Addictive games

June 11, 2007 11:46 AM

What is a good computer or network game that has high addiction value? The problem is I'm not really looking for fantasy-world slaying action.

I want to get past some grief (a situation I have no control over), and I refuse to start smoking, drinking, or indulging in food. I figure a good gaming hobby might be the ticket so I don't brood over stuff during my idle hours.

I have heard that one of the most addictive games is World of Warcraft, but I've never gotten the whole medieval monsters type thing. I do like when there's focus on exploration, history, and/or culture, such as what Ultima did back in its day. I'm also open to really weird, heady stuff, like VATSIM air traffic control, which would be good except that for me it's too formal and procedural (arguably too serious) and can involve a -lot- of idle stretches.

So what's out there that's addictive and isn't just a bunch of random swords, blood, and armor? I've never played a MMORPG so consider me a novice.

posted by anonymous to Computers & Internet (43 answers total)

Not an RPG, but I always manage to waste more time that I mean to on Halo. You can pick up a copy for $20 at Best Buy, and it'll play on almost any (Windows) computer bought in the last few years. Online play is hit or miss, thought usually you can find a good game or two, and single player mode is great as well.
posted by niles at 11:54 AM on June 11, 2007

EVE
A tale in the desert

Both of these are outside the normal hack and slash type MMO's.
posted by bigmusic at 11:55 AM on June 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

You might like EVE Online, which is an extremely heady online space simulation with lots of intrigue and backstabbing and stuff. A lot of the action takes place in the sidelines in chat forums and stuff, so you might not be into it if you don't want to deal with that.
posted by infinitywaltz at 11:55 AM on June 11, 2007

I'm not an RPG guy, so I can't recommend any of them.

I'm a big fan of Battlefield 2, a realistic first-person-shooter. Even I was able to do fairly well at it with only a few hours practice.

For something very "light," there's a little game called Tumblebugs that my mom (not at all a gamer) has gotten addicted to. She plays it for hours on end. I've played a little and have to admit that it's hard to stop.

If you're "trying" to get addicted to something, you might consider something productive? (Don't feel obliged.) I find that Project Gutenberg's Distributed Proofreaders project can get me roped in, as can
posted by fogster at 12:00 PM on June 11, 2007

Not MM, O, or and RPG, but why not play some Civilization? Lots and lots of history and exploration, although perhaps not the type you're looking for. At the very least, it is incredibly addictive. (So much so that they've installed an in-game timer in the most recent version to help you stop playing when you need to.)
posted by Johnny Assay at 12:02 PM on June 11, 2007

This reminds me of something similar that happened to me years ago--the circumstances don't merit going into here, but a friend of mine at the time said, "Just play X-Wing. By the time you beat the third set of missions you'll be fine." I thought he was being unnecessarily callous at the time, but damned if he wasn't right. X-Wing--what a great game. Too hard to find though now, I think.

It's too bad you're exempting "sword and sorcery" stuff--Blizzard (the company that makes WoW) really is the best at making addictive games. They've got it down to a science. (I played Diablo II way past the point where it was fun.)

But consider any of the Civilization games (I got hooked on Civ 2 back in the day).

Also consider picking up one of the games by Paradox, like Europa Universalis II or Hearts of Iron II--their rulesets are so complicated that you won't have the leftover processing cycles to think of anything else. (Lots and lots of rules can be just as addictive as the Pavlovian trickery of Blizzard games and MMORPGs.)

Two other games that come to mind are Combat Mission II: Barbarossa to Berlin and Escape Velocity Nova.
posted by Prospero at 12:12 PM on June 11, 2007

Another reason to consider Civilization is that you can play it single-player or multiple-player (but not MMO). If you are looking for some deep diversion where you don't want interaction with other people, Civ does a great job at shutting out the rest of the world. But you can also play it with a few friends and not feel like the whole Internet is trying to kill you.
posted by briank at 12:12 PM on June 11, 2007

I'll second Battlefield 2. Its easy to waste a couple of hours in BF2. Its a purely on-line multiplayer military shooter. No puzzles, wizen sages, hobbbits, grinding, people who speak teh olde english, etc.
posted by damn dirty ape at 12:13 PM on June 11, 2007

My mom has cancer and I find playing The Sims 2 to be very therapeutic. Having control over the lives of tiny people when you have no control over your own can be weirdly soothing.
posted by astruc at 12:19 PM on June 11, 2007 [3 favorites]

I've been wasting gobs of time on Quadradius. Its a player-vs-player board game with relatively simple rules but with power-ups that can radically shift the balance of power and smash whatever strategy you might have been building up at the time: i.e., you can build a super-piece, but not an indistrucable one. Random chance and the skill of the other player radically affects the outcome and overall quality of the experience. Rather addictive, though perhaps less than weeks-and-weeks so. For that, I'd go for Alpha Centauri which has regularly kept me up past my bedtime for days on end until I decide "no more" for about a year or so...
posted by Ogre Lawless at 12:32 PM on June 11, 2007

I will throw in a vote for Halo, too. I've been playing a demo of it on my iMac for about a month (mostly multiplayer on-line) and recently ordered the full version for $30. If you can get past some of the immature people it is quite fun. A big challenge, too, since there are people who are insanely good at that game...but I don't mind dying ten times during multiplayer to get my one sweet kill. Although a definite first-person-shooter, I really like the more realistic physics and movement compared to something like Unreal Tournament.

I am also a big fan of Diablo II. You mentioned you're not a big fan of the medieval monster thing, but this game has lots of exploration, especially when every level is randomly generated for each new game. It will run on pretty much any computer purchased in the last 10 years, too.

Finally, for really cheap and low-tech, I play Urban Dead. It is a free multiplayer on-line game where you have limited turns in the day to either stay alive when playing as a human, or kill the humans trying to stay alive when playing as a zombie. It's a pretty simple game, and is slow to start with some mindless exploring and searching. But, in its simplicity there are some really fun emergent behaviors with all the people interacting and role-playing.
posted by JibberJabber at 12:43 PM on June 11, 2007

Must be my day to shill for City of Heroes/City of Villians. Gameplay can get repetitive, but they are constantly adding new features to keep things fresh. If Orcs and Taurens aren't your thing, maybe you like Superheroes/Villians?

The creation system is endlessly amusing to me, and I often don't level old characters because I make so many new ones. You can play alone, team up, or do Task Force missions which can eat up 5 or 6 hours. It's a cool diversion, or I can just hop on, do a single mission in an hour or less, and hop off.
posted by genefinder at 12:45 PM on June 11, 2007

Oh, the website for COH.
posted by genefinder at 12:46 PM on June 11, 2007

Internet Scrabble Club.
posted by box at 12:49 PM on June 11, 2007

Pretty much any sim game, but check out The Sims and SimCity. Any version will do, but I preferred The Sims 2 and SimCity 2000 over any other version.

Nthing Cvilization. Check out Civ 2.

You also might want to check out the Fallout series. It's an older series but it is easily one of the best RPGs around.

If you are into real time stragegy, Age Of Empires might be your thing. Skip the first one and check out 2.
posted by Diskeater at 12:52 PM on June 11, 2007

Defcon is addicting, single-player or multiplayer, and cheap.
posted by mkb at 12:54 PM on June 11, 2007

Nthing CoH/CoV and Sims2. Sims2 is not an MMORPG, but it's highly addictive and immersive. I wouldn't rule out WoW so quicky, though. I wasn't into the sword-and-sorcery stuff either, until I tried it.

You'll probably need to upgrade your video card and/or processor and/or RAM to play any of these games, however. They're heavy on the 3D graphics.
posted by Koko at 12:56 PM on June 11, 2007

There's absolutely no time sink out there that sinks time better than World of Warcraft.

I know you have an aversion to fantasy, but I would still encourage you to check it out.

In fact, if you drop me a link at [e-mail] I'll hook you up with a 10 day free trial, which means you have nothing to lose other than your bandwidth.

You may also be able to just get the free trial without someone who already plays sending you an invite, I'm not sure.

Anyway, everyone else in the thread have suggested some great games that I think you'd enjoy, but do not underestimate the sheer addictive nature of a thing to overcome your reservations about its 'fantasy' aspect.
posted by kbanas at 12:56 PM on June 11, 2007

I know you are looking at computer or internet-based games, but I found Katamari Damacy so relaxing and addictive that I...er...bought my boyfriend a PS2 in partial hopes that we would play it together. It worked. There's something about rolling around a ball and picking up stuff; it definitely has the Tetris Effect.
posted by bloggerwench at 12:58 PM on June 11, 2007

Er, drop me a line, rather.
posted by kbanas at 12:58 PM on June 11, 2007

I'd look at Adventure games. Pretty easy going, but generally fantastic stories and very immersive, I have actually jumped out of bed in the middle of the night because I've worked a puzzle out in my sleep!

I'd recommend, in no real order:

Full Throttle (Biker adventure story, short but sweet)
Monkey Island (Pirates!)
Broken Sword (Modern, story is about templars mainly)
Sam and Max (Both the lucasarts original and the new tell-tale ones)

That should get you started!

All of the games are cheap on ebay, and work on ANY system using ScummVM
posted by chrispy108 at 12:59 PM on June 11, 2007

Morrowind. I spent hours and gave myself carpal tunnel playing Morrowind. Yeah, it's fantasy but it's not all slash and burn and destroy - there's a lot more sort of walking around figuring things out.
posted by mygothlaundry at 1:29 PM on June 11, 2007

Katamari Damacy, as mentioned above, is really happy-making. Sadly, there's no online version. You might also like Kingdom of Loathing, which is sort of a parody of a traditional MMPORG, but also a fun game in itself.
posted by judith at 1:31 PM on June 11, 2007

I've spent more time in Heroes of Might & Magic 3 than I care to think about ... but it's time well spent. It's in a fantasy setting, but it's really about resource management and exploration.

(Make sure you don't do HOMM 4, though, as they made it 3-D and, in my opinion, ruined it. I believe the series is now up to version 5, but I'm still playing 3.)
posted by jbickers at 2:13 PM on June 11, 2007

Also, let me point you in the direction of this, a massive list of open-source games (including some OS ports of things mentioned earlier like Civilization and that kind of thing).
posted by jbickers at 2:16 PM on June 11, 2007

One more, then I'll quit ...
posted by jbickers at 2:19 PM on June 11, 2007

Nothing absorbs your attention like Halo. One nice thing about it is that you can stop at any time, or you can sit and play continuously for untold hours, unaware of all else.
posted by neuron at 2:24 PM on June 11, 2007

If you are deadset on wasting many hours, try EVE-online. While I don't have quite the time anymore, when I did have lots of time I found that there were infinitely many timesinks, and always lots of other people to do stuff with.

The more time you put into this game, the more fun it is really. It's also a lot more long-term than WoW.. among my powergaming friends, most have topped out in WoW within 6-8 months, while there is no topping out in eve-online (i'm almost 3 years into it, and there's even more to do now..).

On another note, if you join a good corporation (guild/clan), there will always be plenty of people from all walks of life to talk to and have fun with. If it's your thing, eventually many corps find the need to promote members into positions of management and leadership, which provide other happy benefits.

Oh, and n'thing Civilization III and IV, SimCity, Age of Empires.. If I could be addicted to any game right now, I think Dance Dance Revolution would be the most beneficial ;)
posted by mezamashii at 3:29 PM on June 11, 2007

How about learning Go? Fun on and off the internet.
posted by spec80 at 3:58 PM on June 11, 2007

Try Desktop Tower Defense. I play it about 1 hour every day and I'm still not bored of it. There's no fantasy elements (unless you imagine the little circles are ogres or soemthing).

Are you interested in alien invasion games, like XCOM or (more modern) UFO: Extraterrestirals?
posted by Four Flavors at 4:19 PM on June 11, 2007

www.gokgs.com
posted by anotherpanacea at 4:41 PM on June 11, 2007

Can't recommend SimuTrans enough. I've wasted soooooo many hours over the past few months while dealing with breakups and depression and crap. 99.10 is the most recent 'decently stable' version for me on WinXP.

Now I'm writing my own MMORPG. ;)
posted by SpecialK at 5:01 PM on June 11, 2007

I used to waste quite a bit of time playing Sleuth--if you like the mystery-novel thing.
posted by exceptinsects at 5:10 PM on June 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

Highly addictive MMOGs where there is no combat:

A Tale in the Desert - a game that is basically about resources. It's really, really interesting.

The SIMS Online - I prefer the single player version (like astruc) but there you have it.

Second Life - Allows you to create (and sell, if you wish) your own in-game items.

I'm obsessive in my gaming, so just for reference, in the scale of complete and total no food no sleep dedicated initial time suckage, TSO was a week, ATITD was 10 days, and SL was almost two months.

Yeah, I'm self-employed.
posted by DarlingBri at 5:35 PM on June 11, 2007

This will seem silly. It will seem a bit odd.

I love Puzzle Pirates.

You play puzzles. How good you are at playing puzzles results in you being awarded Pieces of Eight. Once you have enough Pieces of Eight, you can buy clothes, pets, furniture.

You can pillage with a crew, where you all do puzzles on board a ship to sail it, patch up the holes, navigate it, and load the canons to fire them at other ships and perhaps board them and take their booty.

Once you have many many pieces of eight, you can buy ships, create a crew, and go swashbuckling around the ocean in your own private boat.

Suitable for all ages that can understand how to play even the simplest falling block game, incredibly addictive, and is one of the few multiplayer games I know that rewards raw skill, not the number of hours you've spent clicking on things.
posted by Jerub at 7:25 PM on June 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

Battle For Wesnoth is an amazing turn based strategy game. It is available for Windows, OSX, and Linux. It does have a fantasy theme, but it is far more than just hack and slash.

You can play either campaigns, or online with other people, or even hot seat. The game takes place on a hex based war game like map.

Another good point about it, its very easy to pick up. The game mechanics are simple enough, and if you don't want it to be a difficult game it doesn't have to be. But your next game could be choc-full of strategy and addictive mind distracting fun.

Oh and did I mention it was free?
posted by MaHaGoN at 8:09 PM on June 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

First of all, I am sorry to hear that you are grieving. Hopefully this type of distraction will help you in the process.

Secondly, good luck leaving this one alone after you've spent an hour with it. Seriously.

Be Warned: this game is insanely addictive.
posted by crazyray at 9:53 PM on June 11, 2007 [1 favorite]

Black and white.....be the cow!
posted by yodelingisfun at 11:30 PM on June 11, 2007

Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee

Very addictive and although it's a platform game, it doesn't have the feel of one. Apparently it's called a "cinematic platformer", which means it blends action, adventure and puzzle-solving elements.
Never mind what it's called, this is my all time favourite game and you should really give it a try.
posted by lioness at 5:01 AM on June 12, 2007

I'm about as far from a "gamer" as you can be, but recently I was coerced to play the Flash game Bubble Shooter, and I swear to god, I may as well have quit my job and stopped showering, because it was just THAT addictive.
posted by melorama at 5:23 AM on June 12, 2007

Nethack?
posted by mbatch at 9:31 AM on June 12, 2007

There's absolutely no time sink out there that sinks time better than World of Warcraft.

Preach it my brother! I too wasn't enamored with the idea of WoW until I started playing. If you're looking for history and exploration and storytelling, that's what the RP (role playing) realms are for. There are a million free trial CDs out there for you to test out the game beforehand as well.

But I'll second the Puzzle Pirates suggestion - my boyfriend played it for a good long time, and it sounded pretty addictive from the way he talked about it.
posted by saturnine at 1:32 PM on June 12, 2007

If you liked Ultima, you might want to check out Ultima Online? I have been playing this game for over 8 years and I'm definitely not a "fantasy-world slaying action" kind of person. The game is addictive and fun. It's also what you make of it and there are a lot of interesting people who play. Surprisingly, I find a good number of adults play UO, though there are enough younger male players to keep the 'anti-social, immature and angry adolescent player-killer' stereotype alive.
posted by loquat at 2:50 PM on June 12, 2007