I’ve been an avid gamer since 1980 or so, but I seem to be more of a sampler than a finisher. Of course many games like Pac Man or Civilization you don’t really “beat.” Here are some games with a distinct journey and ending that I remember finishing:
Wolf3D
Doom/Doom2
Duke Nukem 3D
Quake 2 (seem to remember getting totally stuck and cheating a little on reaching some doors towards the end)
Half-Life (with a little cheating on the Xen jumping puzzles)
Fallout 3 (end came sooner than I’d hoped)
GTA 3 (loved it, played it again)
Dark Messiah of Might and Magic (can’t remember the ending but pretty sure I finished it)
GTA IV (loved it, in the middle of second playthrough)
Final Fantasy 7 is the big one for me, I played it once without help and a second time to complete everything. I stopped playing FF 8 around the end of disc 1 and never looked back. I loved Spoony’s 11 part review/rant on why FF 8 sucks. FF 7 stands out because it took up so much time and I played it on the original console. It wasn’t the game I spent the most time playing (probably Street Fighter 2), but it was one of those rare things that after I complete them I start right over again (the book Catch 22 is another good example).
Over the last 10+ years I’ve played (and beaten) just about every non-RPG console video game I ever enjoyed. Save states and fast forward make it so much more enjoyable that playing without them often isn’t as fun. I have an hour long commute on a train every day, so my GP2X is one of my most precious toys.
I played through Mass Effect, then the second one, then turned around and immediately started playing the first again with a new (more Renegade-y) character. Just about to the end of the first game. It doesn’t feel like I was just playing through the same stuff a couple weeks ago.
Wasteland, Bioshock, Half Life, Half Life 2, Fallout, Fallout 2, Starcraft and Brood War campaigns, Mass Effect, Metal Gear Solid 2, proabably a few others I’m not thinking of.
Baldur’s Gate 2 SoA/ToB - frequently
Icewind Dale
Daggerfall (which I still prefer over Morrowind and Oblivion - when I can get it to run!)
Sid Meier’s Pirates - original and remake
Far Cry
Half Life
Half Life2
Deus Ex
Neverwinter Nights Hordes of the Underdark
Might & Magic VI and VII, many times, and even the ridiculously buggy M&M IX. It’s just so much fun trying out different party combinations, different stratagems, seeing how low a level you can be and still win (I know they’re doable at level 1 if you don’t mind an awful lot of save/restore…), thinking up silly themes for parties, etc…
Tales of the Abyss
Hero’s Quest/Quest for Glory 1,2 and 4 (3 didn’t seem worth it.)
Wasteland (Thanks for the reminder. Would never have remembered this one otherwise)
All 3 (6 if you count the three episodes of 3 seperately) Shining Force games
Dragon Force (Sega Saturn)
Okami
Sacrifice
I don’t really think Sid Meier’s Pirates counts - I’d put that one in the same category as Civ, or Sword of the Stars, or, come to that, Street Fighter or StarCraft - it’s not a game that you’re supposed to put down after one playthrough. Heck, you know, when you get right down to it, I’d say there are more games that fall into the “Supposed to play repeatedly” category than otherwise. The only games I can see that you’re NOT necessarily “supposed” to play repeatedly are the long time comittment story-driven ones. RPGs, Linear FPS/3PS games and ‘campaign strategy’ games… and uh… that’s about it. The more I look at my game collection, the more I realize that most of it is games that don’t really count here. I played the heck out of Crazy Taxi, and Castle Crashers, Radiant Silvergun, Guardian Heroes, Chu Chu Rocket, Sword of the Stars, Kohan: Ahriman’s Gift, Pirates!, and so on and so forth, but none of them really seem appropriate here.
First played through it on my Atari 800, probably went through it twice.
In college, it was released for the SNES. I played it with a friend of mine, again twice. The first time, he rented it on his own and I found him playing when he just started - we took about a week to wind our way through it, playing a few hours each night. A couple of years later, we rented it again, bought some killer weed and a fair amount of beer, and had a gaming marathon - we weren’t going to sleep until we inserted the four cards in the goddamned computer!
We actually made it through the entire game in about 8-12 hours or so. There’s an exploit you can use once you have a boat and the “Rot” spell that generates a lot of money and kick-ass items - you steal shit from the merchants, kill the guards, and sell the merchandise back to the merchants whom you just stole it from. The “Rot” spell was necessary as it reduced the 9 guards HP to 1, from 255.
Good times. I wouldn’t mind taking another crack at it.
Couldn’t stand the later Ultimas - the moral compass thing was boring, imho.
I’ve played through a bunch of games more than once.
The ones that hop to mind immediately are Final Fantasy IX (bestest game evar), Knights of the Old Republic II (also the bestest game evar), Mass Effect (also the bestest game evar) and most of the Splinter Cell games (they are all also the bestest games evar).
The ones I replayed many times that I remember fondest are Wasteland(a favorite of many I see), The Bard’s Tale, *GTA *3, Tenchu, Devil May Cry, Hitman: Silent Assassins, and am currently replaying World of Goo(never gets old).
Mass Effect 2 - just done my third playthrough. I had tried the Vanguard, Soldier and Infiltrator, and will be trying the Adept next.
Chrono Trigger - numerous times, I have already forgotten.
Quest for Glory I, III, IV and V, as thief, fighter, mage, fighter/mage, thief/mage, paladin (for III, IV and V).
Diablo II (does this counts?)
Chrono Cross - at least once with Kid in party ASAP, and another one with Glenn in party first.
Ace Combat 6 - At least all the difficulty levels once to unlock the Cheating Plane ™, with the exception of Ace of Aces. Played again once on normal using less fantastic planes instead of the Raptor all the time.
Demonstone - at least three times. I was hooked on the game for a while
Omnishua 3 - Once in normal, another time in super cheating mode (unlocked by the Shooting Gallery, one of the evilest mini game evar)
Couldn’t agree more. And then there was replaying it as a baddie, then with Tactics installed, then all of the mods from the Gibberlings Three, then trying to do a no-reloads run. I’m trying to beat it with Ascension now.
Ridiculous how much time I’ve plowed into that game.
Played Half-Life over and over too. When we visited the Los Alamos, NM area, my girlfriend couldn’t figure out why I was laughing myself silly when I learned we were driving by Black Mesa. Really pretty part of the country. (Oh, and Xen doesn’t exist for me: Gordon Freeman disappeared when he went through the gate and nobody ever heard of him again…)
Other games not yet mentioned: Operation Flashpoint and its two expansions. I’d fly around Kolgujev just because it was so pretty. Makes me want to go vacationing on Tenerife someday.
The second Hidden and Dangerous shooter was a lot of fun to replay too, if not quite as head-smackingly hard as Flashpoint. I think that Harpoon should be placed in the same category as Civ, but its campaigns were another timesink for me growing up
Thanks for reminding me, I finished Operation Flashpoint too and replayed it a lot. What do you think of OFP Dragon Rising? I think it has a great outdoor engine but some major issues with the game unfortunately.
