Game News
The Strong’s World Video Game Hall of Fame for the National Museum of Play located in Rochester, New York, has announced the second line of historic games that will be inducted into the exhibit. The Oregon Trail, Space Invaders, The Legend of Zelda, Sonic the Hedgehog, The Sims, and Grand Theft Auto III will be joining the Hall of Fame as the 2016 inductees. They will be accompanying last year’s inductees of Super Mario Bros, Pac-Man, Pong, Tetris, Doom, and World of Warcraft.
The Oregon Trail, the oldest game among all of the inductees, had players take the role of settlers of Western America and was popularized through its use as an educational tool in many schools. Space Invaders, while archaic today, was cutting-edge when it released in 1978 as the first Japanese arcade game using a microprocessor and helped define the space-shooter genre. The Legend of Zelda not only set a new benchmark for the action-adventure genre with its open world-map and trove of collectible items, it also introduced the idea of save files to gaming. Sonic the Hedgehog is most famous as the game that brought Sega to prominence as a major console developer. The Sims took an unconventional approach to game design by casting aside objectives and scores for something more akin to a virtual dollhouse and launched the highest-selling franchise of PC games. Finally, Grand Theft Auto III set itself in an open-world where players could have hours of fun without even pursuing the actual story missions and instead enjoy various mini-games or simply create chaos. Each is undoubtedly a legend of the industry and warrants a place in the Hall of Fame.
This year’s inductees were narrowed down from a list of fifteen finalists that were chosen from with the aid of journalists, scholars, and popular vote. The finalists that just missed being added to the Hall of Fame were Street Fighter II, Sid Meier’s Civilization, Pokémon Red and Green, Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy, Elite, John Madden Football, Minecraft, and Nürburgring. While they haven’t made it in this year, there’s always the next.
If you have any games that you feel should be in the Hall of Fame, you can make your own nominations here. What do you think belongs in the Video Game Hall of Fame? How do you feel about this year’s inductees. Leave a comment below and let us know what you think.
