The Binding of Isaac

I’m approaching a thousand hours in Elite Dangerous. Quoting myself from a week or two ago:

It’s different to most other games, by not being goal-oriented except for the goals you set for yourself. No main quest line dictating progress. No mandatory tasks. No win condition. Instead, it drops you into a simulation of our entire galaxy roughly 1300 years in the future, where humanity has mastered hyperspace travel and spread through hundreds of star systems.

(To give an idea of the simulation’s scope: Around 85 million systems have been recorded by players so far, and those are a vanishingly small fraction of what’s out there. Space is big.)

I like that it offers a variety of activities to fit whatever mood I might be in on a given day. I can hunt pirates, mine asteroids, engage in a bit of piracy myself, find and collect bio samples, infiltrate rival settlements, venture into vast unexplored areas of space, discover Earth-like worlds that nobody has ever encountered before, defend humanity against hostile forces, photograph beautiful stellar phenomena, rescue stranded survivors, customize and finely tune my ship to perform beyond its original specs, team up with friends, pledge to a political power and expand their influence, or chill out as a space trucker and haul cargo to earn enough money for my next upgrade. It can occupy all my attention, or just be relaxing entertainment while I listen to music or an audiobook.

It’s an MMO in the sense of having a large game world (galaxy) shared by all players in real time, but PvP is optional. One mode exposes you to other players, while another limits you to NPC encounters. You can switch between them at will.

One warning: A space ship has more than a few controls to learn, and they’re better suited to a game controller or HOTAS than a keyboard and mouse. I use button combinations for almost everything beyond basic flight controls, since there aren’t enough buttons on a controller for everything.

Warframe, by a big margin.

Factorio.

EverQuest was my jam back in the day. It ruined highschool for me. Nearly 5 straight years of farming and raids.

I wouldn’t do anything different though. I met some awesome people that got me through the awkward years of high school when the internet was still somewhat new.

My most played game is hands down: Borderlands 2.
995h in it!

Dayz, 3500hrs and still ticking.

Probably League of Legends, I don‘t know how to check how many and don‘t really care, but I‘d be surprised if I hadn‘t spent more than in Rocket League which clocks in at 1100 hours. I don‘t play much of either anymore though. Counterstrike 1.6 is at 400 hours but that‘s gotta be a lie and way more as well lol

Final Fantasy XI. Something like 400-500 days, so roughly 10k hours. Though I haven’t seriously played since 2011.

Team Fortress 2

World of Warcraft - over 11k hrs

Guild Wars 2 - over 5k hrs

Warframe - 2200 hrs

Minecraft - who knows… a lot

Civilisation, the original one. Got it in the 90s, and none of my computers was without it. Even now I sometimes launch it for a guick, half-day game.

I’m sure other Microprose games from that era, in particular UFO: Enemy Unknown, are on my top 10 most played games.

From modern games, I probably spent the most time playing Civ4 and Heroes of Might and Magic 3.

Planetside 2, Arma 3, and X4 Foundations.

Overall? Probably Unreal Tournament (1999). That was when I was at the peak of my gaming time and I would play for hours most weeks and played that basically for a solid decade.

In the modern era? Warframe which Steam says I have over 700 hours in.

That’s a though one… there are more games in my library that I haven’t played than ones I did.

Maybe Fallout or Neverwinter Nights. Or Silent Storm.

Yes, I’m old. And waiting for my retirement to play all of those I haven’t tried yet.