It’s the Game that Never Ends, It Just Goes On and On My Friends…
So, what’s the longest period of time you’ve ever spent on any individual single player game? I ask because over a month later, I’m still playing Rune Factory Frontier. Technically I’ve completed it and am in the process of writing a review for it. Also technically, Rune Factory is the type of game that’s never really finished. I have no idea if my stint with this game is a personal record, but it’s gotta’ be up there. Frontier is hardly alone in its marathon status, however.
Typically, when I play through a game and reach the end of its main objective, I stop playing. If there’s bonus content, I promise myself to come back to it later. Then there are the games that strike a chord of interest in me, maybe even obsession, that call me back to play again and again. If I could figure out what that magic formula was I’d bottle it and sell it to the industry for a tidy profit.
Metroid Prime 3 did this for me. Even though I prefer Prime and Echoes, Corruption was so easy to slip into that I played it four times consecutively. The first and third Devil May Cry games also provided a lot of mileage. I played through every mode of the first game sans Dante Must Die, and completed even that happy masochist challenge in number three. Then of course there was Chrono Trigger, I’m talking the SNES original here. I left no ending unwatched. By the time I pronounced the game done, I could kill pretty much every boss with a single hit and had cornered the market on Prism Gear.
It’s refreshing really. When you’ve been playing games since Pac-Man was new, it’s easy to drop into a funk and wonder if you’re still playing out of sheer habit rather than genuine enjoyment. A burst of gleeful obsession every now and then can be downright uplifting.
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Tags: amber ahlborn, chrono trigger, devil may cry, metroid, musings, rune factory, wii
John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself. 
Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.
Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.
Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines.
Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.
Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.
Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.
If I were to scrounge up a my copy of the original Pokemon gold, I think I would have close to 150 hours of playing time on a single playing file. When I was a kid, there was only one Pokemon a generation, so you were going to get every little last cent you could of this one game.
G/S and R/B were the same generation. =P
I played Final Fantasy Tactics A2 for like 100 hours. I don’t like not having goals, so that was actually how much time I spent doing actual missions and stuff.
My last save file for Final Fantasy X was something like 150 hours. There were still more quests to do but I told myself I should take a break with a different game and finish them off some other time. I never did.
I think the game I’ve played longest is either Pokemon Red (back on the old GB), or The World Ends With You. That game had me seriously addicted/obsessed with it. I need to go back to it one day and play it even more (despite all the play time I’m missing a few items and reports, though I am level *).
I’m not sure what my hours total with it is, but it was my constant companion for a while.
i played a game called the game that never ends all u do is listen to a very annyoing song hit these two balls over and over and the game really dontest end!!!!! u can play it forever …