The Smithsonian American Art Museum revealed the winners of its public vote to decide what games will be featured in their exhibit, The Art of Video Games, today. The exhibit creates a visual history of the evolution of gaming from its humble beginnings through the present. The vote, which took place between February and April, helped to pick the majority of the exhibit, with only a few iconic selections guaranteed entry.
The games are split into five eras, each focusing on a generation of gaming. The Smithsonian was egalitarian in its selection, leaving very few consoles unrepresented. (Sorry, Jaguar!) Each game was selected to represent the gameplay and artistic style of its generation.
Their classification of games doesn’t exactly match the classifications made by gamers. Fable and Shenmue are “adventure” games, Sim City represents strategy games, and so on. Both shumps and dungeon crawlers share the “Target” category, because they all revolve around players selecting a target and (generally) pressing a single button. Certain genres bounce around: Doom II is an action game, while Goldeneye is a “target” game. While these generalizations might seem abnormal to some, putting an emphasis on how much games have evolved in forty years shows many of these games in a different light.
Want to see if your all-time favorite game made the cut? Here’s an alphabetical list of all the games featured in the exhibit.
1943: The Battle of Midway
Advanced Dungeons and Dragons
After Burner
Attack of the Mutant Camels
Bioshock
Boom Blox
BrĂĽtal Legend
ChuChu Rocket!
Combat®
Desert Commander
Diablo II
Donkey Kong™
DOOM II
Dune II: Battle for Arrakis
Earthworm Jim
Einhander
Fable
Fallout
Fallout 3
Final Fantasy Tactics
Final Fantasy VII
flOw
Flower
Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2
Goldeneye 007
Gradius V
Gunstar Heroes
Halo 2
Heavy Rain
Jumpman
Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth II
Marble Madness
Mass Effect 2
Metal Gear Solid
Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
Metroid Prime 2: Echos
Minecraft
Myst
Okami
Pac-Man
Panzer Dragoon II: Zwei
Panzer Dragoon Orta
Panzer Dragoon Saga
Phantasy Star
Phantasy Star IV
Pikmin 2
Pitfall II: Lost Caverns
Pitfall!
Portal
Rez
Shadow of Colossus
Shenmue
Sid Meier’s Pirates!
SimCity
SimCity 2000
Sonic Adventure
Space Invaders
Spy vs Spy
Star Fox™
Star Fox™: Assault
Star Strike
Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator
StarCraft
Super Mario 64
Super Marios Brothers
Super Mario Brothers 3
Super Mario Galaxy 2
Super Mario World
The Bard’s Tale III: Thief of Fate
The Legend of Zelda
The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Walker
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
The Secret of Monkey Island
Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell
Tomb Raider
TRON: Maze-Atron
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
Utopia
World of Warcraft
Worms Armageddon
Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros’ Treasure
Zaxxon
Looking at the list, some of the games chosen are obvious shoo-ins: Mario 3, Metal Gear Solid, and Bioshock, to name a few. Others—Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 and Metroid Prime 2—for instance, are more interesting. Certain series are very well represented: Zelda, Mario, Panzer Dragoon
Tim Schaffer isn’t a game series, per se, but he is very well represented here too.
Though the games of the exhibit have been unveiled, the installation is far from complete. The Smithsonian plans to open “The Art of Video Games” on March 16th, 2012, with the exhibit running from March through September.
