The Strong Museum, or the National Museum of Play features the World Video Game Hall Of Fame (among other gaming related items), where the most important video games are honoured.
The Hall of Fame itself is rather new, and this year 4 new games have been inducted, making it a grand total of 9 so far. Multiple media outlet, e.g. CNN, have reported that Sid Meier’s Civilization has been added this year. As one of the most groundbreaking video games series ever, it certainly deserves to be in there, and certainly also deserves to be one of the first ones.
An excerpt from the Civilization entry:
“Civilization exemplifies the “4X” sub-genre of turn-based strategy games. Though the term “4X” wasn’t coined until a 1993 review of Master of Orion, Sid Meier’s game serves as the archetype for games focused on eXploring, eXpanding, eXploiting, and eXterminating. The game begins with players in control of a single settler unit, and from there they may colonize surrounding areas, building cities, roads, mines, and farms. Players control every aspect of the city and its people, including what types of knowledge to explore, allowing them the unique opportunity to literally reinvent the wheel. New technology often leads to new units or building improvements, such as chariots following the wheel, thus giving the first player to achieve these upgrades a large tactical advantage. This “technology tree” offers huge variances in play style, as only one type of improvement can be researched at a time, forcing players to weigh the risks and benefits of choosing one technology over another. Throughout the game, players also have the opportunity to interact with real world leaders, including Ramses the Great, Tokugawa Ieyasu, and Mohandas Gandhi. The game is won either when one player conquers the entire world, or when a player successfully develops space travel and reaches the Alpha Centuri star system.”
Read the full press release here, and discuss the Hall of Fame entry for Civ in our forum here.