Your All-time Best Gaming Value?

[cthomer5000]

Originally Posted by Blackadar

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]

Originally Posted by QuikSand

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]

Originally Posted by Maple Leafs

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by Honolulu Blue

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]

Originally Posted by cthomer5000

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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.

[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]

Originally Posted by Raven Hawk

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]

Originally Posted by KWhit

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