Video Game Hall of Fame: All 24 Inductees Ranked - Part I (24-13)

#13 Donkey Kong (inducted in 2017)

One of the things about legendary Nintendo game designer Shigeru Miyamoto (and his name will be coming up on this list again at least a few more times) is that his creations tend to buck the trends of gaming at the time. There's no better example of this than lucky number 13 on our list, Donkey Kong.

In 1981, Nintendo released an arcade title called Radar Scope which, while it was a perfectly fine game on its own, was yet another space shooter in the vein of Space Invaders. In other words, it was be-there-done-that enough that it simply wasn't successful.

Nintendo needed a replacement to put into these arcade cabinets, and fast. That's when they turned to Miyamoto, then just a junior employee, who came up with something revolutionary.

Donkey Kong

A game where you play... as a guy. Just a regular guy. And he's trying to save his girlfriend from a giant ape. It was so different from anything else in arcades, and was so much fun to play, that it became a cultural phenomenon.

Like many of Miyamoto's other creations, Donkey Kong showed that you can tell a story and still keep the game simple enough to be contained in the technical limitations at the time.

This obviously wasn't the first character-driven arcade game (we'll get to that in a moment, as well), but it also introduced us to a character that would eventually change gaming completely.

But, more on him later.

So, that's the first thirteen Video Game Hall of Fame games, ranked in order of influence. We'll have the next twelve shortly. In the meantime, what do you think of the list so far? Share your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks for reading!