Fifteen games have been nominated for the Video Game Hall of Fame , including Legend of Zelda, Minecraft and Grand Theft Auto III. The winners are announced May 5 at the Strong Museum. Last year six games were inducted: Pong, World of Warcraft, Doom, Pac-man, Super Mario brothers and Tetris.
"These 15 World Video Game Hall of Fame finalists span decades, gaming platforms and countries of origin--but what they all have in common is their undeniable impact on the world of gaming and popular culture," the Strong Museum’s director Jon Paul-C Dyson said.
The 15 finalists are:
Elite
Final Fantasy
Grand Theft Auto III
John Madden Football
The Legend of Zelda
Minecraft
Nürburgring
The Oregon Trail
Pokemon Red and Green
Sid Meier's Civilization
The Sims
Sonic the Hedgehog
Space Invaders
Street Fighter II
Tomb Raider
All of these games are important in their own right, affecting the video game landscape we have today. There’s no telling if gaming would be as popular as it is now without games like Space Invaders or Elite . Tomb Raider brought platformers to a newer generation and Pokemon pushed the limits of what an RPG could do.
The thing that really caught my eye was Nürburgring being on the list, since I had never heard of a game of that title. After some digging, I found out that Nürburgring was an old arcade game from 1976 that started the racing video game genre. It’s also a race car track in Germany that has been featured in many classic racing games, including Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport.
