Planescape Torment without any doubt.

E.T . the extraterrestrial.

Baldur's Gate 2.

Don't really know any other game that would qualify.

Quake.

hmmm; 

 Balders gate was great when it came out. played everything by these guys love D&D rules

 fallout was way ahead of its time. Played all of these too

 Thief series played em all.

 Halo of course.

Space Invaders and Asteroids on the Atari 2600 :)

A lot of great games listed! But I throw my hat in with Twisted Metal! My god the shear amount of time me and my boys logged into that game was embarassing....

Originally posted by tapeworm00

E.T . the extraterrestrial.

Do you mean the Atari 2600 version that was rushed out for the Christmas season and was so horribly unplayable that it caused the video game market crash of 1983? Yeah, I'd agree that was legendary!

Bren

everquest

Originally posted by skeaser

Quake III Arena.

Fixed :P

Pacman

Nobody said Tetris?

Really?

Baldur's Gate

None. Everybody has different favorites. It would be impossible for everyone to have the same favorite game. What I like, you may dislike and what you like, I may dislike.

Originally posted by Defect

This is easy. ULTIMA ONLINE! (Oldschool of course, before EA got ahold of it.)

Thread was over in post 6...

Originally posted by purewitz

None. Everybody has different favorites. It would be impossible for everyone to have the same favorite game. What I like, you may dislike and what you like, I may dislike.

How do you go from "what everybody could agree was a GOOD game" to Favorite?

Pac Man was pretty awesome.....

Definatly have to say pong, it was the start of it all after all wasn't it?

Games I think people can agree were well done and haven't seen posted yet (apologies if I'm repeating, it was a quick scan): Wing Commander II, Warlords, Ultima VII, Prince of Persia (the originals, though I hear Sands of Time is very good)

Games I didn't particularly enjoy but I think are pretty well conceived: Halo, Starcraft

Games I enjoyed but perhaps others may not have and may not think were particularly good (bugs hurt them quite a lot): Darklands, Arena

From ppl I've spoke to most liked chuckie egg, jungle trouble and my fave jet set willy.

I agree with those who've said Pong, Pac-Man+Ms. Pac-man, Super Mario Brothers and Tetris.

Mario = hugely important, as others rightly point out, gaming (and consoles in the house) became common place and acceptable, not just fringe and geeky (not like i cared, as I was already an addict from playing my Atari 2600 and C64 before that).

Tetris = when I noticed my friend's parents, both conservative military sorts, were addicted to the game and playing for hours every night (and getting really good), I knew that gradually everybody would play games.

I find myself agreeing the most with those games listed here that follow the K.I.S.S. (keep it simple, stupid!) philosophy.  The only reason I don't include Zelda, which was awesome, is because there was more memorization in that game and the world was more open than many gamers could handle.

Still, if you really think about, even the little old grandma's and grandpa's are sitting in a casino playing games and interfacing with technology when they play video poker and those slot machines that have the little mini-games (sometimes) when you win.

Don't tell them that though.  In their own mind, many of them would say they know nothing about computers and might actually say video games are awful.  But, because we've all gotten so used to a game in the background, especially because of Mario and Tetris from back in their heydays... well, even ludites are better at using technology and find it less alarming to push a computer screen to gamble, or use an atm or cellphone.

A thread like this, and remembering all the memories of these older games shows a really deep aspect to something we all love, whether we are fanbois/grrrls for game XYZ, or absolutely hate the very same game and love nothing more than to trash it.  Gaming, when done in a way that is universally appealing, is all about limiting the difficulty of using technology to have fun.

Sometimes we get so hung up on exactly how devs should go about doing that, but I think this thread points to something that a lot of us don't want to adit: casual game play, and gaming "for the masses" is not always a bad thing, at least not for the greater society...

Seen a lot of games posted though out the thread. Like a few of them. Don't like a lot of them.

The game that I think everyone who grew up in the 80s can appreciate and agree was ridiculously awesome is Final Fantasy 1 for NES. Seen a few mentions of FF games throughout the thread but IMO FF1 was, and still is the best FF to date. At a time that most games were quite simple and only took a few short hours to finish, Final Fantasy offered more. The only one that I enjoyed almost as much(but still didn't compare) was FF IX. 

Saw someone say something about games they keep going back to.  That's the game like that for me.  Finished it a few hundred times over the years with every possible group combination imaginable. Final Fantasy 1 on NES I have been playing since it was released and I still have a working NES and FF rarely ever leaves the console.  Except for when people come over and we wanna rock some Bubble Bobble. :D lol

 I`m not reading the entire thread, just responding to OP:

I can name two:

- Heroes of Might and Magic 3.

- Worms. 

IF anyone can agree on a game it's going to be an arcade or old school game like Pacman, Mario, Tetris, ect. BUT I would say

Metroid Prime

Eternal Darkness

Resident Evil 4

Final Fantasy X

Those are the only games I can think of that people might agree with. Though if someone said FFXI I would agree with them.

Secret of Mana

Terranigma

Final Fantasy VII

EverQuest