Your All-time Best Gaming Value?

[Blackadar]

Just thinking about how much time I've played WoW lately...

What do you think your all-time gaming value is - number of hours played vs. cost? I imagine mine may look like this:

Civilization - I literallly spent months playing this for $40. So did my roomie. I probably spent more than 1,000 hours on it. Probably my all-time best value. Civ 2 may not be too far behind.

Sim City - I used to run this overnight. Sometimes, I would play overnight for my $40. I remember building a city to its entirety, unleashing disaster after disaster until it was totally destroyed and burnt to the ground, renaming it Hiroshima (yes, I'm a sick puppy) and rebuilding it again. Good times. If you jacked up the tax value to 20% (max), you had almost unlimited funds to rebuild. Sim City 2 also occupied a lot of time, but nothing like the original.

FOF2 - I probably played this version the most - literally hundreds of hours. Taking dynasties into 2100 and beyond. Then I helped write the strategy guide. Not bad for $35.

Baldur's Gate 2 / SoA pack - I've played through it no less than 3 times - at 60-100 hours each run. Jon Irenicus must die! A good value since the games cost me a combined $80. A great game.

Planescape Torment - 40-60 hours each run, no less than 4 runs for $50. That's a lot of value, expecially I've probably played through it more than 4 times - maybe as many as 6. Still my favorite RPG of all time.

WoW - I've played WoW exclusively since I purchased it in November. I literally haven't played any other game since. My /played is measured in weeks at this point. Probably 25-28 days or so. That's 600 (or more) hours for $115 at this point.

It's interesting that every game on the list above was the *exclusive* game I played for a long period of time. So it's not that I played the computer much (or any) more than I usually did, I was just entirely obsessed with one game.

[sovereignstar]

Three games jump out in my mind.

Baseball Pro 94/98, Football Pro 96, and FOF 2004.

I haven't played FBCB enough yet, but it's got serious replay value.

[condors]

Might and Magic 1: the secert of the inner sanctium my charaters levels where all past 1100. I had at least 10 notebooks of information from stuff i found in the game.

[Tigercat]

Looking at hours played, i would say:
Tie Fighter
Civ 2
Knights of the Old Republic (xbox)
NCAA football 2003&04(xbox)

[SackAttack]

The original FOF is solidly on this list for me, and MVP 2005 is quickly getting there.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Given the hours I've gotten from it lately, I'm not so sure that the $3-$4 spent on a code for Omerta isn't one of the best bangs-for-the-gaming-buck I've ever had. The equation will get tougher when I reload the code after a month but for now, it's prolly right up there.

[Ben E Lou]

The ones I've played and played and played again, getting serious value per dollar would be....

Microleague Baseball (for my Atari 800XL)
Strat-O-Matic Computer Baseball
Baseball Mogul (first version)
Civilization 2
FOF2K1
FOF2004
Empire Earth
FBCB

[Bee]

ZangbandTK. Free game and probably in my top 5 most played games.

[Radii]

Everquest... even with the $10/mo and the expansions and stuff, my per hour rate had to be insanely low.


Civ 2 I got a ton of time out of, probably more for that game than any other non MMO.

Of course there's online poker where I make money per hour, but I know that's not the point of this thread.

[Coffee Warlord]

Medieval:Total War.

Bought it for 20 bucks, I played that game to death, beyond, and back again. Between me and a friend of mine, the hundreds of screenshots we took to compare and contrast, the massive amounts of house-rule challenges we made up for it...hoo yeah.

[Eaglesfan27]

I could name quite a few, but the #1 for me is Football Manager. I've played well over 400 hours and it is still a game I want to play at least a bit (and sometimes for many hours) every day. Great value for 40 or 50 dollars.

[Maple Leafs]

Earl Weaver Baseball -- cost me about $70 and I played the hell out of it for about 9 or 10 years.

[wahoomac]

ZangbandTK. Free game and probably in my top 5 most played games.
I have spent countless hours with the original Angband and a few of it's iterations. A great value (considering it is free).

I also spent many many hours playing the original X-Com--that had tremendous replay value. Others included: Civ and Civ2, Baldur's Gate 2, TCY, and FBCB. Panzer General 2 also took a lot of my time.

My only problem is that I rarely, if ever, finish a game. I still have never finished BG2, or X-Com. I have played a few Civ2's to the finish. Too many games, not enough time in the day.

[3ric]

Civ2, Civ3, FOF, CM, TCY, Front Page Sports Football 95 and 98

Edit:
d-oh! Forgot X-Com!

[Havok]

BG2 - My all time favorite game, i'd say i've played all the way through and beat it at least 4-5 times, plus i've started and halfway finished it at least a half a dozen other times.

FOF4 - Endless hours i've sunk into this game, ran 1 franchise to around 2040 and im playing one right now that is in 2046.

[sachmo71]

Ancient Domains of Mystery

[Raiders Army]

FOF of course
Starcraft
City of Heroes
Madden

[Ryche]

Probably yahoo games, chess, literati, euchre. It's scary when I see how many games I've played on there.

Among purchased games:
FOF, EQ and EQ2 without a doubt. Just had a friend by WoW for me last night, so that will hopefully end up on the list as well.

[lighthousekeeper]

Just thinking about how much time I've played WoW lately...

What do you think your all-time gaming value is - number of hours played vs. cost? I imagine mine may look like this:

Civilization - I literallly spent months playing this for $40. So did my roomie. I probably spent more than 1,000 hours on it. Probably my all-time best value. Civ 2 may not be too far behind.

Sim City - I used to run this overnight. Sometimes, I would play overnight for my $40. I remember building a city to its entirety, unleashing disaster after disaster until it was totally destroyed and burnt to the ground, renaming it Hiroshima (yes, I'm a sick puppy) and rebuilding it again. Good times. If you jacked up the tax value to 20% (max), you had almost unlimited funds to rebuild. Sim City 2 also occupied a lot of time, but nothing like the original.

FOF2 - I probably played this version the most - literally hundreds of hours. Taking dynasties into 2100 and beyond. Then I helped write the strategy guide. Not bad for $35.

Baldur's Gate 2 / SoA pack - I've played through it no less than 3 times - at 60-100 hours each run. Jon Irenicus must die! A good value since the games cost me a combined $80. A great game.

Planescape Torment - 40-60 hours each run, no less than 4 runs for $50. That's a lot of value, expecially I've probably played through it more than 4 times - maybe as many as 6. Still my favorite RPG of all time.

WoW - I've played WoW exclusively since I purchased it in November. I literally haven't played any other game since. My /played is measured in weeks at this point. Probably 25-28 days or so. That's 600 (or more) hours for $115 at this point.

It's interesting that every game on the list above was the *exclusive* game I played for a long period of time. So it's not that I played the computer much (or any) more than I usually did, I was just entirely obsessed with one game.

That adds up to over 2000 hours. I can't help but think that if you spent that time at a job (lets say $25 per hour), you'd have $50,000.

[gstelmack]

Simulated Sports Basketball
Computer Simulated Fantasy Baseball

Both web-based games that I spent hours on without spending a dime. That makes my enjoyment ratio infinity on both.

[vyshka]

X-COM: UFO Defense
FPS Football.
Civ series.
Superstar Ice Hockey (C-64)
CM/FM series
Starflight I
SimCity series (C-64 through all PC incarnations)
Seven Cities of Gold (C-64)

Honorable Mentions:

SSI D&D series (C-64)
Original F-19 Stealth Fighter (C-64)
Original Gunship (C-64)
Age of Empires I & II
Starcraft
Master of Orion
Master of Magic
Empire

All of the above games got many hours of my time, especially the
C-64 titles growing up.

[Anthony]

FOF2 is my all-time favorite game and most played ever.

Medieval: Total War is my #2, although i didn't put in as much time. never beat it though.

maybe FOF2K4 up there as well, but since i use that game mostly for MP i don't put a lot of time in it as i would a game i play solo. once you got MP it's hard to go back to solo.

OOTP series, again, for MP. i always get a lot of bang for my buck.

[MizzouRah]

FPS Football '97 - played that game with a friend for quite some time.
FPS Baseball '96 - I lived with two of my friends and we played this game day after day.
High Heat 2000 and 2002 - Ahhhh.. the days. Many hours spent on HH.
MVP 2005 - sheesh.. I play this game just about everyday now.
FOF - need I say anything?
ootp, fbcb, and TPB 2005 - again, these games are just plain fun to play.

Besides sports, Halo - Halo 2, Half Life, Medal of Honor, and a few others.

Wasteland on the commodore 64 consumed more of my time than any other rpg.


Todd

[tategter]

All 3 Total War games, every FOF version, and all but the last FrontPageSports Football sim have eaten a ton of my life away. Baldur's Gate 1&2 (plus expansions) and Civ2&3 deserve honorable mentions.

[Arles]

Super Tecmo Bowl for NES, without a doubt. I would bet I paid about two cents for every hour played ;)

Other top values for me were the original FOF and Baseball Mogul, FPS Baseball 98, Tony LaRussa 3, Super Punch Out for the NES and the original Wizardry for the Apple 2e.

[Raven Hawk]

FOF 2k4 (PC) - The addition of MP leagues has gotten me severely addicted to this game. $/hour played is miniscule.

Hattrick (WWW) - What can I say, I love playing strategy games against other humans. The cost to play is free, or very cheap if you want to pay for the supporter. When I first got started, this was an addiction. Now I'm in a slower growth mode so it doesn't take up as much of my time.

NCAA 2004 (PS2) - I really enjoyed this one. Sometimes I'm a version behind, but I loved playing through this game in coach mode with a crappy team, trying to build it up.

Fantasy General (PC) - I played through this one countless times and I still have a hankering to play it. Well worth the $30 that I payed for it.

Civilization III (PC) - For some reason, I love to go for the cultural victories. There's nothing like having a neighboring city defect to you because of your cultural influence. Many hours played.

TCY (PC) - Come on Jim! Give me a new version to spend my money and my time on! :)

Nobunaga's Ambition (Super NES) - Why take over the world when you can take over Japan? This was a favorite from the high school/college days when me and my buddies would play the game all weekend long.

Bard's Tale II (C-64) The first computer RPG that I fell in love with. Thanks to this game, my sister didn't have access to a computer (loosely termed) until she went away to college.

Super Mario Karts (Super NES) - No better way to show a buddy who the boss is than blasting his Wario lovin' ass with a heat-seeking shell.

Midnight Club Racing (PS2) - Along the lines of Super Mario Karts, but in capture the flag mode. Many hours were spent on this game perfecting the "cherry picking" maneuver. I didn't like MCR2 because it added all the boosts and made it too much like a Mario Kart wannabe. All you need for this game is a chassis and a couple of nitros.

Tropico II (PC) - Picked it up cheap and spent countless hours playing it.

After hearing a couple of people tout the playability of Planescape: Torment, I have gone ahead and ordered that game. If it's as good as people say it is, the $6.31 that I paid for it will make it quite a bargain.

[ice4277]

Ugh, I would be a little scared to add up the amount of time I have spent playing the CM/FM series in the past six years or so, ever since CM3 was released. As for one title out of the series, I would have to say I played 01/02 the most.

Other games I have invested a ton of time on include CivII, the original Doom, any of the NCAA Football games before this year's version, and so many on my C-64 when I was a kid that I can't remember them all. Good times.

[TLK]

NES- Tecmo Super Bowl
PS1- Crash Team Racing
PS2- MVP 2005 (Only $30, and it hasn't left my PS2 since it was released)
PC- FOF 2

[QuikSand]

That adds up to over 2000 hours. I can't help but think that if you spent that time at a job (lets say $25 per hour), you'd have $50,000.

Good point.

When I have been disappointed by a computer game in the past, I rarely worry all that much about the thirty bucks I lost. I'm much more ticked off about the dozens of hours of my life that I'll never get back.

Seems the same ought to apply here. Part of the reason I don't own a modern console game system -- not that I don't have a few hundred bucks to afford one, but that I don't want to get that much of my time sucked into it (which certainly could happen).

Opportunity cost.



For me, my list includes the FB Pro series, the FOF Series, and maybe Hooves of Thunder.

[vyshka]

http://www.classicgaming.com/gotcha/gallery/image49.htm

okay thinking about this got me looking at some older game pictures
and I found another to add to the list 'Mail Order Monsters'. I remember spending
hours with my friend playing that on the C-64.

[ThunderingHERD]

the Civ series, from the 4 color days to present

sports sims in general (fof, ootp, mogul, fbb, tdcb, fbcb)

warcraft 2

the heroes of might & magic series

High Heat Baseball. Forget what year I started with this game. Not only did it have a decent career mode, but the batter pitcher matchup was revolutionary (everyone has ripped it off since). Used to play this one online all the time.

Quake -- the original one and still the best. Countless hours on the internet with old-school CTF. when I was in high school, my aunt had 5 computers in her classroom. We put Quake on all of them and played at least a few hours a day even when we were supposed to be in class.

Ultima Online beta -- $0, hundreds of hours.

[Blackadar]

That adds up to over 2000 hours. I can't help but think that if you spent that time at a job (lets say $25 per hour), you'd have $50,000.

I've been gaming for 20 years....take any hobby over 20 years and I guarantee that you've spent at least that much time on that hobby.

And I earn more than that anyway.

[Kevin]

Hmmm

1. Title Bout Championship Boxing - I'm still not sure why, but after 16 months, I'm still using it a lot.
2. OOTP3 - Played a lot with versions 2 through 5 with 3 being the peak. Became old hat by the time 6 came along and didn't play that version much.
3. Strat O Matic Basketball - Played non-stop for 8 months about 8 years ago
4. Pursue the Pennant - heavy use in 1991 and 1992
5. Links 2001 - Still fire it up on occasion

Honourable mention - Links 386 Pro. Played that sucker all night some weekends. The cost per hour was higher than the ones above because add on courses were $15 a pop, and I bought quite a few.

[vyshka]

The way I see it I wouldn't have used this time to work anyways, and would have probably spent more $$ doing something else.

[sabotai]

It's kind of hard for me to figure this one out. For as long as I can remember, I have played video games. Atari, C64, NES, Geneis, SNES, PS, PS2, XBox, Gameboy and Gameboy Advance are all the consoles I have had/owned, plus a couple of PCs (the last I have been basically upgrading the parts. In fact, there is nothing left from the upgraded PC. I have a lineage of the upgrades I have done. :D)

Anyway, I have played a LOT of games. I have never, ever just played one game exclusively for a period of time. I'm always playing games. So it's hard for me to try to come up with a hours-dollars estimate on the games I have played for as long as I can remember.

It's also hard to figure out since while I might remember certain games more fondly than others, that doesn't mean I played them more than others. Specifically, i LOVE RPG games, yet even if I played through FF3(us) 4 times (which I did), that's still only about 120 or so hours. But if I were to try to compare that to strategy game like Civ or Romance of the Three Kingdoms, two games I'm sure I put in at least that amount. But I remember almost every moment of those 4 run throughs of FF3, where now I barely remembe, the dollars to hours doesn't hold up. But I can remember almost ever monute of those 4 run throughs, yet I barely remember anything specific about the games I played in Civ or Romance.

So basically, if I were to try to answer this question with full effort, I would have to spend an entire night going through the games I have played in my life and trying to come up with a rough estimate for the ones I know I played a lot just to be able to sort them and give a short list of the most played per dollar......

But instead I'll just wing it.

Civ, Football Pro (94), Mail Order Monsters and FOF2.

[Greyroofoo]

back in the day when I was rather new to the world of PC Gaming, I picked up Microprose's Conquer the Universe pack, which contained the first 2 X-Com games (which quickly became my favorite game of all time and still is), Master of Magic, and Master of Orion (One of my top 5). It was all for $20. I'd still be playing them if I knew how to get them to work on XP :(

[ShaqFu]

WoW has great gaming value. It's really the first MMORPG that I've not had a problem paying for.

[A-Husker-4-Life]

TCY- bought it the day it came out and still play it today, actually me and my friend are going to play it tonight. We play the game as I'm the Defensive Coordinator and he's the Offensive coordinator, it makes the game very challenging. Anyways, this is the only game I've ever played for 4 years and not got tired of it. Plus, I'm still finding new ways to play the game.

A distant second would have to be X-COM, I just played that game a couple of months ago.... Great Game, i wish someone would make a remake of it.

[mrsimperless]

TCY- bought it the day it came out and still play it today, actually me and my friend are going to play it tonight. We play the game as I'm the Defensive Coordinator and he's the Offensive coordinator, it makes the game very challenging.

What kind of rules do you guys use to play this way? How do you handle recruiting? I really like the idea, I'm just struggling to see how it would work very well.

[mgadfly]

1. Simsports Basketball
Cost: Free
Bang: Not the best game, but good enough to keep me coming back for more. I've played 30 seasons (* 9 weeks) and am still having fun.

2. Front Pages Sports Football
Cost: $100+ (for all the versions)
Bang: The game I measure all others against. The series died a horrible death, but at the height of my addiction I had a play book so massive and unique that it is now horrifying to look back at it (I still have the plays, play books, and profiles saved to disk) because of the countless hours I invested in a game.

3. Fast Break College Basketball
Cost: $30?
Bang: Had it before release as a tester and couldn't get enough. Still playing it like crazy. The addiction level is crazy.

[panerd]

Me and my buddy split the cost of 1984 season of APBA baseball. We played a whole season (me NL, him AL) for about the next 3 years. I think end of the World Series (LA over Det.) was one of the most depressing days of my childhood. That was the end of 3 years of one man simulation. So let's see...

12 teams x 81 home games x about 1/2 hour a game = 486 hours of childhood. Plus double this for stats. (It was all by hand back then.) Comes to about 2 cents an hour. Sixto Lezcano's 49 homeruns will always be a fond memory of my 1984 Phillies.

[vyshka]

There was a game out not too long ago, that is the shards of what was the next generation X-COM game. Originally called the 'Dreamland Chronicles' it got delayed
in development and eventually dropped. Then it was picked up by a different development company, and ended up being pubilshed as 'UFO: Aftermath'. There is a sequel to that coming out called 'UFO: Aftershock' . I haven't played the first b/c the story seemed nothing like X-COM at all. Anyone give it a thumbs up? I would love to see a new, multiplayer version of X-COM. I still remember the first time I ran into the Chrysalids.

Transport landed in town .... tank rolls down the ramp .... boom tank is toast and smoke is everywhere ... start deploying troops .... something is moving ... something is next to my troops ... 5 turns later vast majority of squad has turned zombie. That was an *ss whooping that day.

[Zippo]

OOTP 5.

[illinifan999]

Easily FM, and a close second would be NCAA Football 2005.

[Greyroofoo]

UFO: Aftermath doesn't really have anything to do with X-Com except for the similiar theme.

There was another cancelled X-Com game called <i>X-COM: Genesis</i> which I believe was an official remake of the first game. I've seen a few screenshots of it but they weren't much because the game was cancelled very early in development.

However keep an eye on Laser Squad: Nemesis, which is the sequel to X-Com's predecessor, Laser Squad.

[vyshka]

UFO: Aftermath doesn't really have anything to do with X-Com except for the similiar theme.

There was another cancelled X-Com game called <i>X-COM: Genesis</i> which I believe was an official remake of the first game. I've seen a few screenshots of it but they weren't much because the game was cancelled very early in development.

However keep an eye on Laser Squad: Nemesis, which is the sequel to X-Com's predecessor, Laser Squad.

The only connection I knew of to UFO was the guys doing Dreamland Chronicles were the same devs who did X-COM.

[Senator]

The ones I've played and played and played again, getting serious value per dollar would be....

Microleague Baseball (for my Atari 800XL)
Strat-O-Matic Computer Baseball
Baseball Mogul (first version)
Civilization 2
FOF2K1
FOF2004
Empire Earth
FBCB


I don't know if you will see this Skydog, but I played Microleague Baseball, Computer Quarterback, and Summer Games on my Atari 800XL for more hours than I played anything in my life. With those three games, I was as happy as a kid could be. My adult life is easy, FOF series was a game I dreamed about since I got my first computer. The bang for the buck has been the best money spent.

[cthomer5000]

1. Tecmo Super Bowl (NES)

2. Front Office Football 2004 (PC)

3. Front Office Football 2001 (PC)

And my best values by other systems I owned:

Sega Genesis - Probably Sonic The Hedgehog 2
Sega Dreamcast - Jet Grind Radio (hands down, probably a top-10 all-time game for me)
Super Nintendo - Super Mario Kart
NES Honorable Mentions - Final Fantasy, RC Pro-Am, Mike Tyson's Punch-Out

[cthomer5000]

I really hope when I'm dead that I can see my liftime statistics.

How many hours did I spend playing each NES game I ever owned?
What was my most listened to CD?
What was the longest consecutive sleep I ever had? Longest stretch without sleep?

and on and on and on....

[Buccaneer]

Sort of like an all-time favorites list? I guess in terms of hours of enjoyment (benefit) vs cost, my list would be:

Civ2
Pirates! Gold
Gothic 2
OOTP 5
Pharaoh
Jack Nicklaus 5 and 6
Imperialism II (esp since I got it off of eBay for $8)
and the game that started it all for me, SimCity (first version)

[cthomer5000]

WoW - I've played WoW exclusively since I purchased it in November. I literally haven't played any other game since.
I guess this explains the Blizzard's performance this season.

[Honolulu Blue]

I'm shocked that no one before Bucc has mentioned my two favorite games, Pirates! and Imperialism II.

I bought Pirates! in '89 for about $30 for my Commodore 64, and I played it lots and lots. I even occasionally hooked up to give it a go after I got a PC.

Imperialism II was a freebie, and I've installed it on every computer I've owned since it came out (five I think). I still play it to this day, and I can't recall the amount of hours I've played it.

Honorable mention: Strat-O-Matic Baseball (C64), Civ II, Colonization, the FOF series

[Buccaneer]

I am so ashamed, I forgot to mention my other most-played game (besides Gothic 2) of last year: FBCB.

Blue, I think you, Coug and I are the only big fans of Imp2 here.

[kingnebwsu]

TOP 5 PLAYED GAMES EVER:

1)N64--Goldeneye
2)NES--Tecmo Super Bowl
3)N64--Super Smash Brothers
4)DC/X-Phantasy Star Online
5)GC---Super Smash Brothers Melee

TCY is the best bang for my buck on the PC. I've played like 61 seasons and each one takes me about 5-8 hours. Dear god, that's like 300+ hours on TCY. Scary. That'd probably be 2nd on that list. Fun! Goldeneye was still worth the $60 I paid for the game and the $15 for the strategy guide.

[General Mike]

Tecmo Super Bowl, Diablo 2, and maybe OOTP 3 or 4

[cthomer5000]

Opportunity cost.
I understand the concept here, but can it really be applied in this situation?

I know I'm not thinking "Should I play FOF or go get a part-time job?"

I would say most time spent here was stolen from other available "entertainment" time.

Now if you want to project what my GPA would have been in college without video games, I'm all ears.

[Dutch]

Baldur's Gate I and II (and Icewind Dale I and II to a certain extent) would probably win as "most obsessed about" games in my opinion and the absolute best value for my money, ever.

Baldur's Gate I had me hook, line, and sinker. I bought it on an impulse buy at Fry's Electronics thinking, "Hmmmm, D&D, I wonder if they have improved from the Gold Box days?"

The level of detail for a CRPG caught me off-guard and totally immersed me. I still remember sending the kids off to bed, and while my wife worked the swing shift I would sit down to play Baldur's Gate...and before I knew what happened, my wife was home, dead tired from work and I was like, "Damn, are you home early or something?"

And it had a story line that I was really enjoying. It's one of those gaming experiences that I fear will never be topped. But I keep looking. :)

[finkenst]

civ2,
fof2,
simcity 2000
nethack (free)

[ISiddiqui]

Civ 2. I payed $40 and played it every day for, at least, 3 hours for, at least, 6 months.

[mhass]

I was just cleaning out some crap in the basement and came across two old PC's (why do I save them?). I booted up the oldest to see if there was anything personal left and found FOF2. Hours upon hours upon hours and I had a grand total of ONE saved game. Year 2040 or something. Somewhere around here I have 3-ring binders with reams of trades, coach moves, free agents, releases all for that one dynasty. When I'd stand up from my desk at work, it popped into my head. When I laid my head on the pillow at night, I was thinking of roster moves. While driving I was planning gameplans. Counting those hours, I'm sure it's more than 1,000 hours. I think my last team was in Idaho. FOF2 is number one by a long, long ways. A bargain at twice the price.

Second is Front Page Football (even the awful last version). Played that tirelessly for a while. I don't know how many times that thing crashed before I gave up on it.

I've gotten some mileage out of Sim City, the EA NCAA College Football series, Madden, and some others, but the only other game that's worth mentioning on this list is Super Mario Brothers. I STILL play that on a GameBoy my wife gave me for Christmas. Best. Game. Ever.

[Groundhog]

For me it's easily FBCB. I paid $30 I believe, and I still play it now as much as I did back when I bought it… which was the very first day it was available I might add!

Zelda 3 on the SNES was another one that I spent a heck of a lot of time on back in the day… can't remember how many times I finished it. I probably paid around (or… to be more accurate, my mum paid around…) $70AU for it.

Street Fighter 2 on the SNES as well. That was great when you invited some friends around. Also likely around the $70AU mark.

[Vince]

My best 'value' purchases...

TCY
Civilization and Civilization II
Tecmo Super Bowl
Super Mario Kart
Final Fantasy I, II and III (Actually I, IV and VI in Japan)
Crono Trigger
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
X-Com: UFO Defense
Diablo II

[Glengoyne]

I think Everquest wins hands down for me. 70-80 days played on my Primary Character. My wife and I played together(Brother and Sister in game...I hate all those Kissy huggy types).

Other than that.

The original Master of Orion. I still play from time to time.
The original Xcom: I still play from time to time.

The only text sim that comes close is CM4, soon to be replaced by FM.

[Glengoyne]

Earl Weaver Baseball -- cost me about $70 and I played the hell out of it for about 9 or 10 years.
Still my favorite Baseball game of all time. I'd be playing it still if I could find a reasonably slow system to run it on. I still have all my old disks with rosters leagues and such. When Shaun Sullivan mentioned a couple of years ago that he was going to try and implement Earl Weaver level Graphics into PureSim, I got real excited. I thought that might have actually been the rare game where the damn graphics would take a back seat to game play.

[TargetPractice6]

Baldur's Gate I and II (and Icewind Dale I and II to a certain extent) would probably win as "most obsessed about" games in my opinion and the absolute best value for my money, ever.

Baldur's Gate I had me hook, line, and sinker. I bought it on an impulse buy at Fry's Electronics thinking, "Hmmmm, D&D, I wonder if they have improved from the Gold Box days?"

The level of detail for a CRPG caught me off-guard and totally immersed me. I still remember sending the kids off to bed, and while my wife worked the swing shift I would sit down to play Baldur's Gate...and before I knew what happened, my wife was home, dead tired from work and I was like, "Damn, are you home early or something?"

And it had a story line that I was really enjoying. It's one of those gaming experiences that I fear will never be topped. But I keep looking. :)I liked Baldur's Gate, but one aspect made it very tedious for me and and kept me from fully enjoying the game. When I would die and reload from the last save everything I had killed would respawn and things I hadn't killed would be in larder groups. More enemies meant more death which meant more enemies. Made it very difficult for me in certain areas.

[ice4277]

I'm shocked that no one before Bucc has mentioned my two favorite games, Pirates! ... I bought Pirates! in '89 for about $30 for my Commodore 64, and I played it lots and lots. I even occasionally hooked up to give it a go after I got a PC.
Pirates! was one of a number of games I played to death on the C-64, including a number of other Microprose games: Airborne Ranger, Gunship!, Red Storm Rising...those were the days.

[QuikSand]

I understand the concept here, but can it really be applied in this situation?

I know I'm not thinking "Should I play FOF or go get a part-time job?"

I would say most time spent here was stolen from other available "entertainment" time.

Now if you want to project what my GPA would have been in college without video games, I'm all ears.

Actually, the salary argument wasn't mine -- I just think it's fair to include the value of my time in the mix.

After all, you can go doanload a stupid game that somebody is giving away for free. You can fire it up, and invest 50 hours of your life into it, and then decide that it's stupid and pointless, after all.

My a certain calculus, this is a GREAT value for you, since you didn't pay a cent, and got 50 hours of play from it. That's an infinite return on your monetary investment.

I think anyone, within reason, would say instead that this was a "waste of 50 hours." Independent of what you might have done with the 50 hours -- made money working, had fun with your family, taken lots of naps, whatever -- th real cost of that game to you was 50 hours plus zero dollars, which (in the big scale) is practically the same to me as 50 hours plus 50 dollars.

[Warhammer]

My List:

Civ & Civ II (probably played Civ more in the day though)
Starflight
Starcontrol II
Master of Orion II
Master of Magic
Nethack
FOF2004
Silent Service - I LOVED the top 10 in that game....

[Raven Hawk]

http://www.classicgaming.com/gotcha/gallery/image49.htm

okay thinking about this got me looking at some older game pictures
and I found another to add to the list 'Mail Order Monsters'. I remember spending
hours with my friend playing that on the C-64. Good Call on M.O.M., vyshka. I lost many hours of my life to that game as well. That was a fun game.

Another one that I found on that sight that I loved for the C-64 was Racing Destruction Set.

[Draft Dodger]

Unreal Tournament 2004 - play it almost every day

[flere-imsaho]

Probably the CM (pre-FM) series.

I got hooked by playing the CM1 demo off of a magazine, then played CM2 a bit, but it was CM2 96/97 that really did it for me. I spent tons of time playing that game. In fact, sometimes I wonder if I still have the discs and if I could get it to play on Windows XP. Of course, once one remembers "how to win", it just becomes a contest in setting all the records. :)

Now, though, I've been playing WoW for the past month or so, and it will probably overtake CM over time. Excellent game. I love how you can jump on and play for an hour (and I do). I love how you can skip a few days and not feel like you've missed too much. I really enjoy playing.

As for my thoughts about "wasting time" while playing games, I view it this way - gaming, for me, is that time I'd be watching TV. Since I find gaming more interesting than TV, it's pretty simple.

[Fidatelo]

1. NHL '92 - Thousands of hours played against my brother, he bought the game
2. Freeware EHM - Hundreds of hours, no charge
3. WoW - Currently about 220 hours played (with no end in sight), spent about $130 CDN so far.

[G-Man]

I was introduced to Starcraft in 1998 - June, by one of my sons. I went on to be an addict playing about an average of 4-5 hours daily for about a year (still play this game with my kids and on BNet from time to time). So that equates to approximately almost 1,825 hours!! So I would say well over 2,000 hours have been spent on Starcraft since 1998.

I started playing Diablo2 in 2000 - November. Played that for about 10 months, stopped for about 3 years and then played it again last year for about 3 more months. Averaged about 3-4 hours daily so that projects to an estimated hour total of over 1,500 hours of slaying Diablo and Baal!!

I first purchased Pursue the Pennant's Computer Baseball in 1987 (their first version - computerized that is). I have purchased every version since then. So I have been playing (simulaing) PTP/DMB seasons for over 17 years. So there are another couple thousand hours spent, at least.

I also spent allot of time with Counterstrike and Ages of Empires over the years, but nowhere near as much as the three above games. :eek:

[ColtCrazy]

For me the best valued games of all time would be:

Civ 2 (just like almost everyone else)
Europa Universalis II (hours and hours online against a friend and myself only other game other than Civ 2 to make me stay up all night)
Victoria (another highly addictive game)
HOI I and II
Madden (any series)
NCAA Football (any)

and this year's ESPN College Hoops For $20, it's been a steal.

[CHEMICAL SOLDIER]

Baldur's Gate 1-2
Rise of Nations
FM 2005
AOE 2.

[vyshka]

Good Call on M.O.M., vyshka. I lost many hours of my life to that game as well. That was a fun game.

Another one that I found on that sight that I loved for the C-64 was Racing Destruction Set.

That is another I played quite a bit.

[KWhit]

Microleague Baseball
Alpha Centauri
FOF2004
SimCity2000
Railroad Tycoon 2

[Warhammer]

Microleague Baseball
Alpha Centauri
FOF2004
SimCity2000
Railroad Tycoon 2

Someone smack me, I completely forgot about RRT2!

[KWhit]

*smack*

[MizzouRah]

Add FBCB to my list. This game layed dormat for a spell until March Madness was in full swing, since then.. I can't put this game down. I'm finally seeing why so many people play this game.

At first, recruiting seemed mundane, but getting a highly sought after player really makes it fun. I watch key games vs divisional opponents and reading the pbp is extremely satisfying.

I tip my cap to HR.


Todd