Good call. Very realistic real life decisions that really alter future consequences :)

For some reason I always get Alter Ego confused with Alternate Reality.
I enjoyed Alter Ego back in the floppy days.

Assassin's Creed, the Ezio games. You start from the age of 17 and carry on until old-ish age.

In Dragon Quest V you play as the same character over the course of 30 years. During that time you get married and even have a family.

I'm not sure if it counts since it is somewhat different, but in Phantasy Star 3 and Rune Factory 2 you can play though several generations of a single family. While you don't maintain control of your original character during the whole game, you can still interact with them.

Fable is the one that most comes to mind and you've mentioned that. Who hasn't booted a chicken at some point. :P

Total Wars, family trees, marriages, births, deaths, traits, coming of age to emperor of the world to eventually dying of old age.

It's a great mechanic actually from birth to death, it should be used more often. I was hoping Mass Effect would do something original with the second one like that. Instead we got a generic third person shooter. -.-

The Sims series is the ultimate life simulator! :P

Spore

A lifetime, not several lifetimes.

Well Sims 2 has an achievement that allows you to get young again.

Also when you start the game you can't do anything but choosing your job and hobbies makes you change and evolve. You might start as someone who burns the toast and wind up as a gourmet chef.

Hey, sorry for the derail but how is that? I'm a SW freak but I keep hearing about how awful the port is.

Mount & Blade Warband, to some extent. You don't really play your young or old life, though you can "age" your character when you create it. You can also get married (no kids though, apparently...though I've heard Viking Conquest adds kids?). You'll see the land change based on the actions and wars and stuff, and you can have as much or as little impact on the land around you as you want.

Sunless Sea. You play as a Zee Captain and their entire career until they die or retire. Then you can pick up the game, if you wish, as their heir.

Fallout 3.

I know the game is not really good and it is incredibly short. But as I said, you play the Lifetime of the character. Even if his lifetime is short, I think the game fit to the topic of the thread.