Do you get addicted to video games? Are there some that you still can beat with your eyes closed? I spent a good three months of my life trying to beat Super Mario Brothers 2.

I felt like a member of Mensa when I beat Myst.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 1999

Answers

A couple of years back I was flatting with my little sister and her then fiance (now husband). He was a Playstation freak. He had every game under the sun, and could frequently be found with a gang of little friends, ogling Lara Croft's finer points ...

'Yay! We did well! Lara gave us ... a butt shot!'

My little sister and I favoured Doom (nothing beats it if you fancy just shooting the shit out of everything that moves) and Crash Bandicoot (nothing beats it if you find small furry creatures wearing jeans and trainers amusing).

I miss the Playstation - Tristan and I have been meaning to get one for ages, and I think that by the end of summer we'll have to make the purchase. I can't get through another winter without a bit of Crash action.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 1999

I have a bad habit of not finishing games that I buy, which is annoying. In fact, I don't remember the last time I finished a game. That goes for everything from Myst to Metal Gear Solid. Metal Gear Solid was fantastic, and I got like halfway through it and then some other stuff came up and I haven't touched it since.

I bought Grim Fandango, which is OUTSTANDING, but again, never got a chance to finish it. I think there's something in me with a really short attention span. I'll say, "oh okay, that's what this game is," and then move on to somethign else.

My brother, on the other hand beats EVERYTHING. He beat Final Fantasy VII, which I thought was damn near impossible. I never even got past the first of the three CDs.

Sigh... I'm just a video game slacker.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 1999

Ahh, the evenings spent watching Eric beat Metal Gear Solid. Then the days spent watching his brother try and beat it...

"SNAKE! SNAAAAAKE!"

-- Anonymous, July 14, 1999

I am totally addicted to video games. I go through periods where I won't play for awhile, but when I do - it's non-stop.

I've actually spent my last money for the week on video games. Very sad.

There were times that I had plans to go out, but canceled because I was trying to get a gold Chocobo (Final Fantasy VII). When I was supposed to be looking for an apartment, instead I was over at my (ex) boyfriend's helping rooting him on while he searched for bullets in Resident Evil 2. I've actually called in sick at work because I couldn't wait until I got home to get out of the elementary school in Silent Hill (by the way, Pamie, you really do need that bottle of fluid).

When I die, I want to be buried with my Playstation!

-- Anonymous, July 14, 1999

Oh, sweet lord.

First Person Shooters: Wolfenstein, Doom, Doom II, Quake, Quake II, Unreal, Shogo-Mobile Armor Division, Requiem, Sin, Half-Life, Half- Life with the Team Fortress add-on, Quake III, Jedi Knight:Dark Forces, Jedi Knight:Mystery of the Sith

Real Time Strategy- Command and Conquer, C&C: The Covert Operations, Warcraft, Warcraft II, Command and Conquer: Red Alert, Red Alert: Counter Strike, Starcraft, Starcraft: Brood War, Age of Empires, Close Combat, Total Annihilation.

Flight Sim's: X-Wing, Tie Fighter, Tie Fighter Collector's Edition, X- Wing vs. Tie Fighter, Rogue Squadron, X-Wing:Balance of Power, X-Wing Alliance, Descent, Descent 2, Descent 3, Free Space.

Racing Sim's: Star Wars: Pod Racer, Need for Speed II, Need for Speed III.

Adventure Games: Myst, Seventh Guest, Seventh Guest: The 11th Hour, Obsidian, Kings Quest 1-6, Gabriel Knight 1-4,

Role Playing Games: Diablo, Baldur's Gate, BG: Tales of the Sword Coast, Fallout, Fallout II,

Playstation: FFVII, Resident Evil, REII, Parasite Eve

Games Coming out that I must have: Diablo 2 Revenant Command an Conquer: Tiberium Sun Daikatana Force Commander FF VIII

I am currently seeking a 527 step program.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 1999

I don't know if any of you play Ultima Online, but Eric is the voice of the villan in an upcoming release.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 1999

Wow, two posts in two days. . . a new record for me. Anyway, the video games are so addicting!! I never had SNES or anything like that growing up, and ever since I got a Playstation last summer, its like I'm making up for lost time or something. I can't tell you how many nights of studying I blew off last year. When I got Metal Gear, I was obsessed. As Pamie and Eric know, I even brought it on vacation, and had to go out and get a new memory card to save my progress (damn Psycho Mantis!!). So yeh, now I'm addicted to RE2. Dad's actually getting a little upset with me about it. But those clickers in the lab, they keep getting me!! I must kill them! I also get really addicted to sports games. Especially NHL 98, and NFL Blitz. I've played two full seasons of NHL, and at least two seasons, plus the whole arcade mode of Blitz. And my defense still sucks. Figure that one out. My next plan is to get others addicted with me. I think it can work. I can just see me and Dad trying to beat each other in Gran Turismo (perhaps the greatest racing simulator ever). With knee surgery making my summer very long, I can see that I will need to get some new games to get addicted to. Besides Silent Hill, does anyone have any other suggestions?

-- Anonymous, July 14, 1999

I'm addicted to really really stupid wussy games.
The more stupid and the more embarrassing they are, the more I'll play just to see how weak the game will actually get.
So that means no Doom, RE2, etc. but I'll play Frogger, that game where i'm a chef and i have to make hamburgers before this big evil pickle eats me (whatever it was called), & Bobble Bubble all day.
My ex-roomate installed a M.A.M.E. on his computer and downloaded all these "old school" video games (space invaders, pac man, pitfall, etc.) and one of them was Bobble Bubble.
I don't know who i am in the game, why i can float on bubbles i blow, what it is that I'm eating to get points, how it decides to progress me from one level to another, who the bad monsters are, why i dont like them, when i can eat them, or which monsters are more points than others and i dont care
I'd sit there for hours and hours playing this thing simply because it was (and i think still is) the dumbest thing I've ever seen.
I missed work to play Bobble Bubble
It's embarrassing when friends are talking about all these intricate things they did on their games and i'm like,"well, then a blew a bubble and rode it to the top and ate a big cupcake ..." but what can you do?

-- Anonymous, July 14, 1999

yeah i used to play wussy games... like Rugrats (ick) it was cute and fun, but i gave up on it... right now i'm into the 64 thing.. i moved up a notch and i LOVE the smash bros game and i have always LOVED mariokart even befor the 64.. anyway i want the dreamcast SOOO bad but i'm broke :( I hate silent hill cuz it makes me scream out and yell... well actually i hate it and i love it... its weird... but when it comes to those games i'm like omar and i never finish em!

-- Anonymous, July 14, 1999

I got Myst for Christmas one year (for my computer, i've never had a video game, not even an old atari. cry for me, i was a deprived child) i spent my whole week and a half long break playing it and beat it. It was the best...a game i recommend is Legends of Legaia, i've played it on a Playstation, it's neat just for the magic sequences. Be prepared to clock in many hours if you get into it.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 1999

Age of Empires is the poison of choice for me.

I love that game. I love making the little Egyptian or Assyrian or Macedonian dudes chop wood for me and mine gold for me and DIE for me.

Myst and Riven are games that I adore, and I go back again and again to play them and fill my head with eye candy.

At my mom's house is an Atari 2600 with over 100 cartridges to play. YESH.

I also play a good deal of Sim Games, Dope Wars, You Don't Know Jack. Yay for Jellyvision!

-- Anonymous, July 14, 1999

Actually, 'way back in ancient times, when computers were giant boxes filled with vacuum tubes (or, as I tell my kids, back when even radio only came in black and white... or when we only had silent television) kids in my neighborhood spent many hours gathered on front porches playing Monopoly...

So when I grew up and went to college I discovered board games like D-Day and Blitzkrieg... hours and hours and hours...

I'm not a big video game player... when my kids were younger and we would go to ChuckyCheese and they would be playing various video games (like Teenage Mutant Turtles), I would find the single old style pinball game to play...

Enjoyed playing DigDug on old Atari 2600... and one of those Grand Prix racing games... And when my kids got a Nintendo I enjoyed Mario Bros. (although I could not keep up with the kids)... The only game that ever really hooked me in though was Sim City... I can remember turning on the computer early in the morning thinking I would play for a little while before going out for a run and the next thing I knew my daughter would be asking if we were ever going to have lunch today! I must admit that both Sim Tower and Age of Empires look interesting when my kids play them but I've never gotten around to trying them myself.

My youngest (14 yr old) will invite me to play Golden Eye on his Nintendo 64, but that's only so he can use me for target practice ...

I guess I spend most of my computer time (outside of working) doing things like surfing the web, reading journals, writing email, etc. rather than playing games. Maybe it's a generation thing?

-- Anonymous, July 14, 1999

I have played video games for about 20 years now. My personal favorites are any that involve beating up other humans: multiplayer strategy or fighting. Tekken 3, Starcraft, and the Street Fighter series are probably my main drugs of choice. EverQuest has been eating into my spare time as well. My character is as helpful as can be and he does all sorts of good deeds. It's very therapeutic and works out all of my nice tendencies.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 1999

The oldest video gaming system I remember in my house? Odyssey.

Do you remember that? This was a machine that would put an image on your screen (like a maze or a haunted house) and then you'd put cellophane over your television screen and write on the screen with erasable marker and try and get through the maze.

"You kids know nothing about video games. Back in my day we used Seran Wrap and Sharpies and we LIKED IT! WE LOVED IT!"

I remember being very sad when my mother sold the set at a garage sale.

Next we had the mandatory Atari game system, but the power plug kept shorting out and soon we couldn't play anything but Missle Command.

Then my parents tried to find the right computer for me, since I wanted one so badly. We started with the Commodore Vic 20. Remember this machine? Probably not. They stopped making it the day my parents bought it. It used to play games with cassettes that you would put in a tape deck that attached to the keyboard. It also had cartridges-- much bigger than Atari-- where you would have to literally slam them into the keyboard. You'd just hit the shit out of those cartridges so they'd go far enough into the machine to play. It only did role playing games, like "Which direction do you want to go next? N,S,SW,NW,E"

After we couldn't buy anything else for that machine, my parents bought my first home computer: The Atari 500. This was basically a glorified word processor. It was the first computer I'd ever seen with diskettes. We had like, three games for the machine-- Winter Olympics, Test Drive (a racing simulator), and some role playing game I can't remember. That was about it, because right after my kiss-of-computer-death parents bought the machine, they stopped making them. Seems Tandy had a better product.

After that I didn't get another computer until I bought one myself. My parents had one when I was in high school but I was under strict orders not to "play around" with it. I guess my BASIC skills made them think I'd get it to say "RAISE PAMIE'S ALLOWANCE" on loop. Oh, the power of "GOTO 10".

-- Anonymous, July 14, 1999

I play a lot of fighting games. I tend to spend most of my weeknights at Einstein's on the drag (yes, I'm from Austin! :D). I'm a big fan of Capcom games, particularly the Street Fighter series. (There's a big tournament in Austin on the 24th, btw.) I play video games a lot on my computer too. I have the Neo Geo emulator and play Magic Drop 2 a lot, it's such an addictive little puzzle game. I went old skool and started playing Dope Wars too. I was hooked on Pokemon for a while but it sort of lost the novelty. I like Japanime/Hentai games too, I'm not a pervert or nothing, but they're usually good RPGs. I played Princess Maker 2 an awful lot when I first got it and now I'm ferverently searching for Princess Maker 1 and 3. That's it', I'm a big immature nerd. Over and out.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 1999

The only two video games I ever got addicted to were arcade games called Super Qix and Marble Madness. I can't stand "killthemkillthemkillthemSPLAT" games that are so popular nowadays, and I don't quite get why "Myst" and all the other games that look like those 3-D stare-at-em-till-your-eyes-dry-out.

Guess I'm just a cynical pacifist. I got kinda hooked by "Parapa the Rapper" on PlayStation, but now it's just collecting dust.

-- Anonymous, July 14, 1999

I love RPG's but they have to stay really interesting. i never finished Breath of Fire 3 because I didn't like that part when I made the shishu or whatever and then i had to go far away across the ocean. That chef-burger game is called Burger Time. Anyone who quit FFVII, HOW COULD YOU??? It is worth every minute spent on it. I had nothing left to do with my life when it was over (or so I felt). The first video game I ever played was Super Mario 1. I beat it about 50 times, but I was pissed. I could never get to Zero World by myself and I could never get the extra lives by repeatedly jumping on the koopa shell or whatever.

-- Anonymous, July 15, 1999

Uh-oh, Pamie, somebody else likes Parapa!

When I was 11, my cousin and I decided we would go for the world's record for the longest game of Asteroids after seeing a re-run of the infamous see-saw episode of the Brady Bunch. We took turns playing for a solid 10 hours before we realized that without anyone from Guiness there we had pretty much wasted an entire day. My brother and I were also monsters at Pitfall, Combat, and Decathalon (that one gave us blisters).

Once I got to college and discovered Playstation (and the weed), my marathon game days were back. I kind of took it as a challenge when we got a new game. My roommate at the time and I would play Doom and its sequels nonstop. After he came up to me on campus, excited about getting to a new level, we decided to make a rule never to discuss video games in public again out of fear that we would become "those guys" --"I finally defeated the orc on the 7th level! You have to use the myrrh!"

I do have to admit to being a fan of games that "have stuff blowed up real good!" (imagine that being said with a severe underbite and a lisp) Twisted Metal was always a fave, but it makes you drive a little aggressively. Metal Gear Solid was fun, but Matt's still pissed that he can't get past Psycho Mantis. Alas, now my Playstation seems to be broken (it doesn't seem to believe that we have a controller plugged into port #1; if anyone knows how to fix this, let me know) so I've been taking a break, much to my girlfriend's delight.

-- Anonymous, July 15, 1999

How could I quit Final Fantasy VII? Easy. The plot got really convoluted towards the end, I got to the beginning of the third disc, died a bunch of times because I didn't have Knights of the Round because I didn't want to raise Chocobos, and said "To hell with *this*!" Xenogears rocked, though. That's probably my favorite PSX RPG right now, although I haven't played Lunar, Star Ocean, or Legend of Legaia yet-- although I did play the demo disc of Legend of Legaia. The battles turned me off on it, though... it seemed like they took a loooonnng time. I also rarely finish video games-- I think the only one I have right now that I've actually beaten is Jumping Flash 2. I've played through a lot of Soul Blade, and Tekken 2 and 3, even though I hate the Tekken series. Lately, thanks to *glances around shiftily* abandonware sites, I've been playing some old-school Computer RPGs. I'm playing Might and Magic II right now.

-- Anonymous, July 15, 1999

Well, the only game that *I* have ever been addicted to, has been MajorMUD - I FINALLY BEAT THE ADDICTION! I've been done for months now! Whooo!

But my fiancee, on the other hand, had a DIFFICULT time getting a job because he was in the middle of trying to beat Brave Fencer Musashi. I remember hearing something about the average time to beat FFVII was somewhere around 70 hours... it took Jake 32 hours. Then, of course, he had to go play through it at his leisure so he could find all the things he might have missed.

He had *me* addicted to watching him play FFVII... I had SUCH a crush on Cloud... He was my hero. (=

-- Anonymous, July 15, 1999

FF7 took 62 hours out of my life.... great game... but 62 hours!!! thats a week and a half of full time work!! insane... metal gear was great.. i'm in the middle of syphon filter right now.. similar to metal gear without the huge story line... its a tough game... i'm a little frustrated with it at the moment... i played a great new playstation game the other night.. its called Driver... man is it fun! you play an undercover cop in the 70's who works as a driver, running drugs, guns, stealing cars and driving hit men around... you get to out-run the cops, smash up you car..... its set in miami and san fransisco... very starsky and hutch...

-- Anonymous, July 15, 1999

I thought FFVII was the prettiest but weakest game of the entire series. I have played 1,2,5,6, and 7. My personal favorite was 6 - it was a lot less linear and much more involving, in my opinion. It might have had even more doll-like characters than VII, but it still managed to amaze me with scenes like Celes' attempted suicide and Cyan's futile attempts to cheat death and save his family.

-- Anonymous, July 15, 1999

And oh yeah, it was too damn easy! In a lot of places I felt like I was being led by the hand. I don't remember having a single white- knuckle fight in that one either, and I know it's not just because I am used to the FF fighting system.

-- Anonymous, July 15, 1999

Just a note for all Parappa fans, there's a new Parappa game coming out, he's not the main character, but he is in it. It's called "Toshiko the Rockstar" or something to that effect, I know I have the name wrong, but it's the same premise as Parappa only it's a girl trying to get a pop band together. My guess is that people will either love it or hate it; probably moreso the latter than anything else.

-- Anonymous, July 15, 1999

Oh, and there's a Spice Girls game out like Bust A Groove where you are the Spice Girls and you can choreograph them. Has anyone seen this game? Is it worth the thirty bucks?

I really like Bust A Groove and I've beaten Parappa too many times to play anymore.

"In the rain or in the snow..."

-- Anonymous, July 15, 1999

In college I had a serious problem with Shanghai. clicking the little tiles until they're all gone is so so satisfying for an obsessive-compulsive like me....

I remember Atari game cartridges, and this weird pong-style game called "Super Breakout" with a rainbow wall. That kept me cooped up indoors for about a month.

I don't play too many video games anymore, unless I'm somewhere (like a movie theater) where I notice that they have Primal Rage. Nothing is cooler than being a dinosaur kicking the shit out of another dinosaur.

-- Anonymous, July 15, 1999

I've got the funky flow... I do love FF6(3 in America) just as much as 7. But, the clincher for me is Aeris' death, which made me hate Sephiroth SO MUCH that killing him was great joy. The game is really hard without Knights of the Round. I think it's better that way, though. I killed the end boss in about 5 minutes by casting Knights of the Round with Mime or whatever that one was called, over and over. The best thing about FF7 were all the secrets. I finished it without any game guides and then I bought one and used my saved game to go back and do stuff. There were TONS of cool stuff to go back and do. I never did kill Ruby Weapon. That is harder then Sephiroth.

-- Anonymous, July 15, 1999

"Hi. My name is Jon. I'm a former video game addict."

"HI JON."

Today I would like to speak about my affliction. I was just a po' farmer's boy living up in the '70s and one day, I got introduced to the Atari 2600. This, my friends, is the beginning of the end.

I seized the classic Pac-Man and put the controller in my grubby little hands and soon I began to be ONE with the Pac-grabber. My friend ol' Packie and I spent countless after school hours together. We laughed, we cried, we shared blood together. Okay, not that extreme.

Soon, Mr. Packie and I would sail through the game without losing a single player until around 8 million points. I remember being thrilled when I reached 10,000,000. Not long after that, I reached 20 million, then 32 million. The game, however, did not evolve as I did. So I lost interest in it, because well, after 32 million points, the speed of the ghosts became rather... LUDICROUS SPEED ridiculous, you know?

I used to keep a list of all the video games I've finished in my lifetime, but after it started getting close to triple figures, I started to think, "what kind of a nerd keeps a list???"

Not long after that, I slowly weaned myself away from video games. At times I failed utterly, though, thanks to Doom, Final Fantasy VII (my favorite game, EVAH) and the Ultima series. (Note to Eric: Please don't let Pamie ever promote UO in front of me again, please... I'll NEVER get offline if I start playing it!)

Thank you for listening to my sad, sad story. :o)

-- Anonymous, July 16, 1999

The Parappa sequel is called Umjammer Lammy (at least it is in Japan). The main character is a lamb. If you play in 2-player mode the second one is a little Goth lamb, complete with black lipstick. The Spice Girls game was given crappy reviews. The creepiest thing about it is a weird code you can enter that plays a short scene with the Spice Girls worshipping a pile of purses.

Final Fantasy 8 looks to me much more engrossing than 7. I like the anime-style non-deformed characters. Anyone play Phantasy Star for the Sega Master System or any of the Genesis-based sequels? Phantasy Star II is my favorite role playing game of all-time. I can still play back any of the game music in my head.

-- Anonymous, July 16, 1999

Final Fantasy 8? Ohhhhh my lord. When is it coming to the States?

And will it be available for just the Playstation the first while? Will I have to sell my soul to buy a PSX again?

Ackkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk!

I have ONE problem with the Final Fantasy series, though. The characters are not continual. I see new characters in each game. I want Cloude back! Bring him and Sephiroth back! *grumble*

-- Anonymous, July 16, 1999

Final Fantasy 8 will be coming for the Playstation late this year. It is also going to be released for the PC, complete with sharper, 3D- accelerated graphics. I have FF7 for both the PS and the PC, and the difference in image quality is amazing.

The Gunblade has got to be the silliest weapon I have ever seen in a Final Fantasy game. Even the Nail Bat would have been a cooler primary weapon for Squall.

-- Anonymous, July 16, 1999

I played Um Jammer Lammy (or whatever it's called) at E3. They had it set up on these huge screens and (apparently) the kids from Hanson were there earlier. It was really fun, even better than Parappa. Similar style, but cooler music and fun.

Anybody play a lot of Team Fortress Classic? That is VERY addictive. (as is Half Life, which is hands down the best first-person shooter ever).

-- Anonymous, July 16, 1999

I'm still playing Final Fantasy VII -- I'm on the second disc. I so wanted Cloud to get together with Aeris .

We used to have a system for the Atari 2600 called the Supercharger. You plugged it into the regular game slot and it had a cord that connected to a cassette player. The games came on regular old audio cassettes. "Escape From the Mindmaster" and "Dragonstomper" were pretty cool. The graphics were so bad, but when you're a little kid and you can play games on your TV, you'll put up with anything. We even had a great time with Pong.

One time, we played a 4-player game of Gauntlet on the Atari (I bought the 4-player adapter and extra controllers just for that) for hours. I had heard that there were secret levels or the game would end on the 100th level or something. I swear we must have played all day long. Once we got to the 100th level, the game just kept going, of course. After the 110th level or so, we realized that we had wasted a significant portion of our lives.

Also, I had a lot of fun playing Friday the 13th on the Atari. It was actually pretty scary. The player is one of a few camp counselors that has to patrol the campgrounds in order to protect the little kids from Jason. Every once in a while, one of the cabins starts beeping because Jason is there terrorizing the kids. You have to get there as soon as you can or the kids start getting murdered. Pretty gruesome.

Oh, and Pamie, I loved Super Mario Bros. 2. That was back when you couldn't save your progress in video games. You had to play it from the beginning every single time. That game was really high, though. My favorite part was fighting the bird-dinosaur things that threw eggs at you. You could catch the eggs and throw them back. Yay! I still get the theme song stuck in my head from time to time.

--David

-- Anonymous, July 17, 1999

Wow, this threads been around a while. Best games I've played lately: HOMEWORLD is da bomb. It is fantastic and amazing. Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver is really good, especially for PC. Age of Empires II is pretty good. Driver rocks. Soul Calibur and Ready 2 Rumble for Dreamcast are great. The Next Tetris SUCKS. No multiplayer on PC, nothing really new about it. Nocturne for PC is supposed to be really good. Oh and Tony Hawk Skateboardin' for Playstation is pretty outstanding.
And of course, I keep coming back to Half-Life determined to someday beat it. I'm only in the "We've Got Hostiles" stage. What a great game...

-- Anonymous, November 05, 1999

Empire of the Fading Suns (segasoft). That game completely kicks ass. Its sort of a strategy/take over the universe game, and from what I can tell is based loosely on Dune. AOE is probably second choice, as far as computer games, and I admit that I even own a copy of Creatures.

Now about the n64.. Legend of Zelda. I almost bought a system just so I could get that game.. luckily by little bro broke down and got one first.

-- Anonymous, November 05, 1999

I can't believe there's a Blair Witch game.

Man.

Thanks for letting me know, guys. Eric's gonna be pissed. That was our retirement fund.

-- Anonymous, November 05, 1999

You beat Myst, pamie? Damn you to hell! I had to stop playing it because it was seriously making me blind, crazy and alone. Every once in a while I feel like maybe starting it up again...you know, just an hour tonight...I can stop whenever I want...

-- Anonymous, November 05, 1999

well I'm usually the only girl playing video games at Einstein's on the drag. I really really really really like Street Fighter. I hate the 3D ones, those aren't even really Capcom games, they're made by someone else, but SFIII:3s is my baby right now. I've been holding out on buying a Sega Dreamcast because the only reason I want it is so that I can play SF3 collection when it comes out. I love that game. MKII was the last good MK game, Tekken is a game for button pressers but Tekken Tag Tournament is pretty fun. Sorry, I get outta hand when it comes to SF and fighting games. I really like RPGs when I was a kid, I've got a bunch of emulators and roms on my computer (my boyfriend loves old school game) so I download old games and play the hell out of them all over again. My favorite game on the computer now is Magic Drop 2. It's like Tetris but waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay cooler. Really. Play it if you get a chance!

-- Anonymous, November 05, 1999

Can I borrow your Silent Hill, Pamie? I had beaten it once, and was going through to try to get the alien ending (how lame am I...), and my boyfriend lent it to someone at work, and then it got stolen from his desk... at the moment, though, I'm thoroughly addicted to Crash Team Racing. It's way too much fun. Barry is threatening to bring the Playstation on our honeymoon, just for Resident Evil 3.

Oh, am even more lame... Silent Hill gave me the creeps so bad I couldn't play it when I was alone in the house.

-- Anonymous, November 05, 1999

Ah, nothing for me will ever compare with the old Sega "Toejam and Earl" game. I used to play it with my SO--he'd look at me across the living room and begin humming the theme song (a Seinfeldian bass line) and I'd go start the popcorn while he got it set up. I'm getting all misty just thinking about it.

-- Anonymous, November 05, 1999

I have had times of addictive behavior. In fact, I'm going through an addictive period right now. Usually I'll buy a game and play it for a long time, then get busy with the real world and never get the chance to finish it, because another really cool game I'm dying to have has come out. I also tend to buy games way after their success has gone down. I'm a late buyer, that's me.

My favorite games over the last few years have been: Master of Orion Warcraft II Final Fantasy VII (I was seriously addicted to it, and beat it easily without breeding the Chocos and getting the final Summon spells) Thief - The Dark Project

And then the latest in my obsession, my favorite game ever at this point is Baldur's Gate. I've been so heavily obsessed that the house is falling into ruins, I hardly read anymore, and I'm not particularly interested in my classes after work. Rough world.

-- Anonymous, November 05, 1999

When I was three, my parents and I were at the house of one of my father's friends, and they had just purchased some video game machine (this was 1977, but the machine wasn't a 2600) that played Breakout. My dad put the paddle in my hand and I think I managed to send the ball back into the wall once in five tries. I was pretty much hooked after that. Between Atari, Nintendo, and various PC's, I played videogames daily for years. I think I'm finally over the worst of the addiction now. My PC is now too obsolete to play anything interesting except Civilization II (which is still my favorite game of all time), and I've resisted buying a game console for fear that access to one would add at least a year to my already overlong graduate school career. However, I've heard that Playstation 2 will be able to play DVD's as well as both old and new Playstation games, and I fear that a $300 box that combines my two longstanding favorite ways to waste time, movies and video games, will prove too strong a lure to resist.

-- Anonymous, November 05, 1999

Hey Diandra -- there's an even cooler game on Dreamcast than SF: Capcom has a game called Power Stone and it is fun as hell. It's 3D, but really frenetic and cool like Street Fighter. Really great game...

And of course, Soul Calibur reigns supreme. I'm willing to go out on a limb and say it's the best fighting game ever. It's THAT good.

-- Anonymous, November 06, 1999

Pamie: Jake wants to inform you that Parasite Eve is *not* a fighting game. (=

"It's a cinematic RPG, that's why it says that, I'd swear it says it on the box. I can go check the SquareSoft press release if you like. It is not a fighting game. Trust me, I know, they've made TWO: Tobal No. 1 and Ehrgeiz (and that's german for ambition). I take my SquareSoft very seriously."

He really does. He's an addict. He has the T-shirt to prove it, as well as the box that they sent it to him in. He refused to throw it away. (=

Jake's dream job? ANYTHING at a squaresoft facility. (=

-- Anonymous, November 06, 1999

i am not a video game addict. i don't even know what the hell half of you guys were talking about, but i must say that when i go over to my guy friends rooms here at college i somehow always manage to get myself sucked into bond. BOND BOND BOND BOND BOND. argh. it's tough, being the only girl that wants to play them, i have to muscle my way into the game and then i am stuck there for hours, trying to kill people and screaming, "why the hell did you kill me, dude? i didn't even have a f*cking gun! bastard, i'm gonna get you..."

-- Anonymous, November 06, 1999

Bubble Bobble!!! I recently found a Nintendo thinger (does one smarter than I call them emulators? I never understood that term) for my computer and I'm currently working Zelda, Bubble Bobble, and Super Mario Bros. 2... my favorite Mario Bros. game because it was the only one that was very abstract.. I liked the doors that took you into the shadow world, and how you could pick up the bad guys instead of just stomping them into nothingness. My sister and, I think, beat Bubble Bobble.. there are at least a few boards that I know of that required two players, including the last one. We used to play that for hours on end.. and I'm currently stuck on level 57, because I think I need to have two players, but I don't know how to on the computer. I miss my Nintendo. I haven't ever really gotten into computer games.. my bf loves Grand Theft Auto.. can't get him away from it once he starts, but it's too hard to control for me.

-- Anonymous, November 06, 1999

my friends and i got really hooked on pokemon about a year ago. i know, i know. i feel stupid about that now, but man, you can't beat the japanese for great RPG's. i DID get all 151 (including mew) and i became pokemon master. let the beatings commence.

my friend chuck and i pooled our money a while ago and got a single copy of myth 2: soulblighter, and then *ahem* made a "backup copy". that game is SO SA-WEET. the great thing about that game, as opposed to, say, a playstation based RPG like FFVII, is the feature that allows you to play over the internet.

have any other mac users completely lost themselves in REALMZ at all? i downloaded v.6.2.2 about 6 months ago, and i played it for hours straight on a daily basis. i decided to trash it though, when i started having weird dreams about being lost in the caves to the south of bywater, and being attacked by krise/kobolds and red dragons and suc

-- Anonymous, November 07, 1999

also, pamie, i'd just like to say that i never beat super mario brothers 2, and i always hated that one more than any of the others

-- Anonymous, November 07, 1999

I spent several hours yesterday watching my husband play Resident Evil 2. He is dying for R.E. 3 to come out, but he will just have to wait until Christmas to get it. Those games aren't cheap! I don't always watch him play, and I'm usually pretty blase about it when I do, but yesterday there was one monster I hadn't seen before that had me freaked. There was this blob on a metal bridge-type-thing that started to swell and gurgle, and ended up being some horrible bloody whatsit with a huge eye on it's side. Charlie killed it pretty much right away, but it kept spewing out these babies that would make squirty sounds and leap onto Claire's body making her say, "Auuugh!". Those little critters creeped me out, and I kept yelling, "Get 'em off of you! Get 'em off! Ewwww!!". I was curled up into a ball so tight I nearly had my feet tucked into my ass.

Pamie, there's a game called Asylum (I think that's the name of it anyway...) that Charlie and I tried to solve for months and never could figure out. We had the computer version, and it was really intricate and creepy. No shooting though, just clues and good graphics. It stumped us, but I'm sure you could get through it, and I would love it if someone could tell me how it ends.

Ms. Pac Man will always have a place in my heart, too. If we are ever out somewhere that has video games, Charlie always looks for Ms. Pac Man for me, because I will always, ALWAYS play it. I started out with Kaboom, Pac-Man and Frogger on Atari, so they will remain special to me forever as well.

-- Anonymous, November 08, 1999

Ahhh...video games:) I have spent many a summer cooped up in front of the Super Nintendo with my sister and cousin, playing Super Mario Kart Racing or Super Mario All Stars or ( a personal favorite) Yoshi's Island. Our specialities were the racing games. Heaven help the person who tried to play Banjo Kazooie in Diddy King Racing against my sister. He was hers!

We also liked SimTower and SimCity. We'd play nonstop for an entire month...never turning it off. Our mom would get so pissed cause she'd be lying in bed at night listening to the little elevators in SimTower woosh up and down. We always protested: "we have to make money!!!"

We don't really play video games anymore. This past summer my sister and I had some friends over and we got bored so we turned on Super Mario Bros. 3 and instantly we regressed back to 11 year-olds fighting over who got to be Luigi and where the 3rd whistle was. I think between my sisters, cousins and I, we had Nintendo, SuperNintendo, Nintendo64, PlayStation and I think there was another one but I can't remember. I'm too young for Atari. One of my friends still has his old Nintendo, complete with Duck Hunt/Super Mario Bros. Remember that? I always hated that damned dog in Duck Hunt. Now whenever I go to his house I take the gun and play Charlie's Angels. And make fun of him because whenever he wants to play a video game he has to blow into the cartridge:)

-- Anonymous, November 08, 1999

my friends and i have started our own geeky tradition. we have laser projector parties almost every weekend now. one of us 'borrows' the laser projector from work... move the couch away from the wall... hook up the psx or n64 to it.. and play for hours while drinking beer and eating cold pizza.

our latest obsession is that new Tetris for N64 for four players. there's usually at least five of us, so the first one to die has to give up the seat.

i've always liked tetris, but this version is especially addicting with the block feature. i'm not sure how to explain it. you guys will just have rent it and you'll KNOW. i've been playing for 12 hours straight... must. make. more. blocks.

-- Anonymous, November 08, 1999

Man, it's good to find a place like this when you're smack-dab in the middle of battling video-game addiction. I got Resident Evil 3 yesterday, almost considering getting lunch *afterwards* since I wasn't sure if they would be sold out in the 15 minutes it would take me to eat a stoopid Thundercloud sub. Of course, I bought a new memory card, since I'd just used up the last one, and I was one of those see-through blue Dual Shock controllers, which were too pretty to resist. All in all I spent 100 bucks, which unnerved me, but hey! It's RE3, baby!

All in all, the Resident Evil series are pretty damn scary. So far the only games I've seen that are on par with those are Silent Hill (which is just downright CREEPY, especially when you're in the dark industrial straight-outta-the-boiler-room-from-Nightmare-On-Elm-Street parallel universe) and Clock Tower. If you guys haven't checked out Clock Tower, that game scared the living SHIT out of me. Nothing like being trapped in building with a hunchback with a HUGE pair of shears and having absolutely no weapons with which to defend yourself; all you can do is hide somewhere and hope he doesn't find you. The evil music, of course, doesn't help, either. But of course I bought it. ;)

Anyway, RE3 rocks, and I can't wait for the Dreamcast's Resident Evil: Code Veronica to come out, either. That one should *really* kick ass.

-- Anonymous, November 12, 1999

ur site is kewl, i am a video games addict to the baddest. i filled up my drawer, a cd rack and i have more sitting on the cd rack, most are game demo cd's from a mag i buy each month. i have run out of room in my mag rack for all the issues i have. i suck at finishing games too. i bought half life (shoot em up game if u didnt know) and played it for like 3 levels and never played again. the other day i tried it and played it for ages and ages. stayed up till like 12pm because its just so damn cool. i also bought games like grim fandangom, unreal, discworld 2, and loads more i havent finished. but i have an excuse for grim fandango. i lost my savegame when i was about half way throught (its the hugest damn game ever) and i just couldnt go all the way through that again cuz its real hard to get where i did. well i have blabbed on for ages on the topic so i suppose i should shutup now before you have to split my entry into chapters. later.

-- Anonymous, November 20, 1999

Some of the games I played:

Atari 2600: Pacman, Donkey Kong, Frogger, Pitfall, Super Breakout, Yar (?), Popeye, etc. We must have had at least 30 of them. Remember how cheap they got at the end, like $2 each? I remember one ordinary day, my mother came home and dumped 6 or 8 of them on us, just because they were so cheap. But by that point we were too bored with them.

I'm definitely an Eric-style player. I'd play and replay a game (like Pacman or Frogger) till my thumbs bled and my eyes gave out just trying to beat my highest level (score never mattered to me, but levels did).

Nintendo: Super Mario Brothers 1 and 2. The Legend of Zelda 1 and 2. I played SMB1 forever. I'd play it until I could get through every single level (no shortcuts) without losing a LIFE (except my real-world one ;)). I remember that if I'd lose a single life I'd start all over again till I got it right. I mapped that game on graph paper. Once I went through the game and just jumped straight up in the air in every single possible space to find all the invisible blocks, and smashed every brick possible for hidden prizes. I drove my mother insane. (I never got to that Zero-World though, I thought it was a myth.)...I played straight through SMB2 with each of the four characters. I tried blowing up every single square in Zelda 1 to find all the hidden caves. I loved Zelda 2 because the Shadow-Link at the end was so hard to beat. I replayed that one a lot too. We had a few other Nintendo games too...like Lode Runner. The Adventures of LoLo (I like puzzle games). Metal Gear. Mike Tyson's Punch-Out! Sigh...

Our family never got another game system after that, however, nor a computer that could play any decent games, so I've missed out on just about everything since then. I'd have to go to friends' houses to play games, or borrow their Game-Boy. I still feel bad about not being able to play (very much) any of the Mario or Zelda sequels. I wanted a N64 so bad when Mario 64 came out.

In college there were computers around enough to give me the occasional addiction. Tetris, natch. That computer game based off the arcade game like Super Breakout, but some of the tiles would release capsules you could catch that would give your paddle extra powers--what was that called?....Others: Star Wars. Doom. Oh goodness: MineSweeper! My friend and I were addicted to MineSweeper. In our sophomore year we would stay up half the night studying for an Organic Chemistry test that was the next day, then the rest of the night beating our lowest times on MineSweeper. I think I should get bonus nerd points for that.

Favorite arcade games: Ms. Pacman. Centipede. Donkey Kong (so much harder in the arcade!) Joust. DigDug. Rampage. And especially Elevator Action! Arcade games are in such an abysmal state of monotony these days. All there seem to be in most arcades are Street-Fighter style games (which I hate) and racing games (which I hate even more). There used to be so much variety! Gripe gripe gripe...

I still don't have my own computer, and I have other addictions, so I only get hooked on a new game when my (bastard!) officemate downloads a new one and hooks us both on it. The last two were Snood (a Tetris- like puzzle game) and Quake III. Blah blah blah that's all! :)

-- Anonymous, January 24, 2000

I'm 17 and i can safely say i've been addicted to games since i first played them on my uncle's atari 800, those were some good days =) asteroids, and text rpgs definitley made up my early days, some time or another we got a 286 which let me play awesome games like fred and alleycat, scream out if you know those =) i didnt get my own console till sega genesis, which i played till my controls didnt work and i had to buy new ones :)

my current addictions are Tribes, old Emulated RPG's (chrono-trigger anyone?), and Starcraft, which i may never tire of, at least till War 3 comes out..

can't go wrong with the Diablo series either, i'd have to say i'm a Blizzard fan all the way, and sierra games are slowly creeping into my favorites, half-life and tribes are a good start. :)

N64 - Ocarina of Time (zelda), Mario 64, and Super Smash Bro's. all amazing games, especially smash bro's which reminds me of the powerstone series on dreamcast, and i'll agree, Soul Caliber is the best fighting game ever made.

-- Anonymous, April 17, 2001

Yeah... I'm a female, and I am addicted to video games. I'm also just about to turn 16, but my favorite systems are the Nintendo and SNES. Favorite games of all time are Chrono Trigger and bubble Bobble. Besides lacking plot and relizing just exactly what you are doing (a dinosaur... blowing bubbles at weird creatures... with food falling from the sky) this has GOT to be one of the most addicting games ever. I got rid of my NES a few years ago, but they came out with Bubble Bobble and Rainbow Islands on Playstation. However, it doesn't feel the same... (no PASSWORD, either.) And Chrono Trigger.. how can you NOT like this game? The game was wayy ahead of its time. The graphics.. plot... *sigh* brings a smile to my face jsut thinking about it :)

-- Anonymous, April 23, 2001

We are all fish in this world of spiders. I didn't put gauntlet dark legacy (4 the ps2) down until i finished it and then did it again! The same for armoured core 2! does anyone know of good mental hospitals?

-- Anonymous, December 04, 2001

I am only 18 years young, so I haven't been around during the times of the odyssey ( though I saw it once - ugly stuff :)) , yet due to some potential genetical flaw , I have been a nostalgic for about 5 years now. Until about a year ago, I have collected games for NES, Atari2600,SNES,Master System(incl. cards),Amiga,C64/128,Saturn etc etc. I even have some consoles about which hardly anybody knows, so I reckon they're pretty rare (or pretty ugly for that matter).

One year ago, I bought an ISDN-card, and I have been online ever since. Searching for Pictures and Movies about Dragonball Z, I stumbled upon a site , that didn't only offer excessive information on DBZ (like most of them do) , but also had games ready for download. The games originated from the SNES , so you had to download an emulator to play them. I did just that, and after a while playing this game( not the greatest , i tell you) , I thought to myself: "My, I could play just about any SNES game on this thingie , could I not?" I spent the following 2 days online and soon had a nice collection of SNES games. Using the gamepad I had bought earlier, I was just like the original-simply AMAZING. Since then , I have downloaded at least 1 emulator for almost all consoles I know- and some I have and could never have owned, like arcades- and a decent sum of roms , too. Which does not exceed my collection of real games, but completes it quite nicely. I love playing these old games over and over. Not just because I am die-hard nostalgic, but also because theyre just awesome. Some of my all-time favs: Kirby(NES),Barbarian(C64),Pool of Radiance (Amiga),X-Men vs Street Fighter(Arcade),Mario Kart(SNES),Zelda(any , except 2, which is not very Zelda-ish),Donkey Kong Country(SNES). And this shootout game for Atari2600. So if anybody wants to get a bit deeper into emulation, don't hesitate to contact me!

Smoke(don't!)

-- Anonymous, December 27, 2001

Addicted is pretty much an understatement, heh. I'm 17 now and i've been playing video games ever since day came along that we got an NES. Mario Brothers and Zelda, two great games. Even with all the newer hyped up Zeldas my opinion still holds that the first Zelda was best, I can remember weeks as a kid of having that music stuck in my head. Those were probably the most games i've played on NES, besides for an occasional Defender of the Crown.

When SNES came out I became even more addicted, mostly because of the amazing RPGs it had. FF2, FF3, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Lufia 1 and 2, all great games. Although out of all of them, I only ever beat Lufia 1/2. Probably because 90% of the time I was renting them, not actually buying them. Got a decent computer later on, a p100, 32 ram thing. Which introduced me to mudding soon after, the MOST addicting sort of game out there. Only after a long while does it start to wear thin. Got a PSX as well, getting such great games as Twisted Metal, Battle Arena Toshiden(yeah, I liked it), Bushido Blade 1, Front Mission 3, and many more.

I've never stayed with one genre when playing games really, if its good i'll play it. Although I do lean towards strategy/war games, the games that i've spen the most hours on and still play today are Master of Orion II, Civilization 2, Alpha Centauri, Lords of the Realm 2, Starcraft, and a few others. Funnily enough theres not been many games i've actually completed, only really addicting or easy games I have. Anyway, just came across this place from a web search, so I decided to toss my thoughts in, for what its worth.

Oh, and you lovers of old games, check out www.theunderdogs.org, great site with tons of classics.

-- Anonymous, January 18, 2002