The Strong National Museum of Play on Thursday announced four new inductees into the World Video Game Hall of Fame that are sure to stir up fond memories in the minds of millions of gamers around the globe.
This year's inductees include the 1981 smash arcade hit Donkey Kong from Nintendo, Microsoft's genre-defining Halo: Combat Evolved which helped propel the Xbox into serious console contention in 2001, Pokémon Red and Green - the first installments in the Pokémon series - for the Nintendo Game Boy in 1996 and arguably one of the greatest fighting games of all-time in 1991's Street Fighter II from Capcom.
The winning games, selected based on characteristics such as longevity, icon-status, geographical reach and influence, were narrowed down from a list of a dozen finalists including Myst, Final Fantasy VII, Microsoft Windows Solitaire, Wii Sports, Portal, Resident Evil, Tomb Raider and Mortal Kombat. All of these are excellent games which I suspect will make it into the hall of fame in due time.
Six titles earned the prestigious honor last year including The Oregon Trail, Grand Theft Auto III, The Sims, Sonic the Hedgehog, The Legend of Zelda and Space Invaders. The inaugural class of 2015, if you recall, consisted of Super Mario Bros., Tetris, World of Warcraft, Pong, Doom and Pac-Man.
All inductees are on permanent display at The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York.