Your longest marathon gaming session ever

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This is for a single session, mind you.

what's the longest time you ever played a game for? Were you stoned? Did you have a supply of snacks by your feet ready to shovel into your mouf so that you didn't have to leave as much?

― Kingfish of Burma (Kingfish), Monday, 14 June 2004 22:03 (twenty-two years ago)

This thread is principally about video games, but any ol' game'll do, i guess.

for me, it was either the first weekend i ever rented Legend of Zelda, or playing Metal Gear Solid for the first time. I spent about 10-12 hours on zelda that saturday, subsisting on Goldrush bars(i think), and about 12 hours per day on Metal Gear Solid during Christmas Break '97.

oh, it's fun to have priorities in life.

― Kingfish of Burma (Kingfish), Monday, 14 June 2004 22:05 (twenty-two years ago)

I sat at the Roulette wheel for six hours once. It helps to have a full pack of smokes before you sit down. The cocktail waitress usually takes care of the rest.

― Pleasant Plains (Pleasant Plains), Monday, 14 June 2004 22:05 (twenty-two years ago)

RPG: 12 hours

Gaming: Probably 6 hours at a BJ table

― gygax! (gygax!), Monday, 14 June 2004 22:08 (twenty-two years ago)

a BJ table!!!

― AdamL :') (nordicskilla), Monday, 14 June 2004 22:11 (twenty-two years ago)

that's right baby.

― gygax! (gygax!), Monday, 14 June 2004 22:12 (twenty-two years ago)

i have had to uninstall civilization 3 from my computer at college because i would forego all my classes to keep playing. Six or 8 hours spent, and on an all-to-regular basis, at times up to 12. sad part is, i never really could get past the 'chieftain' difficulty level. i suck. :(

i have also seen people play snood for ungodly stretches.

― andrew l. r. (allocryptic), Monday, 14 June 2004 22:17 (twenty-two years ago)

I didn't have a job when I played Ocarina of Time on the N64. The whole time I played that game the only times I got up were to go to the bathroom and to get something else to eat. (Kitchen was attached to the living room in the apartment I lived in at the time + urbanfetch.com was still around in NYC, and I could order food over the internet.)

I would play from about 1 or 2pm until I couldn't stay awake any longer (usually around 3am or so), then I'd go to sleep and repeat the process when I got up again. The longest day I spent saw me starting to play at 1pm and stopping around 6am the next morning, so 15 hours.

Mind you, without looking anything up on any walkthrough, I did manage to find all of the little skultulas in that game... I was pretty obsessed with it for a while.

― martin m. (mushrush), Monday, 14 June 2004 22:21 (twenty-two years ago)

metroid prime kind of sucked my life away. don't remember actual hours though.

and when mechassault when live on xbox that was a time waster.

― cutty (mcutt), Monday, 14 June 2004 22:22 (twenty-two years ago)

I spent a great deal of Sat/Sun this and last weekend playing SimCity4. I wouldnt say I pulled a 12 hour stretch each time or anything, as I'd get up to tidy up or something for a break, but I played the one region for the whole weekend. God I'm nerdy.

― Trayce (trayce), Monday, 14 June 2004 23:27 (twenty-two years ago)

Mega Man 2. I mean, seriously. Fucking sun setting, rising, setting again on that shit.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 14 June 2004 23:46 (twenty-two years ago)

after i graduated from university, i spent about a month with nothing to do during the day and only a bar job at night. I'd come home from the bar, put in Xenogears or Dino Crisis, and play until my eyes hurt too much(usually sometime early the next afternoon).

yup, that was a fun month. my fucked sleeping sched brought back my depression full-on.

― Kingfish of Burma (Kingfish), Monday, 14 June 2004 23:50 (twenty-two years ago)

my fucked sleeping sched brought back my depression full-on.

I've no doubt that videogames have contributed to complications in my mental health on more than one occasion, usually for the sleep schedule disturbance.

― martin m. (mushrush), Monday, 14 June 2004 23:53 (twenty-two years ago)

I used to play Castlevania in college from like 8pm to noon the next day. I was a snood addict too. If anyone knocked me off the top 10 I would have to play until I knocked them completely off. Most recently, I would play Next Tetris with Franz for probably about 12 hours straight until I would start shouting at him that he had to take the controller out of my hand or I wouldn't stop. And then I would twitch in my bed all night trying to stack pieces in my dreams.

― Carey (Carey), Monday, 14 June 2004 23:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Back in the day I used to host LAN parties where we'd play games for about 24 hours straight. Good times.

― Andrew (enneff), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 00:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Wow a LAN party where you actually played games and didnt download pr0n? Now that I've never seen ;D

― Trayce (trayce), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 00:25 (twenty-two years ago)

9 hour game of uninterrupted hold 'em.

― Leeefuse 73 (Leee), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 00:58 (twenty-two years ago)

the NES Rygar didn't have a save fucntion, so you'd have tp pull a marathon to win.

― sexyDancer, Tuesday, 15 June 2004 01:25 (twenty-two years ago)

Multiplayer on Jedi Knight with a buddy who lives in California (I'm in NY) for about three hours. Several cans of budweiser.

― Ghostface Threadkillah (calstars), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 01:28 (twenty-two years ago)

14 hours, fell asleep with controllers in hands, woke up several hours later, resumed playing for another 12 hours.

Or something. Can't remember, it was ages ago.

― New No New Age Advanced Ambient Motor Music Almanac (Autumn Almanac), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 01:39 (twenty-two years ago)

My very earliest childhood memory is coming down the stairs one morning, and finding my dad and all his gaming buddies clustered round the kitchen table, hard at Diplomacy. I was kinda confused by why they'd got up so early. They made me fried eggs.

― Gregory Henry (Gregory Henry), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 01:42 (twenty-two years ago)

I played and beat Resident Evil for PS1 in 10-12 hours the day I bought it. Think I remember doing the same thing with Yoshi's Island for SNES. Wasn't stoned either time, no snacks besides Coca-cola.

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 02:11 (twenty-two years ago)

I went to a baseball doubleheader that began at 1 p.m. and ended around ten that evening. I'm not sure of how many rain delays there were. Stupid me. I arrived way early, like when the gates opened at 11:30. Spent the next two days straightening my ass.

Red Sox 7, Indians 4 (game one)
Indians 4, Red Sox 3 (game two)

or so I think.

― jim wentworth (wench), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 02:26 (twenty-two years ago)

the NES Rygar didn't have a save fucntion, so you'd have tp pull a marathon to win.

I remember finding a way to beat it fairly quickly. There's a place near the beginning where you can max out your stats and then just plow through the rest of the game. Takes a few hours, tops.

― AaronHz (AaronHz), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 02:27 (twenty-two years ago)

I prefer to think about when I used to play video games and summers where I played far too much but I know my friend's and I played D&D for 12 hours. I can tell you that was a lot more fun and a lot less depression inducing than long video game sessions.

― Laszlo Kovacs (Laszlo Kovacs), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 02:56 (twenty-two years ago)

*I prefer not to think about...

Sigh... I forget the negative when typing too often...

― Laszlo Kovacs (Laszlo Kovacs), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 02:57 (twenty-two years ago)

In the 80's I spent at least 8 hours playing Defender in the store across the street from my house. They even closed and let me play in the dark! That was one game too. My all-time high score!

― scott seward (scott seward), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 03:12 (twenty-two years ago)

When I got Super Mario collection I played it for 23 of the first 24 hours I owned it.
Hah!

― mei (mei), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 05:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Holy shit, I forgot Diplomacy! That game destroyed one of what I thought was one of my closest middle school friendships. He turned on me, had a secret pact against me, that fuckface.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 11:51 (twenty-two years ago)

11 hours of Premier Manager in about 1994 (?), from 7pm to 6am, with my friend Matthew.

― Markelby (Mark C), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 11:55 (twenty-two years ago)

i've deffo done some 12-14 hour marathons in my youth, cut short by parents demanding i go to bed. more recently, a couple years ago i probably achieved around 8-9 hours on NWN.

― g-kit (g-kit), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 12:39 (twenty-two years ago)

The thing that helped me beat NES Rygar & maintain my sanity was the old pause + turn off TV but not NES, do something else (such as: sleep, eat, go to school, etc.) and then come back to it approach.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 12:46 (twenty-two years ago)

Multiplayer Civ 3, I actually can't remember how long it was but it ate the weekend.

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 13:52 (twenty-two years ago)

I lost.

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 13:52 (twenty-two years ago)

To me.

Your military might was useless once I'd tied every nation in the world into a mutual protection pack. Fight one of us, fight us all.

― Lynskey (Lynskey), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 14:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Nickalicious - yeah! My dad was always really adamant that you should /never/ play dip with close friends.

That said, ILX Diplomacy! It'd clearly rule.

― Gregory Henry (Gregory Henry), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 14:10 (twenty-two years ago)

but, but, nukes...

*Shakes dicatorial fist*

I was young...

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 14:12 (twenty-two years ago)

Also far too long on Elite and Dune 2.

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 14:15 (twenty-two years ago)

6 hours on Turrican 3 (completed at third attempt), 5 on the prequels and around the same on The Chaos Engine (those plasma balls were damn near impossible)

― stevem (blueski), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 14:16 (twenty-two years ago)

also, let's broaden the topic a little:

which games fucked with your life the most or the longest, due to how much you were playign them? what hurt your studies, health, sleeping habits, nutrition, job, financial stablity, etc due to how much you played them?

for me, Ocarina of Time did some major fucking damage to my grades in late '99, and Star Control II helped kill off my freshman term at university.

― Kingfish of Burma (Kingfish), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 20:33 (twenty-two years ago)

Bust A Move.

― Sean Witzman (trip maker), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 20:41 (twenty-two years ago)

Leee, have you read Shut Up And Deal? Let me know if you want to borrow it, it's like 220pp. semi-fictional narrative.

― gygax! (gygax!), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 20:42 (twenty-two years ago)

After Vice City, I always had to remind myself not to run motorcyclists over for kicks.

xpost gygax I haven't, and I would@!

― Leeefuse 73 (Leee), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 20:43 (twenty-two years ago)

18 hours of Championship Manager.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 20:44 (twenty-two years ago)

Kingfish, isn't Metal Gear Solid only like 12 hours long?!

For me, definitely FF7. The first time I played it it was all I could think about during the day, then I'd come home and play until until I passed out (then did it all again during college). Also, after I graduated and was unemployed for a few weeks I did nothing but eat, jog, and play Chrono Trigger.

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 20:48 (twenty-two years ago)

After Vice City, I always had to remind myself not to run motorcyclists over for kicks.

http://ilx.wh3rd.net/thread.php?msgid=3123772

xpost gygax I haven't, and I would@!

Nice, let me know next time you're planning to be in town again.

― gygax! (gygax!), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 20:48 (twenty-two years ago)

which games fucked with your life the most or the longest, due to how much you were playign them?

The first Crazy Taxi caused me to develop blisters because of the way I held the bigass Dreamcast controllers.

On the plus side, I'm very very good at that game. My games often last for well over an hour playing by the "arcade" rules (i.e. 55 seconds + whatever time is earned by doing a good job).

― martin m. (mushrush), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 21:03 (twenty-two years ago)

Fortunately I didn't play much in the way of videogames while I was in college. Otherwise I'm sure I'd have much worse tales than lost sleep and blisters on my hands or fingers.

― martin m. (mushrush), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 21:04 (twenty-two years ago)

I once played Mystara on the Saturn from beginning to end over a weekend. I think that was a 30 hour session.

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 21:17 (twenty-two years ago)

I think it was probably Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy 7 with a couple friends. We were only like 15 give us a break! That's also why there wasn't any weed, only Mountain Dew (I wouldn't touch the stuff today).

I'm running through Chrono Trigger again on an emulator and it's going so much faster cause the program has a button to push to make games run at like 400% speed so I can zip through slow parts.

― Dan I., Tuesday, 15 June 2004 21:45 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh I forgot to say! When we gamed like that it was basically all weekend with breaks just for meals.

― Dan I., Tuesday, 15 June 2004 21:46 (twenty-two years ago)

I have the Chrono Trigger ROM but haven't played it yet. Should I fear?

― Leeefuse 73 (Leee), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 21:46 (twenty-two years ago)

I've had a few 12-15 hours sessions, I start in the early afternoon then I usually chuck it when the birds start singing and I start hallucinating while I'm taking a piss.

Games that have fucked with my life: Sensible Soccer on the Amiga 500, Sonic (once spent 3 full days alternately sleeping and collecting rings and ended up with a bruised thumb), Civilisation II and last but not least Counterstrike - I play lots of other shooters but always come back to CS, the most addictive game I've ever played.

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 09:48 (twenty-two years ago)

A friend basically destroyed his college career over nethack.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 09:50 (twenty-two years ago)

I know for a fact that I'm not the only ILXOR to have had Tetris nightmares for large chunks of my adolescent years.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 12:23 (twenty-two years ago)

It was a game that taught us all a thing or two about life. It handily beat The Bomb as nightmare-fodder, as that can only fall once.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 12:27 (twenty-two years ago)

I remember when Gameboys first really hit it big there was a story in the press about a guy claiming Tetris was costing him his sanity. After playing it pretty much constantly for weeks at a time he said he started seeing his girlfriend, parents, exams, friends, etc. as simply different shaped pieces that he had to manipulate into a perfect life.
What worried me was that this made perfect sense :-/

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 12:35 (twenty-two years ago)

I used to dream about Tetris. I took this as a sign I was probably playing it a bit too much.

― aldo_cowpat (aldo_cowpat), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 12:40 (twenty-two years ago)

i used to have DOOM dreams. they were weird.

― g-kit (g-kit), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 12:44 (twenty-two years ago)

i never game so maybe shouldn't be on this thread. but feh i'm too intrigued. i always wonder how people don't go gaga (=> headache/staying *in the game* after they stopped). i have dreamed about tetris/boxikon, it was horrendous.

― jesus nathalie (nathalie), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 12:46 (twenty-two years ago)

the weirdest are when you lie down and close your eyes and all you can see is irrigated land

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 20:37 (twenty-two years ago)

yay! Civ dreams!

― Kingfish of Burma (Kingfish), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 21:05 (twenty-two years ago)

last but not least Counterstrike

I was never particularly into CS, but I did spend A LOT of time playing old school deathmatch Half-Life online back in the day.

― martin m. (mushrush), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 21:11 (twenty-two years ago)

Andrew, did he ascend in the end?

― Gregory Henry (Gregory Henry), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 21:37 (twenty-two years ago)

Only in the vaguest sense.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Wednesday, 16 June 2004 22:25 (twenty-two years ago)

I've never been much into computer or video games, due to the fact that I haven't owned a computer nor a console since the days of Commodore 64 (I use the university computers to post to ILX). But, as a teenager, me and my friends spend several weekends when we would pretty much do nothing else than play role-playing games (Cyberpunk 2020 mostly), except that we had to eat and sleep obviously. Actually, sleeping wasn't that mandatory...

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 17 June 2004 12:24 (twenty-two years ago)

I was a snood addict too. And a wimple junkie? And a merkin craver?

― Skottie, Thursday, 17 June 2004 14:07 (twenty-two years ago)

i don't have to be at work 'til monday.

I WILL FINALLY BEAT KOTOR THIS WEEKEND IF IT KILLS ME

― Kingfish of Burma (Kingfish), Friday, 18 June 2004 04:48 (twenty-one years ago)

The answer is in the title: many long days of Marathon.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Friday, 18 June 2004 07:51 (twenty-one years ago)

Your next handle should be KingfishKitty.

― Leeefuse 73 (Leee), Friday, 18 June 2004 19:44 (twenty-one years ago)

hush, you

― Kingfish of Burma (Kingfish), Saturday, 19 June 2004 17:36 (twenty-one years ago)

the weirdest are when you lie down and close your eyes and all you can see is irrigated land

!!! haha

― cozen (Cozen), Saturday, 19 June 2004 17:39 (twenty-one years ago)

okay, it's a 3 day weekend coming up(due to getting the 5th of july off), and, if my copy of _Jedi Academy_ comes in the mail from eBay, i don't plan to do a goddamn thing for 72 hours except to lop off heads with a double-bladed green lightsaber.

i have been to the top of the mountain...and it is good.

― Kingfish of Burma (Kingfish), Thursday, 1 July 2004 21:02 (twenty-one years ago)

four years pass...

Has anyone else noticed that the longer you play a game the more it's faults and glitches become acceptable and somehow part of the gameplay?

(for the thread record i did just over 20 hours on my first trip to GTA4)

― Ant Attack.. (Ste), Monday, 24 November 2008 11:59 (seventeen years ago)

Script/Gameplay of game in yr head vs reality of gameplay is a good potential thread.

― Me and Ruth Lorenzo, Rollin' in the Benzo (Noodle Vague), Monday, 24 November 2008 12:00 (seventeen years ago)

yes i was thinking of starting a new thread about it, but i reckon someone here with more 'literate' sense would do a better job of it than myself.

― Ant Attack.. (Ste), Monday, 24 November 2008 12:01 (seventeen years ago)

Every time Ultimate put out a new game or a new Jet Set Willy variant came out, they would suck up whole weekends.
Especially when Knight Lore and Underwurlde came out at the same time, that was killer, I'd say at least 10 straight
hours on each, depending on crashes/overheating.