22| Sid Meier's Civilization V

Released: September 21st, 2010

Available On: PC (All major OSes)

Out of any video game I have ever played, the game that I have clocked the most hours in, is Civilization V. 360 hours on the dot I have put into this game. Just by the fact alone, no matter how you slice it, this game has made a significant impact on me. There have been countless playthroughs where I ended up clocking well over four, five, or even six hours at a time. At best, Civilization could be described as gaming bliss, at worst it could be described as an addiction. Looking at the hour logs of my peers, it definitely seems that I am not alone.

To explain just what makes Civilization such an addicting game, one has to explain just what Civilization is. Civilization is the father of the "4X" genre. The "4X" is an abbreviation for explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate. The basis of Civilization is that the player chooses a legendary leader from history to play as. This includes anyone as respected as Gandhi to as infamous as Genghis Khan. When the game begins the player has nothing but one pack of settlers and a single military unit to command. The entire location around them, but the immediate area is invisible. As time passes by the player will have settled cities, explored the area around them, and met other civilizations as they bond as friends or brawl as enemies. Playing Civilization is basically playing through an alternate history. You get to see just how the world will unfold as you and multiple A.I. controlled players fight to become the most powerful civilization. This is what makes the game so addicting, to live out a pseudo-history fantasy where it was the Native Americans who colonized Europe and not vice versa. To have Africa rise as the most wealthy and powerful continent in the world. To have Communism tower over Capitalism. To turn the world into a blatant theocracy. For the average person this may not sound very exciting, but for history buffs it is captivating.

It's also interesting to see just what the A.I. will do in the game. Seeing skirmishes between Otto van Bismark and Attila the Hun is always fascinating to see play out.  Both to see which nation will conquer over the other, but also to determine which one will be the bigger threat. To shake things up even more, the game allows player gather multiple "points" in different attributes. These attributes include faith, culture, and science. Faith allows players to create religious prophets and spread their faith across the territory for influence. Culture is used to influence other populations and have one's nation stand out from the rest. Science allows the country to research technology and become more powerful. All these things start off small, but gradually snowball to matter much more later on in the game. The power of religion can make or break allies, and even be the final straw that has cities rebel against their government. Culture can not only boost tourism, but have a nation's populace feel much warmer toward one's country, lowering the chances of war and more accepting of one's ideology. Science quickens the time to discover new technologies, which can give the player a significant edge in population growth, logistics, exploration, and war. While it is recommended to focus on one attribute more than others, rarely is it wise to ignore one outright.

Focusing on these attributes also contributes to which types of victory a player can achieve. The game features four types of victories: culture, technology, domination, and diplomacy. Culture is won by adopting the most social tenants. Technology won by winning the space race. Domination is achieved by having the most capitals in one's possession. While diplomacy is won by having the most allies in the UN. It's common for players to say that one or two of these are relatively easy to achieve, while the others are almost impossible. I myself fall into this group as to me, technology and diplomacy are very easy to achieve, but culture and domination are victories I can't grasp.

The game also features a very popular online multiplayer mode where players compete against one another on a map. It plays just like the single player game, only instead of A.I.s controlling the rival civilizations, it is other actual players. This sounds cool at first, and it is, unfortunately games take way too long to complete. It is common for matches to go on for several hours. I always eventually quit early.

Beside that, there isn't much to say about Civilization V. It is very awesome and addicting game. Sure it has its faults like questionable and predictable A.I., uneven difficulty modes, and turns taking far too long at times. However, it is still a fantastic game. Even after putting in almost as many hours into at as days in a year, I still occasionally have an itch to jump back in.