C64:
- Raid Over Bungling Bay
- M.U.L.E.
- The Bard's Tale
- Ultima IV (also III, V and VI)
- Raid Over Moscow
- Maniac Mansion
- Another World
- Beach Head
- Elite
- Gold Box AD&D games
PC:
- Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle
- King's Quest (I, II, etc)
- Space Quest (I, II, etc)
- Wing Commander I & II
- Ultima 7: The Black Gate
- Ultima 7 Part 2: Serpent Isle
- Grim Fandango
- Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
As far as multiplayer games go M.U.L.E. really stands out because it was simply brilliant. You had to set up a colony with other players and in order to win you both had to screw over other players but you also had to work with them in order for the colony to survive. Actually come to think about it, it shares a few simularities to tv shows like Survivor in that way, the game could get pretty cutthroat. Also according to the wikipedia page for it, it was an exercise in supply and demand economics. My two sisters and I (very young at the time) played it a lot and really enjoyed it dispite the fact we probably didn't even realize we were learning valuable economic lessons (of course one of us would end up crying when we got screwed over by the other players and the rest would end up laughing).
For single player games Ultima IV stands out because it was not only a very influential rpg (the Ultima series heavily influenced rpg games in Japan) but it did something that was groundbreaking at the time and I'm not sure if any rpg ever did it again. Instead of having to defeat a major bad guy or enemies being the main point of the game it instead had a morality system that you had to master in order to become the "Avatar". Basically you had to explore three principals (truth, love, and courage) and learn how they applied to 8 virtues (honesty, compassion, valor, justice, sacrifice, humility, and spirituality). It was a game in which you went on a moral quest to become a leader and an example to all people in order to save that gaming World. I feel it transcends just playing games because of the fact that the ideas can be applied to not just the game but to a person's real life as well.
