Man Plays Epic 10-Year-Long Game of ‘Civilization II’

In perhaps the coolest bit of video game-related news we've ever seen, a man has been playing a single game of 'Civilization II' for the past ten years. What's not so cool is that he's created a "hellish nightmare of suffering and devastation" plagued by war, famine and natural disasters. Um, aren't video games supposed to be fun?

According to a post by Reddit user Lycerius, his world is ruled by three warring super-nations, each of whom fights for control of rapidly depleting resources. Constant nuclear wars have torn the world apart and the ice caps have melted more than 20 times.

Most of the population -- 90%, in fact -- has either been annihilated by nukes or died from starvation. Still, Lycerius hopes to heal his broken virtual world.

"My goal for the next few years is to try and end the war and thus use the engineers to clear swamps and fallout so that farming may resume. I want to rebuild the world. But I'm not sure how," he said.

Reddit, meanwhile, has been abuzz over the experiment and the possibilities of playing an open-ended game long after developers intended. Talk about replay value!