E: I'm not sure if this has been already started but what the heck.... :P

So, I thought I could start a simple discussion about the games that changed our lives as a child or just games that just blew your mind;
For example when I was about 8 years old, I had a close friend and I literally spent weeks in his place playing Baldur's Gate 2.
We didn't understand a word of english then but that didn't slow us down :) It was unbelievably hard and exciting for us and I remember the sleepless nights and bloody corpses just like yesterday! Also killing the scientist in Half-Life was something I will never forget. Oh, how the poor guys took the crowbar in the face like no freaking tomorrow!

What was your favourite game as a child?
Talk freely and let the nostalgia flow! (also thank the gods for GoG.com! When I saw Descent my brains nearly blew out of my eyes)

Oh sh!t son, gaming WAS my childhood, when I could seriously commit to it. ;-)

Let's see,

OBVIOUSLY, the Humongous Entertainment point and click adventure games

Spider-Man Cartoon Maker

Davidson, Brodurbund, and Knowledge Adventure games (Reader Rabbit, Math Blasters, Cluefinders, etc.)

DX-Ball

LEGO Island

Frogger (1997 3D title) and other Hasbro Interactive classics

Titles eGames published: Speedy Eggbert/Blupi, Crazy Drake, Nebula Fighter, Safari Kongo, etc.

(more later)

Ok, I'll bite.

As a child I played a ton of C64 games. In particular I spent many entire nights playing Sid Meier's Pirates trying to claim the entire Spanish Main in favour of England. The other game I played a lot of was Ultima 4 - though I had absolutely no idea what I was suppose to be doing and just wandered the map killing monsters and trying not to die.

Along with Ultima 4, there were two other RPGs I played heavily (though not with any particular goal). Questron I found fun for the gambling mini games, as well as killing all the guards and running away. And in Phantasy I was enamored with the number of class/race options.

Besides those I really liked Super Mario Brothers (what 80s child didn't), and played a fair amount of other platformers like Impossible Mission, and the somewhat unknown but amazing "Ultimate Wizard", which had a level editor unlike most games of the time. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizard_%281983_video_game%29#Ultimate_Wizard)

By the late 90s/early 2000s I was playing a lot of Civ 2, Theme Hospital, and Warcraft 2.

Definitely Jazz Jackrabbit :D

Although I had only demo for 2 years, I played it over and over and over again.

Later Gothic 2, it was a first true RPG I ever played, it caused many sleepless nights.

Yeah, I remember playing the s*it out of Jackrabbit's demo but never got my hands in the full version :P
It was something though!

I've no idea why, but Wario Land: Super Mario Land 3 is probably my favorite childhood game, and it offends me greatly that people often ignore it when talking about Gameboy classics.

Of course my two first Amiga games : Skyfox and Marble Madness.

Later, I discovered free-roaming roleplaying/adventure in a living autonomous universe, that was Brataccas. Bless psygnosis.

But the most hours of my childhood were probably spent on Elite. In a way, Elite and Brataccas, with their open independant universes, still define a lot what I'm seeking in games today...

I am surprised how could a kid play Ulitma 4 on Commadore 64 no less, you must be really a smart (knowing what to do in the game) and patient (waiting for the Commodore to load game) kid I have ever known.

When I was a child, I would spin myself dizzy with my arms spread open like a helicopter yelling "Toh Tah! Toh Tah! Toh Tah!" which doesn't really mean anything in my language. I guess I just liked the dizzy feeling.

There was also a weirder one, where I'd put my back to the wall, walk sideways and every step i took, I'd go "Can cun can cun can cun..." but whenever I reached a corner, I'd change direction with the wall and say "Akillah!" which again, doesn't really mean anything. They were just made up child games, but it must have seemed weird seeing a child sliding himself all over a wall, going "Can cun can cun akillah!". Oh, and support beams in the middle of the wall were kinda funny because they have four corners and very small 'wall' segments, so I'd confuse myself silly between "can cuns" and "akillahs"

Wait, you meant computer games?

Huh.

I had fun playing Warcraft 2 as a child and many shenanigans ensued playing it with my brothers. I remember starting a multiplayer game and using the orcs for the first time. We were all barely starting the human campaign, so none of us had tried playing with the orcs, so i gave them a whirl. Our computers were back to back, and we had our speakers on high volume, so we could hear what the other one was doing. We were all used to the sounds of hammers clanking and chickens clucking when you clicked on a human building, but the moment I clicked on my newly built Temple of the Damned, this sound plays out...

I freaked my brother out. He went "What the hell was that!? What are you DOING!?" and when his archers melted to death and decay for the first time, my brother switched races and never played human again.

There's more than one... Dune 1 and 2, Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, Sword of the Samurai, Space Dude, Doom 1 and 2(I'm one of those people that liked Doom 2 better than Doom), Heroes of Might and Magic 1 and 2,Blackthorne, Operation Carnage, Bows and Arrows, Duke Nukem 1,Civilization 1, Monkey Island 2(I never played the first one until years later), SimCity 2000,Mortal Kombat 2 and 4, Seven Years War.... I was one of those kids that had the PC as a babysitter :P

"Climb out of the Well"

It wasn't a video game but I was pretty damn good at it despite being forced to play it when I didn't want to.

Well, my childhood occurred in the Neolithic age of gaming. So my favorites from that era run along the lines of the Atari 2600 and the golden age of arcades. Asteroids was certainly a favorite, not that there was a plethora of choices at that point. Yes, a silly little vector game with a two-note musical score. And yet, ridiculously awesome in its addictiveness.

From the 2600, I'd say my favorite game was Adventure. Running as nothing more than a dot from pixelated dragons with an arrow for a sword....and yet, great fun for the time.

I was well into my teens by the time the more advanced arcade games and consoles came out, so while there are plenty of games that I would consider highlights through the years, none of them really belong to what I would consider my childhood.

Homer you really need to pick up that Activision Anthology. I think you would dig that the most.

In the arcades, my favorites were Pac-Man, Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr., Burger Time, Food Fight (I like food-themed games), Time Pilot, and Robotron.

On PC, my favorites were the Infocom text adventures, Wizardry, Ultima 3, the Sierra Quest games, and Castle Wolfenstein.

For console games, I liked Adventure, Pitfall, Zaxxon, Pressure Cooker, Demon Attack, Star Raiders, No Escape.

I guess when the NES came out I was still a kid, but when I think about "my childhood favorites" I'm more inclined to think of the stuff that came before it.

I was quite taken by the Spy Fox games when I was 6 or 7
Upgraded to Age of Empires 1 around age 10 and really enjoyed it until an exchange student that was staying with us showed me the cheats.... Forever changed my view of gaming, knowing there was an "Easy" button... Age of empires was never as enthralling as it was before I knew that I could get a Ferrari that had guns on the front, or the "Flying Dutchman" to destroy the enemy.