 – I lost count how many times I played that through.
All monster hunters on the psp – three years with two other mates.
Monster Hunter on wii U – 160hrs and counting.
At least a 1000 hours plus on San Andreas
900+ hours on Fallout 3, around 600 with New Vegas. Too much time with GTA San Andreas and approx 540 hours with the Mass Effect series.
My only standouts would be Diablo II and Burnout Paradise. I don’t normally have the attention span to sink hundreds of hours in to a single game.
Rune factory and Harvest moon games…
i have so many waifus…
and Dota2
Civilisation 2 and GoldenEye. They ate up years.
XCOM Enemy Unknown is really trying to push itself up there. I have goals I will accomplish, dammit!
fallout 3 about 1500 hours between pc/xbox/ps3 and skyrim about 900 hours
How’s no-one mentioned Minecraft/Tekkit/FTB?
That’s mine 🙂
Probably Sonic 3 & Knuckles, I’ve played through that a ridiculous amount of times over the years. Close contenders would be Silent Hill, THPS2, KotOR, Doom II & Half-Life.
Over 6000 hours in WoW back in the day. Aside from MMOs (which are poison) would definitely be Civ4 – Steam has clocked up 829 hours.
I just hit 500 hours in TF2 this morning. Aside from that, I’ve probably put the same amount of time into various Pokemon games.
Deus Ex. Because Deus Ex.
(And I’m talking about the original one, from 2000.)