Video Game Hall of Fame inducts 'Ms. Pac-Man,' 'Ocarina of Time'

May 5 (UPI) -- The World Video Game Hall of Fame in New York announced the induction of groundbreaking games Ms. Pac-Man, Dance Dance Revolution, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Sid Meier's Civilization.

The World Video Game Hall of Fame, part of The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, announced the four games were selected from a field of nominees that also included Assassin's Creed, Candy Crush Saga, Minesweeper, NBA Jam, PaRappa the Rapper, Resident Evil, Rogue and Words with Friends.

Ms. Pac-Man, the 1981 sequel to arcade classic Pac-Man, sold 125,000 cabinets within five years of its release, making it one of the five best-selling arcade games of all time, the museum said.

"By offering the first widely recognized female video game character, Ms. Pac-Man represented a turn in the cultural conversation about women's place in the arcade as well as in society at large," Julia Novakovic, senior archivist at The Strong, said in a news release.

Dance Dance Revolution, which first arrived in Japanese arcades in 1998, has been followed by more than 100 versions of the rhythmic game, and is credited with inspiring other music-based games including Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

"As Dance Dance Revolution's name implies, it truly provided a revolution for the music game scene," video game curator Lindsey Kurano said. "Music has been an integral part of human life since prehistoric times, so it comes as no surprise that DDR enjoyed a unique popularity that spanned ages, genders, and regions."

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, which earned multiple "game of the year" awards when it was released for the Nintendo 64 in 1998, and has often been cited as among the top video games of all time.

"Even today, developers throughout the world credit The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time as influencing the way they create games. The game's sprawling 3D world, fluid combat, complex puzzles, and time-shifting story combined to inspire a wonder in players that they have never forgotten," digital games curator Andrew Borman said.

Sid Meier's Civilization, released in 1991, reinvented the strategy genre with players taking control of empires over the course of centuries of in-game time.

"The addictive nature of the game, which creator Sid Meier himself called the 'one more turn' quality, and its nearly unlimited choices that prevented repetitive gameplay, earned Civilization recognition from Computer Gaming World as the best video game of all time in 1996," said Jon-Paul Dyson, director of The Strong's International Center for the History of Electronic games. "Altogether -- and given the extraordinarily long periods of play the game afforded -- players have engaged with the Civilization series for more than a billion hours."