What were some of the finest hours you've had with a game?

[MustangSVT]

I misread the "most hours spent" and thought this would also be interesting.

Please include the game(not pc limited, consoles too), stage and situation.

screenshots would be nice as well.

One that comes to mind was the first game that got me into FPS multiplayer.

HALF LIFE. I dont remember the stage but it had several buttons that activated carpet bombing and you had to run in before all the doors shutdown. it was just 1 v 2 but we played for days.

hmm before that I think sf2:t was the game.

 

[Northern Lawn]

Finest hours...

I'm PC exclusive.. well almost. But I gotta admit some console games have impressed me.

PC America's Army 2 was the first online game i ever played and I still haven't met it's match in my interest. I played over 3000 hours of it. I was 28 in the world out of 45,000 people and number 1 in Canada for years.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMIzTRgi984&feature=related

The next PC shooter in line is Bad Company 2 at 500 hrs before I got bored but I'd still go back and play aao2 if there was any community left (and no there isn't for anyone that says there is).

Other games, Age of Empires 3, and on N64 Rogue Squadron.. and I actually played the first Rise of Nations DEMO for almost 20 hours before I got the game.

Halo 1 PC was great, Halo 2 and 3 on xbox were pretty great as well.

System Shock II was the best single player game I ever got into... 80 hours over a 7 day period in fact.

And again on PC, FAR CRY 1 was amazing at the time. I played it 5 times the last being on veteran difficulty and it took me 45 hours.

 

[Possessed Freak]

Mech 2: Mercenaries

God I miss that game. But it is probably like Disneyland, as you grow older the magic is gone.

Ready to Launch!

 

[Albatross]

X-COM TFTD.
Got the guided missile launcher making my life much easier.
In general that game had a magical atmosphere which drew you in like no other.
Just one more turn.....

 

[SpunkyJones]

X-COM TFTD.
Got the guided missile launcher making my life much easier.
In general that game had a magical atmosphere which drew you in like no other.
Just one more turn.....

I still remember Mean Joe Greene was my guided missile guy in the first XCOM , he was racking up the kills as part of my main assault team. I was going to 'retire' him to base defense, but sent him on one last mission. Alas, he never came back.

 

[Albatross]

I still remember Mean Joe Greene was my guided missile guy in the first XCOM , he was racking up the kills as part of my main assault team. I was going to 'retire' him to base defense, but sent him on one last mission. Alas, he never came back.

Hahaha,my main guy was Ion Popescu (something like John Smith in USA)
One almost developed an affection for the badasses.:biggrin:

http://www.xenonauts.com/
Apparently this will be a worthy successor to the series,everyone hates turn based now,there will be even a FPS X-com (with Down syndrome).

 

[EvilManagedCare]

Original Diablo on Battle.net before the dupers and cheaters ruined it. My wife worked at night and this allowed me to waste the hours playing online (had to upgrade to a 56k dialup connection in those days and *gasp* unsubscribe from AOL to a direct connection ISP) and helped foster a love for India Pale Ale. No real specific instances come to mind, except maybe finally making it to Hell or fighting the Butcher for the first time. I always liked the rooms where there were huge amounts of ranged attackers and your party gets barraged. It was also fun coming across new rare mobs.

Even though Diablo 2 added a lot of improvements it just wasn't as good as the original. I thought the graphics had a better feel in D1 and the music was definately better than D2. Of course, you couldn't run in D1

Aside from WoW this is probably the game I have spent the most time exclusively playing, and by far among the most enjoyable.

edit: added specific instances

 

[JackSpadesSI]

Wow, great thread idea!!!

The first ones that come to mind...

Command & Conquer Gold (original) - I played the final GDI mission over and over and over again because it was so good!

Diablo 1 - doing run after run to find my mage more spell books to read (his fireball was amazing after a while)!

Diablo 2 - too hard to pin down one aspect, but playing co-op in general.

StarCraft 1 - playing 2 vs. 6 AI co-op with a friend, turtling in deep, and trying to survive wave after wave of zerg pounding on our defenses. Epic!

FreeSpace 2 - taking down the capital ships and enjoying the beautiful space scenery.

Halo: CE - just enjoying the sci-fi action on a very alien world.

KotOR 1 - just about every moment of the game!

Oblivion - my wife (then-girl friend) enjoyed finding the Nirnroots and she spent hours hunting them down. I was just happy she was enjoying a video game!

Aliens vs. Predator - feeling like a badass playing as the completely-unbalanced-and-overpowered Predator.

AvP 2 - playing online with my roommate in college.

Command & Conquer: Renegade - playing online with my roommate in college.

...I'm sure I'll think of more later!

 

[Dominato3r]

I'd say WoW during the start of the Lich King expansion. It was my favorite expansion by far and I had 7 close friends playing with me that made it even better. Definitely some memorable times.

I also had some great times on CoD4 and MW2.

 

[gothamhunter]

Star Ocean: The Second Story on PS1. Going through the bonus dungeon while listening to Linkin Park drinking Mt Dew. Best time of my life.

 

[Wyndru]

↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B A start

 

[JackSpadesSI]

Oh, and...

Gothic 1 - great game all around, and I fondly recall staring up at the night sky and looking at the barrier.

 

[Edge1]

Quite a few, but a massive epic battle to finally defeat the Mongols in Medieval 2 TW. It was eery zooming down to battlefield level, in and out of trees, smoke everywhere, skirmishes all over the place. It was beautiful and engrossing, full of little strategic events all over the battlefield. Took a ton of losses but it was their final deathblow. Wish I had a recording of it so I could watch the replay.

 

[Specop 007]

WoW, first time running BRD. Man, that place was visually stunning. You just felt like an epic hero when you entered the Mountain.

 

[ussfletcher]

I used to be pretty good at starcraft I was in the top 300 ladder at one point.. damn I played a LOT of that game when I was like 8-14.

Warcraft III - I had a really good group of online friends and spent 1000s of hours playing. On several occasions our 3v3 team was ranked in the top 10.

Some really, really good times playing Desert Combat, which was a BF1942 mod. I remember one time flying the C130 and crash landing it on top of a dam only to have a bunch of guys jump on to the wings and take off again. That was pretty epic. Oh and I absolutely raped with the little helicopter, I could get into the 50:1 Kill: Death range.

 

[Arsinek]

Me and a friend riding our bikes to a neighborhood arcade to play StreetFighter2 and Mortal Combat.

Dominating my dorm roommate and another friend in StreetFighter Alpha 3.

Winning a WoW arena practice match, me against 2 other people. I played a Rogue.

Destroying people in Alterec Valley.

Halo 2 mulitplayer using xbox mod that allowed you to play over web without xbox live.

Playing Halo 1 coop with different people in college.

All were a complete waste of time (except maybe the riding bikes to arcade with friend when I was a little kid) but fun.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I've had lots of great gaming experiences since I was a kid in the early 80s, but the one that stands out recently is when Star Wars: Galaxies opened and my brothers and a couple of friends crashed at my house and we played the game all night (this was repeated several weekends through the opening month or two). Sure, the game had its bugs but it was cool because it was an unexplored game and we never knew what was around the next corner.

I remember a group of us exploring Tatooine and running through the deserts fighting mobs and having to set up camps to regenerate our health. It was just an awesome time and we had a blast.

 

[goobernoodles]

Megaroids on some old Atari and Sim City on Windows 3.1 was my early childhood as far as gaming went. Rainbow Six & Rogue Spear were my first multiplayer FPS games - which just by itself was mind blowingly cool as a kid.

The first time I played CS expanded on that.

Then there was the golden era of RTCW. Best gaming community I've ever been a part of. Best multiplayer game I've ever played - period. I am one smug, elitist RTCW fanboy.

Besides that, HL2 was awesome, the gore in SOF2 was hilariously awesome, Gary's Mod before they charged money for it was awesome on lazy Saturday's prior to showering.

I could go on, but why? RTCW WAS THE BEST GAME EVER CREATED.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

CS 1.6
FFXI
Starcraft 1 - Oh god the memories
Battlefield 2. During High school I would stay up all night playing with friends on a TS server. Was amazing.

 

[ikachu]

I think Quake 1 for me. I started college in '98 and it was the first time I had a broadband connection. Plus I had a Voodoo2 so GL Quake was looking good There were a million Quake mods coming out at the time. I remember playing a lot of random ones like Star Wars CTF.

Anyway it was fun being an 'LPB' and sniping people from halfway across a map. I definitely stayed up too late many a time due to Quake (and watching Sifl & Olly).

Quake 2 never really did it for me though...

 

[PrayForDeath]

I'd have to think hard about this one (played lots of games), but off the top of my head, the final hour of Mass Effect 1, starting with the revelatory dialogue with Vigil (the Prothean computer on Ilos.)

 

[JackSpadesSI]

Oh, and...

Red Alert (original) - hanging out at a friend's house watching him play it (before I ever owned it). He was playing online 1v1 against someone who kept taunting him throughout the game. After one especially annoying rant by the other guy, my friend dropped a nuke on the guy's base to win the game. Laughed for an hour!

Halo: CE - playing 4v4 team CTF online (with a PC program that tricked the Xbox into thinking it was on system link) with friends in my college dorm room. Sidewinder was our favorite map!

Guild Wars - playing online with my roommate in college.

Mass Effect - what PrayForDeath said!

 

[JackSpadesSI]

(stuff)

[OT] Go Green!!! [/OT]

 

[shortylickens]

Most bang for the buck is something like Mass Effect provided you skip the boring side quests. Main quest moves along well enough that its practically non-stop awesome from open to close.

My overall fave would be Baldurs Gate 2. Assloads of side quests (and they are all unique and enjoyable), epic campaign, tons of in-depth character development, and a warm fuzzy feeling when you complete it. In addition to mixing up the parties, picking another character class for your hero adds tons of replay-ability.

Deus Ex comes second. For the most part theres only 2 main ways to play: Stealth or Combat. But a wide variety of combinations within those boundaries makes the game enjoyable to do over and over again.

The first time you do something new in Fallout 3 or Oblivion its kinda fun. Pushing quickly through the main quest in either is a great way to avoid boredom. Especially Oblivion with the plethora of pointless Ayelid runes and dungeons and caves, and Oblivion gates that all feel exactly the same. The Dark Brotherhood is probably the best of the side quests and worth doing even on a speed test.

 

[Via]

Oh, and...

Gothic 1 - great game all around, and I fondly recall staring up at the night sky and looking at the barrier.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rclqMNC2qvY&feature=results_main&playnext=1&list=PL46403BA93B9C9C10

I still remember the day....