Longest Video Game Ever?

[bdshort]

I've been impressed with how long it's taking me to make my way through Fallout 3, while still holding my rapt attention, and that made me wonder what the longest video game ever is. Discounting MMORPGs that don't really end, and old school arcade games that just keep going on and on, what games have taken the longest amount of time to complete the main storyline/quest/whatever? I think Fallout 3 will take me right around 100 hours but I've spent a lot of time just exploring while not actually doing any of the quests. I have Oblivion, and may complete that some day. I know it doesn't really end even when you finish the main storyline, but there still has to be a point where you've completed all the quests and explored everything. I wonder how long that would take... I think I remember reading some reviews for some old school RPGs that took 200-300 hours to complete everything.

edit: Also, to keep things a bit simpler, maybe restrict this to complete the portion of games with a traditional plot, but not the time it takes to get all of the achievements or trophies in the multiplayer portions of action games, or 100% completion in something like Gran Turismo.

[Deftones]

i think FF7 could've been a 100+ game if you did everything.

[Drexl]

There was an unreleased game for Sega CD (Penn & Teller's Smoke and Mirrors) that would probably feel like the longest. From Wikipedia:

Desert Bus is the best known minigame in the package, and was a featured part of Electronic Gaming Monthly's preview. The objective of the game is to drive a bus from Tucson, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada in real time at a maximum speed of 45mph, a feat that would take the player 8 hours of continuous play to complete, as the game cannot be paused.

The bus contains no passengers, and there is no scenery or other cars on the road. The bus veers to the right slightly; as a result, it is impossible to tape down a button to go do something else and have the game end properly. If the bus veers off the road it will stall and be towed back to Tucson, also in real time. If the player makes it to Las Vegas, they will score exactly one point. The player then gets the option to make the return trip to Tucson—for another point (a decision they must make in a few seconds or the game ends).

[Chris_D]

I'm nearly 90 hours into Tales of Vesperia. Persona 3 plus FES could be pretty long too I think.

[james2025a]

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has to be one of them. On my first game i clocked in over 200 hours on the game and had still not completed everything. I guess it also depends on how well you play the game.

[Raul3]

I guess Fallout 3 will be *my* game too. At least for the main story, offline. I know I've spent a lot of hours with Halo, Halo 3, Gears 1, etc.

[edstein]

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has to be one of them. On my first game i clocked in over 200 hours on the game and had still not completed everything. I guess it also depends on how well you play the game.

This is the game I have spent the most time with. I logged a 100 hours and still had quite few quests to do.

[noonan4224]

My final save on FFXII was at 136 hours. I also put in over 200 into both Obivion and Morrowind. Fallout almost seemed like a demo compared to the length of Bethesda's other games.

[McHawkson]

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has to be one of them. On my first game i clocked in over 200 hours on the game and had still not completed everything. I guess it also depends on how well you play the game.

I've completed Oblivion three times and the average is about 140 hours.

There's another game that can take 100+ hours: Fable II

I would like to try out Fallout 3...

[RockyMtnBri]

Wow.

Growing up in the era of 2 minute and 36 second games (old Atari cartridges were programmed like that) it's amazing now how much more game time there is nowadays! I'm a quick-fix type of gamer myself, and I guess that's why I like platformers and staged games where I can get in, get to a certain goal, and take a break. All that being said, wouldn't flight simulators kinda fit in this category?

[shumway]

Dragon Warrior VII on PSOne took me somewhere in the realm of 130 - 140 hours, I don't remember the exact number.

[nemein]

So do these games really keep people's interest that long or is it more a matter of "I've invested this much time I'm going to finish it" sort of thing? I have to say the longest I've ever played was the Star Wars one from a couple of years back (drawing a blank on the name now... Old Republic or something like that). That clocked in at over 50, probably would have been longer but after about 30 I dug up a script/walk through and followed that.

[orangecrush]

And here I thought my recent 60+ spent on Jean D'Arc was a lot :(

[redbill]

I'm having nasty flashbacks to the ammount of time I sank into Phastasy Star on sega master system... Ultima 5 had some length too..

[shumway]

So do these games really keep people's interest that long or is it more a matter of "I've invested this much time I'm going to finish it" sort of thing? I have to say the longest I've ever played was the Star Wars one from a couple of years back (drawing a blank on the name now... Old Republic or something like that). That clocked in at over 50, probably would have been longer but after about 30 I dug up a script/walk through and followed that.

Part of DW7 did grow into tedium but I did want to make it through and was still interested in finishing. It wasn't a case where I was just not going to stop because of how long I had played no matter what. I genuinely wanted to finish.

[rabbit77]

What about World of Warcraft? I know it's open ended, but don't some people spend their time 24/7 on that game?

[McHawkson]

So do these games really keep people's interest that long or is it more a matter of "I've invested this much time I'm going to finish it" sort of thing? I have to say the longest I've ever played was the Star Wars one from a couple of years back (drawing a blank on the name now... Old Republic or something like that). That clocked in at over 50, probably would have been longer but after about 30 I dug up a script/walk through and followed that.

Knight of the Old Republic?

[sauce07]

The first thing I thought of was the Penn & Teller game, one day i'll find it and complete the round trip.

[nemein]

Knight of the Old Republic?

That's the one.

[fujishig]

I think most of the "old school" rpgs vastly inflated their playtime by making it absolutely necessary to grind... it's VERY evident when you play the GBA remake of Dragon Warrior 1 and see how short the game really is without having to grind so much. Of course, most modern rpgs still force you to grind (especially MMORPGs) but they've gotten a lot better.

As a kid, I remember staying up for days at a time getting to the end of Phantasy Star 2 (for Genesis)... and that was with the included hintbook, I'm not sure how long it would've taken me if I didn't have that. At the time, it was the most time I'd ever invested in a game.

I get a little overwhelmed by the sandbox-type games like GTA or Oblivion... without a clear direction of where to go, I usually get lost in the side quests. I find that a similar thing happens with JRPGs, when you inevitably get to the point where the world opens up and it's the last chance you have to level up and finish side quests before the last boss.

There are also those games that just seem like they take an eternity.... I gave up on FFVIII because the Summons that you have to level up are non-skippable. Also, I always mean to go back to both Xenogears and Xenosaga, but both have eternally long cutscenes (Xenogears is mostly text).

[superfro]

For me it's been RPGs mostly, of course. The various Final Fantasy games, Oblivion, and now Fallout 3. The only non RPG games that have ever gotten close to those would probably be the GTA games and Guitar Hero/Rock Band.

[Rob V]

The first thing I thought of was the Penn & Teller game, one day i'll find it and complete the round trip.


Why?

[slop101]

The longest non-RPG action game has to be Okami.

[jdpatri]

I'm having nasty flashbacks to the ammount of time I sank into Phastasy Star on sega master system... Ultima 5 had some length too..

Cripes. Ultima 5. I thought that game would never end. Also, not coincidentally, the last Ultima game I played.

[Breakfast with Girls]

Cripes. Ultima 5. I thought that game would never end. Also, not coincidentally, the last Ultima game I played.But Ultima VII was so good. :(

[bdshort]

I had Ultima VII and VIII but I don't think I ever finished either of them.

That bus minigame in the pen and teller thing sounds brutal! On the other hand, I've thought it would be sort of cool if there was a driving simulator sort of like MS Flight Sim, but covering the 4 million or so miles of road in the US... that would be a hell of a lot of modeling though so I'm sure we won't ever see anything that extensive.

[The Bus]

So do these games really keep people's interest that long or is it more a matter of "I've invested this much time I'm going to finish it" sort of thing? I have to say the longest I've ever played was the Star Wars one from a couple of years back (drawing a blank on the name now... Old Republic or something like that). That clocked in at over 50, probably would have been longer but after about 30 I dug up a script/walk through and followed that.

I'd play it more if I could. Once I hit 90 hours on Oblivion I started relying on walkthroughs (mostly just for the last part of the Thief quest).

It still took me over 120 hours to finish. I just wanted to be done so I could get my life back.

[Dean Kousoulas]

Hearing some of these responses is amazing. I could never see myself devoting 50, let alone 100+ hours on a game without getting bored, or crazy. I guess I just like playing so many...as soon as I beat one I move onto another.

[dtcarson]

Most for me was Final Fantasy Tactics on PS1. Easily 120-140 hours, just battling and building up characters to get the classes and skills I wanted.....then I beat it and played it again.
However...I can't do that anymore. I just don't have the time, and I honestly am ready to move on to something new around 35-40 hours (less if the game sucks). There are only a few games I wished were longer (ie, had more of the same quality of content) once I beat them (admittedly I don't beat many games): the Ratchet and Clank games on PS2, Bioshock. And there are many that once I hit ~30 hours, I'm ready for it to be done (or I move on). Not that they're bad, I just want a new experience.
It's funny, in the back of my head when I read game reviews is "Hows the replayability?" Then I think about it and admit to myself "It doesn't really matter, you will never replay it" (except for games like Rock Band or short multiplayer things like Scene It.)
Good point about nonskippable cutscenes and grinding and fetchquests...all of those do artificially jack up playtime, and purposefully jack up annoyance factor. I don't mind fetch quests, if they're fun or funny or beneficial, but I do mind lots of backtracking. As much as I like RPGs I think all of them should have some item or skill (maybe later in the game) that lowers or eliminates random encounters, especially in complicated mazes....I hate trying to figure out a maze or a "flip this switch then this one" and getting interrupted by a baddie every fourteen steps....then the fight is so long I forget where I was going or what I was doing.

[tanman]

Doesn't really count in terms of a main quest
196 hours in Advance Wars Dual Strike: of course they count how long the game has been on and I think that includes my brother going through the campaign. Still counts as over 150+ hours

Countless hours - AW1 and AW2 I actually checked and they don't count the hours unfortunately

Countless hours - Animal Crossing.

[Drexl]

I don't think this really counts, but I imagine that playing a baseball game franchise mode to completion would take a while, if you don't get sick of it. I'm not sure how long a game takes, but if it's about half an hour, that would be more than 80 hours per season, plus playoffs and time spent fidding with your rosters and other stuff.

[Michael Corvin]

I think 60-70 is my limit on single player experiences. All the following fall into that range from this gen:

Viva Pinata
Burnout Revenge
Okami (Wii)
Dead Rising
Pac-Man: CE
Geometry Wars 2: Pacifism
Crackdown (probably, since 360voice tells me I've played it on 44 days)

Then of course, there are the oddballs like GHIII, RB1 & RB2 in which 60 hours is a drop in the bucket. Those would probably fall into a different category though.

[CPA-ESQ.]

I would say FF7 for me.

I remember being off for 2 weeks and playing that dammn game from the time I woke up until 1am.

I would say that it took over 100hrs easily - but I was trying to get everything (golden chuco or what ever that thing was)

[harrydoyle]

Most for me was Final Fantasy Tactics on PS1. Easily 120-140 hours, just battling and building up characters to get the classes and skills I wanted.....then I beat it and played it again.

It was a long game because each battle took so long to finish, not paying attention could get you killed. I loved every second of it though.

Have you played Disgaea? It's basically the same concept except they had this thing where you could get chances to better you characters by having an in-game feature where you could start the game over again with the same items (but starting from lvl 1). Great game but took forever to get anywhere!

[dtcarson]

I did try Disgaea, I couldn't get into it. I don't know if the character classes didn't stand out enough for me (my problem with Suikoden Tactics), or if it was just *too* big (hundred floor dungeons in *each* weapon?!) or what, but it didn't click.
My all time favorite SRPGs are Shining Force (this one actually got me back into gaming in the Gen gen), FFT, and HoMM3: SoD/complete.
Vandal Hearts 1 and 2 are probably second.

[Tarantino]

I just beat Fallout 3 and logged about 30-35 hours. That has to be my longest single player experience (as I don't really play RPG/fantasy games).

I was surprised that it kept my interest the entire time.

= J

[Tuan Jim]

Haven't finished Fallout 3 yet, but Morrowind on Xbox kept me going over a hundred hours for the first time through.

Can't remember how long I spent on Fallout 1/2 the first time I played them.

[sauce07]

Why?

Because it just seems like the most tidious, boring thing possible and in return it would make a funny 5 minute story to show people how big of a loser I am.