Empire. The original world conquest game. I actually bought this game when I was on a weekend leave from basic training (no joke) and ended up not sleeping on my leave because I was playing non-stop Empire.
SimCity. Holy moly. Dad and I pulled two all-nighters on this one.
Railroad Tycoon. Duke knows his video games - this game could not be played in sessions of less than 6-8 hours. There is always one more link to build.
Civilization. See above. SEVERAL all-nighters. I skipped a lot of class for Civ as well.
TIE Fighter. I called in sick to play this one.
Wing Commander 1 AND 2.
Civ II. Civ II got to me too, but not as much.
SSX Tricky. Called in sick to play this one too.
Knights of the Old Republic. Man, this game was addictive.
Rollercoaster Tycoon. Insanely addictive. The sequel blows, though.
Starcraft was the first game that adicted me like that. After a while, I decided that when it got light enough that I could turn off the desk lamp it was time to go to sleep.
years passed.
HALO came out. On XBOX, good God, it’s like crack. Digital crack. I’ve beaten it on legendary in one sitting. Played 4v4 multiplayer for 5 hours non-stop. Then we all hit the head, and played for another two or three. On the one hand I miss it, but on the other it is nice to see a sky without a ring in it…
Oh, there’s the typical Civilization, X-Com, Everquest, Fallout 2 responses, but in eight short days I’ll be staying up all night until my eyes bleed playing Devil Whiskey. When asked to describe it, I say “Remember The Bard’s Tale from 1985 and its two sequels? Yeah? Well, a couple guys made a game like that but with luxurious art and music. Same gameplay, though.”
You have no idea how much I’m looking forward to throwing a frozen pizza in the oven, getting a case of Coke, and mapping out a grid-based dungeon and hitting “(a)ttack (a)ttack (a)ttack (d)efend (d)efend (d)efend (y)es” starting at midnight on Halloween.
I have forgotten one that nearly failed me a class: Tribes. I was a hardcore Tribes FIEND. Especially once I started playing a couple mods with kickass sniper rifles (Renegades?) after the patches made the laser rifle shitty. Well anyway, it was time for one of my midterms and the “partner” I was supposed to be working with had done NO work whatsoever and I had a terrible migraine and was not in the mood to live after two hard classes with hard midterms.
“Fuck it,” says I. “I’m going home. He can fail.”
You’ll notice I didn’t say “We,” which goes to illustrate my state of mind. So I got home and do what I always do when my head acts up: put on a loud, obnoxious game and try to blast it into submission (no, I do, it doesn’t usually work, but it makes me feel better). And so, yes, while we were failing the midterm, I was at home playing Tribes.
I haven’t played HALO but I had a similar experience with Goldeneye for the N64. I remember my roommates and I would stay up all night playing 4 player mode. It got to the point where we memorized the layout of most of the maps. It certainly made the matches more interesting when everyone knows where everyone else was.