This Summer, the International Center for the History of Electronic Games and the Strong Museum of Play will announce the first class of inductees for the World Video Game Hall of Fame. Any game, past or present, arcade or console, casual or hardcore, is eligible to be enshrined within its soon-to-be hallowed halls, and the World Video Game Hall of Fame is currently accepting nominations on their website through March 31. Do you think your favorite game has what it takes to be considered Hallworthy? First, it has to meet the following criteria:
- Icon Status: The game is widely recognized and remembered.
- Longevity: The game is more than a passing fad and has enjoyed popularity over time.
- Geographical Reach: The game meets the above criteria across international boundaries.
- Influence: The game has exerted significant influence on the design and development of other games, on other forms of entertainment, or on popular culture and society in general. A game may be inducted on the basis of this criterion without necessarily having met all of the first three.
Earlier this month, we asked a few developers at the PAX East expo which games they would nominate for the World Video Game Hall of Fame. Here’s what they told us…
Dan Adelman, Nintendo’s former indie guru, stuck with the classics. Without missing a beat, he quickly ticked off Super Mario Bros., Pong, Space Invaders, and Zork because he thought they were so foundational to their genres. “They were literally the first of their kind,” he added.
Adelman, who is now an independent consultant helping indie developers shepherd their games towards release, also singled out Sid Meier’s Civilization. To him, Civilization was crazy ambitious, and how well it eventually worked is a testament to the developers. “It could have been terrible, but it worked so well,” he said.
Crazy ambition likely also fueled the pick from Larry Bolden, a Compliance Specialist at The Behemoth. Bolden said he would select Chrono Trigger for enshrinement because of the depth the time travel story offered you. Depth was also deemed important by Jean Simon Otis of Chainsawesome Games. The developer of Knight Squad describes himself as “a big RPG guy” and held up Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars and Final Fantasy VII as his two favorite games in the genre. Collin Van Ginkel of Two Tribes also went with a personal favorite when he picked Gradius, which he said he played over and over again.
But a few developers definitely went off the beaten path with their choices, including Simon Lachance’s selection of the recent iOS hit Device 6. Lachance is currently working on Just Shapes & Beats at Berzerk Studio, and he said that he chose the text-based puzzler because, for him, it “really defines video games.”
However, I think the pick that was furthest from what I expected was supplied by Becky Pennock, the Art Director at Team Tripleslash. Pennock used her pen to give Magnetic By Nature its style, but her pick for the World Video Game Hall of Fame was the NES edition of The Little Mermaid because it turns Ariel into a swimming death machine who kills EVERYTHING (her emphasis) with her tail. I’ve got to admit, I never would have considered The Little Mermaid as Hallworthy, but I remember playing it back in the day, and it was definitely one of the better Disney/Capcom collaborations.
Pennock also wanted to make a few more “serious” picks, which included Portal 2 (because it is so much bigger and more detailed than the first game) and The New Tetris, an N64-exclusive version of the classic puzzle game that asks players to fuse together huge blocks. She said it really brought out the gambler in her as she always built up the stack as high as she could go before trying to knock it down.
Ty Taylor of The Quantum Astrophysicists Guild also picked a Portal game, but he went with the original over the sequel. After informing me that it revolutionized the way we think about first person shooters, the Tumblestone developer added the much more melodramatic plea… “It belongs in a museum!”
Still others let their current projects inform their Hall of Fame nomination, such as Chris King of Batterystaple Games. King is currently developing the Mega Man-inspired 20XX, so it seemed perfectly fitting that his top choice was Mega Man II, though King also held up Pac-Man and Guardian Legend as two other games he’d push through if he had multiple picks.
But finally, I think the best response came from Will Stamper. Stamper supplied the narration for The Behemoth’s BattleBlock Theater, and when asked which game he’d nominate, Stamper selected The Behemoth’s earlier project, Castle Crashers. Stamper said that the beat ’em up was different and that “not many games look like that or play like that,” but first, he confessed he made that pick because of “peer pressure.”
That’s what the professionals had to say. How about you, readers? What games would you like to see enshrined in the World Video Game Hall of Fame? Tell us below and don’t forget to submit your nominations to the Hall through their website by March 31.
