Which games have been the biggest time suckers in your life, have been craved almost as soon as you put down the mouse/controller, and have been returned to at the first opportunity? These are the run-home-from-school games, the "Sorry, honey, I need some me time" games.

I think this feeling fades with age, fortunately/unfortunately.

The original Final Fantasy consumed my life until it was beaten.

mod stealth edit:
Title was disambiguated.

damn i could list a lot of games. but off the top of my head. rollercoaster tycoon 3. this game had me playing for 5 or 6 hours before i even knew what had happened. it got so bad i actually had to force myself to get rid of it. i realized i was destroying my grades and so i had to stop playing.

I can recall more than one time forgoing sex in order to see what my Sim would do next. I place a lot of blame on Will Wright's shoulders for that breakup.

easy, football manager

my exam results would have been 3x better if hadn't styed up all night steering Yeovil Town to FA cup glory

pokemon red, ive spent every long boring car journey of life playing that game

Hellgate: London, it's so shiny!

Sonic Adventure 2. Go ahead, laugh. It just proves you haven't tried the Chao section.

Once you seriously get into raising those things, it becomes nearly impossible to stop.

Crackdown ate up a lot of my time when it came out, even during the time that the Halo 3 Multiplayer Beta had been activated. However, I'm usually addicted to a game until I beat it, at which point it sometimes sits around until I play it for ol' times' sake. I'm also addicted to SSBB at this point.

I lost an entire summer to GTA 3. It's funny how that game actually feels small now...

Lumines
Super Smash Bros. Melee
Roller Coaster Tycoon
GTA San Andreas

Nothing compares to WoW.

I would have to say WoW and Sonic Adventure 2. I couldn't stop playing WoW untill my time ran out and i'm to cheap to spend more money on it, and Sonic was the best raising the Choas. I had 8 Choas and I was training one that had lvl 98 power or something like that. I would still be playing it now if my memory card hadn't broken and deleted all my data.

Everyday Shooter is hooking me right now...must get little white dots...mmmm

ESIV: Oblivion. Once I fire it up the hours seem to fly by.

Phantom6:
Sonic Adventure 2. Go ahead, laugh. It just proves you haven't tried the Chao section.

Once you seriously get into raising those things, it becomes nearly impossible to stop.

I'm not alone!

The pro evolution soccer series has eaten away countless hours of my life. Playing competatively against friends is really, REDICULOUSLY exciting at times.

Dr. Mario. Just writing the title down makes me want to start it up and play it again.

I was hopelessly addicted to Ultima Online from Sept 1997 to somewhere in 2004, on and off.

Also, Rock Band has been a bit of an addiction recently.

Operation Flashpoint sopped up entire years of my life. Every night I would sit down, thinking, "Well, maybe I'll get around to playing Homeworld 2 tonight." Then I'd think, "Well, I would like to see how well some Finnish reservists can hold off a company of Russians, if they're supported by a T-72." Two hours later I'd still be putzing around in that giant sandbox that was the mission editor...
For my own good, I didn't reinstall it after my last yearly reinstall of WinXP.
TES: Morrowind is a distant second. These days, however, I'm playing far too much Oblivion for my own good. Just gonna close one more gate, then I'll get back to the main quest... Right. I'll be collecting Sigil Stones forever at this rate.
On the horizon? Steel Beasts Pro PE. A professional-grade modern-day armor sim with huge sandbox potential. The best $125 ever spent on me.

Fallout 2, recently spent a week playing it. I'd wake up, say hi to everybody on IRC then go play it. Then BAM, 10 or 11 minutes later and it's time for bed. How does an entire day go by in only 10 minutes?

Oblivion: There was so much you could do, playing on hard was epic.

Mass Effect: This game was so good; playing it on Hard twice, with the same character spec, was still fun.

I've had a few. Kingdom Hearts 1 & 2, Final Fantasy XII, and currently SSBB.

Third World Farmer http://www.3rdworldfarmer.com/ I WILL succeed someday, I will NOT kill my family (maybe I'll even try again tonight!)
Final Fantasy X
Gauntlet
Intelligent Cube

WoW was my time sink. Once I stopped that (pre-Burning Crusade), nothing came up until TF2.
Does Spore count? I spent quite a little bit of time (more than I'm willing to admit) looking at pretty pictures and movies when I first heard about it. Less news coming out now, but still spend some time looking for some feature I haven't seen yet.

Most of the games I've found to be addictive are ones where hours after playing them I still see images in my mind.

-Tetris
-Zoop: Anyone else remember this game?
-Katamari Damacy: I've gotten over my addiction to this game. I just couldn't stand having the soundtrack in my head 24/7.
-Elder Scrolls Oblivion: My "oh yeah, it's 4am" game.
-Dead Rising: I'm glad this game has its own time limit, otherwise I'd never stop slaughtering zombies with whatever I've found in the hardware store....and the sporting goods store....and the bakery.

I went through an Ocarina of Time phase a few years ago. I still play it so maybe I am not out of the Lost Woods yet.

Niniux:
I was hopelessly addicted to Ultima Online from Sept 1997 to somewhere in 2004, on and off.

Me too, although I stopped around 2001. Those early days where it was the wild-west were awesome. It seriously affected my grades in highschool.

I've also had a few days of unhealthy Civ-gaming. Civ III and IV have both made me really sleepy the next day at school/work.

The most recent game that has sucked up a lot of my time is TF2. It's just a fun game that avoided putting in anything that wasn't fun.

Edit: Just wanted to add Tetris, I too can see the shapes after a long time playing. I'll be reading something for school and I'll be filling in the spaces between the words with Tetris blocks.

Super Mario Sunshine was a big game for me, I loved the island music. And playing in progressive scan was amazing. Such an overwhelming feeling of vacation. It really took me away for a long long time. I still think about it every day, as one of my fondest memories.

Diablo 2. Also, the Heroes of Might and Magic series is seriously addicting.

WoW and Death Worm.

I stopped playing both cold turkey.

It was hard, I tell you.

Now I hate both games with a vengeance.

Wow, until I realised playing it was basicly work. That I didn't have fun, but just kept on playing because I felt I had to.

I lost months of my life to Fallout and Planescape: Torment. Diablo soaked up time too, and don't get me started on Mario & Yoshi.

Planetside without a doubt, my mother cancelled our internet subscription due to my addiction and my having exams, she tried restricting me but my paying a man to put a phone line in my attic bedroom was the final straw. God I loved that game. Imagine it remade now. Hmmmm. Terran Republic forever!

Quistnix:
Wow, until I realised playing it was basicly work. That I didn't have fun, but just kept on playing because I felt I had to.

exactly. came back to it for a more casual approach a couple of months later. worked fine, was actually fun to do 2-3 instances a week. until someone I still knew practically begged me to join their guild because they desperately needed a feral. Went on one raid with them, was disgusted with the game and myself, never touched it again.

CivIII had me playing for 24 hours straight when I first installed it. Same with DisciplesII. And Tropico. I guess I'm a sucker for this kind of game.

Recently? Assassins Creed (innocent slaughter ftw!)

Of all time... Probably Pokemon. I've been playing that since I was about 9. I remember when silver came out I was ecstatic. I must've dedicated over 200 hours to those games...