The Video Game Hall of Fame just chose the 4 new titles getting inducted in 2019 - here they are

While Nintendo is best known for franchises like "Super Mario Bros.," "Pokémon," and "The Legend of Zelda," "Mario Kart" is actually the company's best-selling franchise.

The game offers a wonderful balance between casual and competitive racing, with each race offering a few minutes of frantic fun for multiple players.

"Super Mario Kart" was the first game in the series and one of the earliest racing games to let two players play at once by splitting the screen. The game used a special graphics style that made the two-dimensional sprites seem as though they were driving in 3D; the effect was considered ground-breaking at the time.

"Colossal Cave Adventure" would barely be considered a video game by most people's standards, but it helped inspire an entirely new genre of entertainment: "Colossal Cave Adventure" doesn't have any graphics — instead, it tells players an ongoing story while they use text commands to choose their path.

Though basic, the game's structure helped future game developers figure out how to build interactive experiences that fuel the imagination.

"Microsoft's Solitaire" was mostly an afterthought when it was added to the company's influential Windows operating systems, but millions of people were introduced to the card game as a result of Microsoft's dominance in the personal computer market.

While solitaire existed long before video games, its presence in Windows made it readily accessible to anyone with a PC. Microsoft's Solitaire has a lasting legacy, if only because tens of millions of people ended up playing the game and sharing the experience.

Microsoft celebrated the 25th anniversary of solitaire with a special "Microsoft Solitaire Collection" released in 2015.