Death by binge gaming - The Bear and Badger

James

Eurogamer published an interesting article on recent phenomenon of Taiwanese internet cafe fatalities yesterday.

linky

The interviews suggest that customers are regularly playing for several days straight. One cafe owner thought she was being responsible by limiting gamers to a maximun of 3 days!

This got me thinking about my gaming habbits. These days I very rarely exceed 2-3 hours and often not even that. The only longish sessions I can think of in recent years were 7-8 hour long, red bull fueled Bad Company 2 binges on xbox live with a mate when it first came out. And it's probably been 2 years since then.

But my most impressive/shameful would have to be the first time I played FFVII. My mate lent me his PS1 (I was a devout Saturn owner) and I popped it on to have a go on a Sat morning. 19 hours later I finally gave in to fatigue and slept for 4-5 hours and promptly booted it back up again for another 15 hours!

What were you guys/girls longest sessions?

Does anybody on here still play like that now?

Moot_Geeza

I'm pretty much the same as you (even down to the devout Saturn owner/FFVII binges...mooching around Midgar was far more important than my mock GCSE's). My last prolonged gaming sessions were on the Dreamcast I think; Ecco: Defender of the Future was polished off in a day and a morning. These days I find myself clockwatching after an hour when playing story based games, even when enjoying them tbh, though when fully sucked into Trials or Super Meat Boy I have been known to play for three hours straight. Gaming fatige doesn't seem to set on for me with stop/start games.

Rev

I did 12 hour shifts when I was younger and had more time. Would play ea hockey and madden on the megadrive.
Recently stuck a good 8 hours into dark souls when I was off sick.
took my mind off my back and made a painful day bearable. I could see me happily on the ps3 playing different stuff for hours but not days.

Rev

Like moot said, the games you can switch off at anytime and go back to have never meant I have had to play just to get to a check point.

Yossarian

I reckon I did a few 16 hour stints on Halo back in the day. I think I only ended up eating twice a day as well.

Diluted Dante

Whenever I've had huge sessions on a game I've always been eating. Usually I bring a couple of cartons of orange juice in and nip into the kitchen to make a sandwich or something between rounds if it's online.

I've barely had chance to play for hours at a time recently though.

Jacuzzi_Jackson

I barely play computer games at all now but used to have huge sessions when i was unemployed/student. Must have played Halo 3 online with mates for 8 - 12 hour sessions every day for a month or two after it came out. Also played Oblivion in bed a stupid amount. I had a bong and controller next to my bed, would wake up and boot up Oblivion, smoke a few bongs and just play it all day then go to the pub. I was locked in that routine for far longer than id like to seriously think about.

James

Yossarian wrote:

I reckon I did a few 16 hour stints on Halo back in the day. I think I only ended up eating twice a day as well.

Chris Staniforth died in 2011 after playing Halo for 12 hours...

Jacuzzi_Jackson wrote:

I would wake up and boot up Oblivion, smoke a few bongs and just play it all day then go to the pub.

I imagine adding drugs into the mix increases your risk of DVT etc. Not like that stopped most of us though....

[Deleted User]

September to March is the only time I really play games at all and the most I can take is maybe four hours at a push, but that game needs to be exceptional. Something like Dark Souls or Dead Space.

James

I really must try Dark Souls, I see it's thread has 4k+ posts!

Yossarian

James wrote:

Yossarian wrote:

I reckon I did a few 16 hour stints on Halo back in the day. I think I only ended up eating twice a day as well.

Chris Staniforth died in 2011 after playing Halo for 12 hours...

There mus be more to it than the Halo. Sitting and staring at a screen for 12 hours whilst only moving your hands may not be very healthy but I highly doubt it's life-threatening on its own, otherwise we'd be hearing of a lot more deaths of students, secretaries, data inputters and the like.

Tempy

I can play for an obscene amount of time if the mood takes me, it rarely does though. Start of this year I barely played anything, sometimes I play every night of the week (rather rare these days).

When I play I don't need food though, but that's the same whatever i'm doing. If i'm watching films, reding, playing music, whatever, I won't eat unless someone puts it in front of me.

[Deleted User]

James wrote:

I really must try Dark Souls, I see it's thread has 4k+ posts!

I see you've got a PS3, Demon's is great. I prefer it. Dark Souls is leaner and meaner, but Demon's has some of the most atmospheric levels in anything I've ever played. Anyway, that's for another thread.

fullspectrum

I can do 8-10 hours of Dark Souls on a Sunday when Nicki's sometimes out. I make a baguette the size of the whole baguette (usually mushrooms, bacon, cheese, tomato), settle into my massive corner sofa and get on with it.

Street Fighter is different, I find it mentally draining and the stick-manipulation requires sharp physical inputs. Over long periods it's a killer, unless you're in the zone. I tend to drink a lot when I play it - either washing away bad mistakes or celebrating a clutch victory. Either way it ends the same, a hazy underperformance and the feeling of being an idiot. The less SF I play the less I drink, so have been trying to cut it out.

Tempy

Have you finished DS in a day yet? I've been meaning to give it a go.

fullspectrum

Easily doable, but not yet.

Tempy

Not sure I'm good enough personally.

Jacuzzi_Jackson

I never neglect food and drink if i'm playing games. I do this when recording music though, i have to tear myself away to feed myself.

hylian_elf

I play for an hour or so here and there if I can. Weekends, a couple to a few hours if I'm lucky.Â

Longest straight session was on Secret of Mana for 13 hours. Stopped playing only cos the game crashed. (Just as the Emperor was revealed to have been killed by Sheex and Fanha, I think.)

Little Franklin

I would often loose whole days to TF2, deciding I'd had enough as late as 4am. I suspect I still could if I had nothing else to do. Don't usually play anything on days I'm working.

Sometimes if I'm really into a game I will tend to hold off going to the toilet for hours until I can barely hold it in.

Bollockoff

I experienced this last night actually while playing FTL. Started at 11 pm and suddenly it was 3 am can't remember how I got there.

Eurogamer wrote:

On 1st February 2012, Chen Rong-Yu's time was up

Hahahahaha.

Little Franklin

Yeah I did that on Monday, and was almost late for work this morning thinking I could squeeze in a quick round of FTL.

Actually TF2 seems to have a natural cut off, at some point in the night fatigue stupidity kicks in and everyone just runs round taunting each other instead of trying to win.

RamSteelwood

when Ocarina of Time came out, i got it home in the afternoon, started playing it and then next thing i realised it was 6am when I heard my mam getting up for work! Â i think i went to bed for a few hours then carried on playing, and polished the game off within a week. Â that was probably my last great gaming marathon.
in recent years my gaming time is much reduced and when i do play i try to keep to sensible hours, though me and a couple of mates did have a couple of multiplayer civ3 games that ran into the small hours, including one hilarious occassion where one mate actually fell asleep at his desk and we could hear him snoring over steam chat...

davyK

An hour or two is enough for me - I may have played for longer when I was younger but I can't really remember many details.

I can remember marathon multi-player sessions with Asteroids and Decathlon on the old 2600. Megamania on the 2600 ends when you roll the score over (1 million) - that must have taken a least 2 hours I guess.

SMB3 on the NES - I finished that in one sitting (no warps) on a Saturday must have been back in 1991-2 That took about 7 hours and I felt slightly ashamed of the waste of time.

I need multi-player to keep going now - has to be same room too. A good time trial or score attack mode will keep me interested too if I'm solo- they can be quite a time warp - but really a couple of hours is a luxury that if I'm honest I can ill afford to have regularly but if its spent gaming with the kids (who are now teens and usually win) then I don't feel nearly as guilty.

Little Franklin

Vice City and C&C: Tiberian Sun are two I remember playing into stupid hours of the morning. Seems strange that I don't remember doing it with any of the Final Fantasy's

Dubs

Probably did a few 14 hour Halo 3 sessions.Â Rumble Pit non-stop all day.Â A full run of Heroic campaign on release day as well.Â Briefly stopping for meals and such, I'm not completely mental.

Dark Souls can still devour whole weekends.Â A one-day run is indeed easily doable, I sort of did it at SL1 the other day.Â Not a full beginning to end, but a middle, to end, to middle again.

fullspectrum

Is that when I was failing to summon you? Sorry 'bout that.

Dubs

No problem, you'll no doubt feel better for doing it alone.
That was my starting point, yes.Â Just had a couple of Lords left and then charged through NG++++ wearing the Ring of Fog.

Subbax

I'll easily plow a good few hours when the lady is working overnight. Decent games help for total immersion and time slip.

JonB

I suppose I've played games most of the day before, but not for years, and never without stopping to do other things every couple of hours or so. It'd be more like deciding to stop after a while because I've got better things to do, and then after an hour or so getting dragged back in again. By my current standards, I played Dark Souls a lot when I got it - averaging about 3 hours a day for the first couple of weeks.

fullspectrum

I don't see you in that thread no more Jon, so I'll take this opportunity to tell you I beat 4K solo at SL1!

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