1

All right, this is definitely my territory. The problem is that I'm too much of an insider, so I'll end up listing games that are important in the "gaming world" but not so much on the outside. I'll try, though.

First, you should definitely include any game that's been made into a movie, regardless of how good or bad the movie was. Off the top of my head:
Tomb Raider
Mortal Kombat
Mario Brothers
Wing Commander

Other, movie-less games that have significant recognition among people who don't play games:
Doom
Quake
Command and Conquer
Warcraft
Starcraft
King's Quest
Space Quest
The Sims
Everquest

Big names among gamers:
System Shock
Baldur's Gate
Black & White
Wasteland
Fallout
Deus Ex

A few older games with significant, niche followings:
Gabriel Knight
Monkey Island

This should not be taken as a comprehensive list.

2

All the Zelda Games
Goldeneye - one of the first "First Person Shooter" console games
Pacman
Asteroids
Space Invaders
Donkey Kong
Frogger
Pong
QBert
Tetris
Breakout
Sonic the Hedgehog
Wolfenstein
Myst

Various Video Game Consoles:

Atari
Colecovision
Nintendo
Sega
PlayStation
XBox
Gameboy

3

Hey Donald,

Since its a continual work in progress, I'll just follow whatever suggestions people have. I don't want to be an arbitrary judge of what is and is not significant so I'll follow whatever the crowd says to add or subtract.

4

Games:

Halo: Needs ot be added. It was the second console shooter to truly be "done right" and the first time many people had been exposed to a modern classic in the First Person Shooter game genre.

007 Goldeneye: Released on the Nintendo 64, this is a shooter that many non-gamers remember fondly, still plays well, and shaped console shooters. It was the first "done right."

Unreal Tournament: This series of multi-player online shooters is at the top of the heap in its 2004 edition.

Counter-Strike: Most famous example of an online multi-player shooter that the 12-24 non-gamer crowd is likely to know and evne play. Been around for years, addictive, and the most famous example of a amateur game modification, as it is so widely played and probably the first example of one making it big as a commercially released game.

Half-Life: Story-driven. This is the mile-stone where games "grew up" and became mainstream.

Grand Theft Auto III: First "mainstream" example of a trend toward more open-ended game play. First-time exposure for many non-gamers (and their parents) to the possibilities in modern games.

Terms:

LAN (local Area Network) Party: People bring their computers, network them together, and then go at it free-for-all or in teams in various games of various genres. Straddles the line between underground and mainstream.

Deathmatch: Playing a shooter online where the objective is to kill or "frag" the other players in the game.

Frag: Sounds like what it is. See above.

Shooter: A shooting game from the first or third person perspective.