Nintendo Wii

Three New for Virtual Console

A few new additions to the Wii's Virtual Console, folks. First off, is the cult classic Tecmo Bowl. Many of you should remember that Tecmo Bowl didn't make use of the NFL license, and only the names of the players. Well, now the VC release makes use of neither, thanks to EA and their death grip on the NFL license. The only identifiable trait the athletes have is their jersey numbers. Tecmo Bowl is worth 500 Wii points ($5) and can be played with one or two players.

The other debuts are Sonic Spinball, a not so great pinball game starring Sega's fainting mascot and a TurboGrafx-16 RPG game Double Dungeons. Sonic can be played up to four players and is worth 800 points ($8). Double Dungeons is a two-player first-person game and is worth 600 Wii points ($6).

Videogame Vets: 10 Most Important Games

Steve Meretzky, Christopher Grant, Warren Spector, Henry Lowood and Matteo Bittanti. Some of those names you may recall, some you may not. What you do need to know is that they're all part of a committee that is pushing for the historical preservation of videogames and their study. And it looks like their efforts may be paying off, as the Library of Congress is considering this. The first step taken by the group was to submit a list of the 10 most important videogames - games that shaped the indsutry into what it is today.

“Creating this list is an assertion that digital games have a cultural significance and a historical significance,” Mr. Lowood said in an interview. And if that is acknowledged, he said, “maybe we should do something about preserving them.”

“We have to be really careful here because the technology is just going to make this harder for us,” Mr. Spector said. “The game canon is a way of saying, this is the stuff we have to protect first.”

The full list is as follows:

Spacewar! (1962)
Star Raiders (1979)
Zork (1980)
Tetris (1985)
SimCity (1989)
Super Mario Bros. 3 (1990)
Civilization I/II (1991)
Doom (1993)
Warcraft series (beginning 1994)
Sensible World of Soccer (1994)