Wii Warm Up: Gaming marathons

by Chris Greenhough { Jan 13th 2008 at 10:30AM }

Gaming endurance seems to be a bit of a theme this week. First, there was the story of Bill Tangeman, who racked up a quite unearthly score by playing a single round of Geometry Wars: Galaxies on his DS for 24 hours. Then, and perhaps more impressively still, we heard about these guys, who are trying to complete four Zelda games in 48 hours for charity and pizza. As we type, they're speeding through The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker.

You pretty much know where this is going, then: we'd like to hear about your own marathon gaming sessions. It'd be nice if these were on the Wii, but we're also happy for you to tell us about that time you spent thirteen straight hours playing the first Halo in a friend's attic. Wait, no ... that was me. Oh, the sweaty, unwashed shame of it all!

Tags: geometry-wars-galaxies, legend-of-zelda, wwu, zelda

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

SergeEXE @ Jan 13th 2008 10:33AM

I did more than 15 hours of Smash Bros Melee with my friends one night a couple years ago, and that was pretty fun.

That was before I was good though.

I'm planning on having a marathon for the Metroid Prime games soon, though.

FantomRedux @ Jan 13th 2008 10:53AM

To be honest, I've never had a gaming marathon. The longest I've ever spent playing one game straight is 7 hours on MGS2. Other than that I've been on Guild Wars for about 5 hours, WoW for around 4 1/2, FF7 for nearly 4 and thats all I can remember.

vidGuy @ Jan 13th 2008 11:05AM

I've had very few game marathons. I beat LoZ: Majora's Mask on a two day rental. I think I played it for twenty hours, so 10hrs/day is a lot. Recently, I played Rock Band with my roommates for 8 hours the day we got it. We had to take turns at the vocals just to keep from losing our voices!

The Wii's not really a marathon machine for me. It took me months to beat Twilight Princess and I'm only 40 stars into SMG even though I bought it at release. I really want to sit down and marathon my way through MP3:C but I haven't made the time.

raindog @ Jan 13th 2008 11:12AM

The closest thing to a Wii marathon for me has been Twilight Princess, which, on my first day of playing it, I stuck with for maybe 7 hours. Even Galaxy only held my attention for about 4.

On the Gamecube, I spent 8-10 hours a few times on Super Mario Sunshine and Ocarina of Time. But my longest marathon ever was Quake II, years ago, which I played for something like 14 hours straight.... in single-player mode.

Tom @ Jan 13th 2008 11:18AM

Once I played Metroid Prime Hunters and Halo 2 with my friends for about 12 hours. Then we plugged in Melee and spent about 5 hours playing it. So about 17 hours of gaming. MAN, my eyes hurt after that!

troy @ Jan 13th 2008 11:20AM

Well, I had one. I -used- to have the world high score in that Geometry Wars DS as 'Gurtz,' doing the same thing over three days at work for a total of about 15 hours. But there's no way in hell my busy lifestyle or responsibilities I could just sit around and play any game or anything like that (guitar, writing, etc) the way I used to be able to. It was awesome when I could!

I look forward to graduating and getting a boring job and playing more video games and doing more music in my off time.

The Two Interests Converge:
http://www.atomspies.com/TheAtomSpies-ZeldaMedley.mp3

Dauragon88 @ Jan 13th 2008 11:36AM

For the longest time I had a PS1 without a memory card. Me and my little brother would spend 10+ hours almost every other day beating tekken with every single character so that we could play with all of the extra characters for a few hours. Then we would turn the game off and go to sleep. :D

Dauragon88 @ Jan 13th 2008 11:37AM

*Tekken 2 I mean

FX-1 @ Jan 13th 2008 11:46AM

I don't really like the idea of game marathons. Eventually I start to feel like I'm just slowly wasting away.

FX-1 @ Jan 13th 2008 11:47AM

Unless of course I have good friends over.

that one dude @ Jan 13th 2008 11:47AM

My personal record until about six months ago was about 14-15 hours, which I clocked playing The Legend of Dragoon on PS1 back in the day. After that session I realized the game wasn't too good and dropped it.

And about six months ago I was playing Tales of Symphonia (Gamecube) on my Wii... At one point I played it for a total of 27 hours straight. That was intense and insane. I hope to do that again sometime.

MountainLionLink @ Jan 13th 2008 11:48AM

My brother and I would play Perfect Dark, on perfect agent mode, from start to finish. Man I wish more games had that the level of co-op that Perfect Dark did.

burger122789 @ Jan 13th 2008 11:49AM

I once did a super smash brothers melee marathon with my friends.

There will definately be a super smash brothers brawl marathon once it hits the shelves.... o i cannot wait

shadowchaoscontrol @ Jan 13th 2008 11:51AM

my longest was pokemon pearl on launch, i played 14 hours strait

Alex @ Jan 13th 2008 12:06PM

I was a Resident Advisor last year and we had a 24 hour gaming program. It consisted of Mario Kart Double Dash, Super Smash Brothers Melee, Halo, Warcraft III, Starcraft, and Guitar Hero. We had more than 100 residents show up to the program.

Moose @ Jan 13th 2008 1:18PM

My six-year-old appears to be on a Lego Star Wars binge RIGHT NOW. He started around 10:30 and is still going strong, even though he doesn't appear to be making any real progress, just running around killing people. Whatever.

Adrian @ Jan 13th 2008 1:24PM

5 words, tony hawks pro skater two. not too long after it was released me and my friend played a combination of single player and a lot of multiplayer from around 10am till about 11pm or 12 am. so about 13-14 hrs. wow, thats souns pathetic now. no no, i was a gamer then and I will always be one.

Mr Khan @ Jan 13th 2008 1:48PM

I usually only pull marathons whenever a console launches, i drained a set of batteries the first day i had my GBA, and drained the battery on the DS the first day as well, collecting about 40 stars in Mario 64 DS and going for 8 hours

Wii launched, i played hours of Twilight Princess and Wii Sports

Not often other than that

Dylan Bennett @ Jan 13th 2008 2:10PM

When Doom came out, my friends and I played multiplayer basically from Friday night until Sunday night one weekend. We napped here and there and grabbed snacks every once in a while.

SoshiKitai @ Jan 13th 2008 2:19PM

My "marathon" days are over... I'm not a hardcore gamer like I used to be, I'd rather switch between games if I play one for four hours.

The only recent one I've played for more than 24 hours... would have to be... Mass Effect.... :) Ahhh, Mass Effect Goodness!
Other than that, my "marathons" nowadays go only up to 8 hours (maximum)... ...aaand, I only play for that long when I'm playing DBZBT2&3 & MySims (great game btw, don't let it fool you), but ever since I've earned everything, I kinda' stopped those marathons.

Ah, but back then... my marathons with Romance VI, Tactics Ogre, Phantom Brave, Command & Conquer (I forgot which ones), Kessen 3, Super Mario RPG, Mario Paint, Suikkoden II, RPG Maker 2, Tales of Destiny, Harvest Moon, Harvest Moon: A Beautiful Life, and all the Grand Theft Autos...... oh and Advanced Wars!! Ooooh! Those were all fun!!!
Oh oh oh and the first Katamari!!
...and in Super Smash Bros. Melee... that 99 lives battle! Man that tired me out.

Ahh...

My longest would have to be Romance VI (stupid China being so big)... that was 72 hours (or more like 74/76 hours) ...... Go Sun Quan!!! Darn purple army (I can't believe I forgot their family name, I used to remember it so well), those guys hated me....

SoshiKitai @ Jan 13th 2008 2:51PM

OMG! I can't believe I forgot!
Metal Gear Solid!
I hated the first one until the one on the GameCube came out (I didn't like that top-view-only gameplay)...
I played MGS2 and 3 for so long! I even memorized the dialogue!!! ... well, I can't remember it now, but you get how long I played them...

Zombie Butcher @ Jan 13th 2008 2:39PM

I played Battlefield 2 Modern Combat for about 12 hours one day, ALso played 1942 on the NES for about 15 hours with some friends when I was kid we loved that game.

Max @ Jan 13th 2008 3:50PM

I remember when the Dreamcast first came out, my buddy got it and Sonic Adventure at launch. We stayed up all night beating the game with numerous characters and then sent someone out to buy a VMU when stores opened so we could actually save our progress. Up till that point we'd all been strictly cartridge system owners, so the concept of buying memory eluded us until we were already well into the game.

saylorsgang @ Jan 13th 2008 4:07PM

My first marathon was Sim City , 14hrs straight,Then when I first got Grand Theft Auto 3,I started at 10am, did'nt put it down till 8pm the next day, I had to call in to work. I just noticed the other daymy 6 and 9 yr old spent 11 hrs playing Super Mario Galaxy in one day, you know the Wii keeps track of playing time, since X-mas day they racked up 164 hrs!(avg 9 hrs a day!) please no comments on my parenting skills.

David W. @ Jan 13th 2008 4:47PM

Me and one of my friends played halo 2 for about 13 hours one time...that was fun

Christopher @ Jan 13th 2008 7:52PM

The local game stop in my area is getting ready for a super smash bros tournament!! Everyone who saved a copy of the new brawl and many others are gathering at a midnight opening for the game. There is supposed to be a tournament several ours of the game before it is even released and there should be prizes too. Think about it SSBB tournament at around mid night b4 the game is even release it will be a busy night at my local mall!!

Fiefdom @ Jan 13th 2008 8:12PM

I've never intentionally sat down for a gaming marathon. However, I did once play approximately eleven hours of Xenosaga I on the PS2. I used to play six to ten hours sessions of StarCraft regularly. There was one fifteen hour StarCraft session when I started playing on Friday after school and then snuck to bed when I realized it was 6am and my mother was apt to wake shortly.

I beat Fire Emblem 7 on a long bus ride once but I don't know if one would consider that a marathon as I beat the game in just under three hours.

lintsniffer @ Jan 13th 2008 9:27PM

I beat MGS3 in one sitting, 20 hours I think. I should have rented it.

I played an MMO you probably haven't heard of for 40 hours once.

I also played Pokemon Red for around 7 hours, but I was only 7.

MavHunter @ Jan 13th 2008 10:49PM

When Halo 3 came out, my friend and I were still at university and the Xbox was his house. We came back one weekend and started playing the game on Heroic at 10pm and managed to beat the game by 5 am. Not going for a speed run or anything but I think we did fairly well for ourselves being the first time we got to play the game.

Oshio @ Jan 14th 2008 12:07AM

I'm hoping to start this friday on MGS Marathon in 18 hours.

http://i230.photobucket.com/albums/ee282/oshio_kusanagi/mgs_marathon.jpg

Stay tune!

Iveo83 @ Jan 14th 2008 9:07AM

My last one was months ago on WoW i played all night friday all day sat and into sunday. Just grinding from 65-70 with a frd. It was alot of fun but after the 15th hr it all became a blur ;)

MountainLionLink @ Jan 14th 2008 9:35AM

I've seen a few individuals mention the 99 stock battle in SSBM. I've done that as well; four people, with no items, lowest possible damage ratio, and finally on Final Destiny.

It took us around four hours to just beat that.

Nate @ Jan 14th 2008 10:28AM

My friends and I did a 99 stock battle on the original Smash Bros. Oh to be 14 again with no life and infinite free time.

Rick Lineo @ Jan 14th 2008 12:19PM

This weekend my girlfriend left town and I had the apartment to myself...I just bought Railroad Tycoon 3 and I played it from 6pm Friday until 7 in the morning Saturday, then on Saturday night I started it up again and didn't stop until 6:30 am Sunday. Two consecutive all nighters, about 24 hours of gameplay in 36 hours of "living"

next-gen rules @ Jan 14th 2008 3:52PM

minor marathons

once played master of monsters(strategy) on the sega genesis from start to finish (had to, the battery save was dead so i couldn't save my progress)

once played shogun total war on pc for about 12 hrs straight. had to quit when i started getting motion sickness and nausea staring at the pc screen so much.

once dozed off(does that still count?) during an 18 hr marathon of romance of the 3 kingdoms 2 on the super nes. fortunately it is a strategy game and i dozed off during a static map screen. btw, to the other rot3k player, i think it was liu bei(green), sun quan(red), and cao cao(purple).