When Prototype came out I spent a long time jumping off tall things and maneuvering the camera to a cool angle then holding down the weapon wheel button because it made everything go slo-mo

I gave my sister an emulated Spyro 3 and all she would do was swim around in the first homeworld

The AoEII note reminds me of my experience with RTS games (Starcraft mainly) when I was below 10 years old and basically wanting to just build bases and expand them constantly without ever attempting to destroy the enemy completely.

Playing RTS like town simulation, that's me.

there should be an RTS about building a liveable city where you are just competing with a neighbour to make the best one

One of my favorite pasttimes is turning on Just Cause 2, sitting so close to the TV theres nothing else in my view, taking a helicopter as high as it will go with the Point Break skydiving song playing in the background and jumping out somewhere around 2:30

used to play ps4 spiderman with a podcast in the background and just swing around aimlessly. the momentum and snappy turning feel so good in that game... probably the only part of it i unreservedly enjoy

I remember the destruction in the first Bad Company feeling like the future of video games to my 13 year old self. There was a town where you could call in mortar strikes and I spent like an hour just blasting it to pieces.

Practice Swinging the golf club over and over in Wii sports

MGS is generally good for dicking about with one mechanic. I've spent hours in Gronzyj Grad, rolling off bunker roofs, onto guards' heads. Even those who haven't played through the game multiple times will typically have lost a lot of time in the Raikov disguise powertrip.

Super fun idea for a list - love this!

I really liked spending time in Kingdom Hearts II just skateboarding around Hollow Bastion because I could

Not sure this game counts but for me literally yesterday playing Feather. I got the platinum and then spent 30 minutes flying to a great height and dive bombing to weave between trees and repeat.

In Xenoblade Chronicles X there's no fall damage, so I spent loads of time jank-platforming up to the game's highest points and leaping off. Also the camera can be zoomed in to a pseudo 1st person view, gives a great sense of speed and adrenaline rushing face first to the ground.

The Battle for Bikini Bottom Ski Ball,,

Would Sonic Adventure 1 count? There always seemed to be something so captivating to me about screwing around in the overworld and not actually progressing and from what I can gather, other people have had similar experiences with the game

any game counts if you can see the tree within

In Skyrim, there's nothing I enjoy more than going for a walk. Watching it change from night to day, maybe seeing the aurora borealis in the sky, or even the climate changing if I go to far into the mountains. You might encounter friendly characters or you may end up in a battle, but I can't get enough of those long journeys accompanied by Jeremy Soule's music.

When I was playing Majora’s Mask 3D I had a lot of fun chugging some Chateau Romani and just rolling around Termina Field as Goron Link. It was fun to just go fast and hit ramps when they came up… mostly I’d do it while waiting for something else but it was still distractingly fun.

Unsure if this is exactly on theme but when I was a tiny child my dad had a bunch off pirated games on his computer and I played Warcraft 1 and, not grasping it at all, just enjoyed myself building an arrangement of houses and roads on multiple occasions until I eventually asked why people kept breaking them

Absolutely counts, check the entries for Starcraft and AOE2

This is a great list idea! I remember spending so much time just jumping off of tall structures in Jet Set Radio Future, seeing how many tricks I could do before I hit the ground.

My version of this for GTA IV wasn't the stairs but rather that one swing set that was glitched and would send you flying 10000 miles when you drove into it