Depends on the game... and nowadays, depends on how much free time I have.
Nowadays, I only have a limited number of playing hours a week. Some weeks, I hardly play at all.
Back when I did play... we'd go through games like pizzas. The first Resident Evil? A day or two. Most FPSs? The single-player part will either take one night or two days, depending on what time I start playing. After a while, I had to resort to setting everything to hard to extend my playing time.
Flight Combat sims take longer because part of your mission is flying to and from your target. One or two days, only though... then another few weeks of doing all the different permutations and missions.
The first Metal Gear Solid? Finished in 7 hours, played straight. Then played another five or six hours to get the second ending.
That's why I love Gran Turismo. It actually takes time to finish, and some skill. Most games are built so that 99% of the players out there can finish it on "Normal", while 75% can finish it on hard. (They had to invent "Very Hard" for the truly hardcore, to limit it to 50%)
Gran Turismo? They make it so that you actually have to know how to drive to play. In other words, you need to develop a very specific skill set to get through it. It takes me days to get through the license tests. Days that stretch out to weeks to do all races in one tier (or at least enough to advance)... then months as I do the license tests for higher levels... and other races... and some of the other factory races, as I try to make more money to feed my growing car collection... and before I know it... a year has passed... as I do certain races over and over... get bogged down tuning and testing and tuning and...
Other games may give you the long term hit, like Fallout3 (just don't follow the extremely short main storyline until you've done all the side missions) or various GTA games... but again... racing actually takes some skill... which I appreciate.
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Fastest I've ever finished a game? Me and a mate used to play Streets of Fury on his old Genesis between classes in College. We played it so much that we could blitz through it in just 20 minutes, unlock the secret "Hard" mode, then finish that in another 20 minutes, eat lunch and be back in class on time.
