What's the Most Addictive Game You've Ever Played?

[Ostrog]

Space Invaders and Volfied are the games I always seem to come back to, but Killer7 and the Chikyu Boeigun games kept me gripped from the moment I started playing them. Onimusha had a similar effect, but I stopped playing it for some inexplicable reason. That happens to most of the games I play; they devour all my spare time up to a point and then I leave them alone for a while. When I return to them the obsession starts up again.

[Ady]

In terms of the whole 'Just one more go...' thing, latterly, the likes of Zoo Keeper and now Meteos and Ouendan have been keeping me glued to my DS.

The original Wario Ware on the GBA had the same effect.

Handheld games... so simple, yet so maddeningly addictive. Should carry government health warnings, tbh.

[SubparMario]

Has to be World of Warcraft by a mile. Most console games I buy probably don't get played for more than 10 hours total, ever. I can clock up 10 hours of WOW in a single day. I wouldn't class it as a kind of sinister addiction though, it's just a brilliant game to play. Beats watching movies or rubbish on TV

[Leon Retro]

Super Mario Kart: 2-Player races and the battle mode must have taken years of my life- amazingly addictive!

[Daragon]

Star Wars Galaxies for me probably, picked it up just after launch back in June 2003. Been a part of it for each month subsequently up to this day. Mastered near enough every profession and got myself a Jedi.
Closely followed by FFXI which I joined in Jan 2004. Also been a part of that for each month subsequently up to this day.

I spend FAR too much money on gaming

[optimusrhymes]

Double Dragon, Operation Wolf and the original Star Wars Arcade ate all my pocket money as a young whippersnapper!

[60-hz]

The SFII series

[gizmo1990]

You lot and your new games!

Turrican 1/2 and Rick Dangerous 1/2 did it for me. I was entralled.

Oh and Elite on my trusty Amstrad 464
The chap who played Frontier earlier must a complete nut, that game was awful.

The only game recently I would term as addictive for myself, Meteos.

[erhgiez]

Xenogears - I used to get up 3 hours before I had to go to school to play this when it came out....ahh good times

[krispyk]

God knows why but I spent hours playing Mega Man on the NES when it first came out...

In more recent years I would have to say that a considerable amount of my gaming time has gone to Advance Wars on the GBA

[Molloy]

Total Annihilation. I've had the game for going on 8 years now. And for the last 6 years I've played it obsessively online. It just never gets old. Unlike CnC you have in infinite resource model, and you can build structures anywhere you like. With such a degree of freedom no two games are ever alike. It also emphases the macro over the micro; it's not about how fast you can click (although that certainly helps) but your overall strategic decisions.

Any units/buildings that you don't use you can reclaim and use to build other ones. If an enemy recklessly throws an army at you you can suck up all the wreckage and use that to fund a counter attack. The skills the good players have developed over the years are astonishing as well. All the weapons have a proper physics system (unlike Star Craft where when a unit shoots it always hits) so if you can find the time to control critical units personally, you can pull off really crazy manoevers; freedom fighter dogfights, intricate bombing runs taking out multiple targets in one pass, nano-blocking to shield critical targets. You don't want to get obsessed with the details but the pro's usually find the time for a little unit control showboating.

It's such a flexible game, the only limit to what you can do is your imagination. I'm dying to play TA's spiritual successor Supreme Commander, but even if it doesn't come up trumps I'll still enjoy Total Annihilation for many years to come.

Other than that I could play Bomb Jack and Robotron quite happily for the rest of my days. Must buy a bloody arcade cabinet one of these days.

[Riskbreaker]

World of Warcraft - My sleep is getting an absolute kicking by this game

Phantasy Star Online DC - The GC, XB and PC versions were addictive, but none as much as when the game was first released.

Quake 3 - I lived and breathed this when it was first released and it's been installed on every PC since release day. I'm pretty sure alot of the time was spent trying to squeeze as much performance out of a 56k modem as possible, but it was more than worth it. Even if it doesn't get played for absolutely ages I make sure I copy across all the mods, skins, models and game mods to each PC just in case. It just wouldn't be right otherwise, I just haven't got the heart to say goodbye to it.

Monster Hunter - PSO with less players, which is a crime because its the better game.

[Kubrick]

Recent games I've found to be extremely compulsive:

Football Manager 2005
Lumines
Star Soldier (PSP) - 2min mode

[Uli]

Crazy Kong (Arcade) - ate all my pocket money!

Bounty Bob strikes back (Atari ST) - still play it emulated from time to time - great stuff!

The Super Shinobi (Mega Drive) - worth a visit for the music alone

Metal Gear Solid (PS->DC->GC) - the story sucked me in every time

Gran Turismo 2 (PS, Bleemcast) - still the best racing game for me

Halo - probably my most played game of all time! i'd pay lots of money for an update which let's you play coop over System link or Xbox Live!

[Lyris]

Phantasy Star Online and Halo 2 on Xlink.