As a xmas gift for my father, I am getting his old c64 fixed up. I remember a lot of the good games, but I want to keep this a surprise, so I am asking here. What were your favorite C64 games?

I have fastloaders for
MULE
SPY VS SPY
ARCHON 2
BELOW THE ROOTS
WIZBALL
ARTILLERY DUEL

Jet Set Willy

I remember playing a game where you created custom monsters and duked it out in an arena with a friend. Monster Madness or something like that, if I recall correctly. Anyone know what I'm talking about? It's been a long time.

That was Mail Order Monsters, and it rocked. Very cool game.

My all-time favorite C64 game (and still on my top ten) is "Impossible Mission." My roommates and I used to play that game for hours. It was the first game I ever beat. Great fun.

-Videophile

ARCHON & ARCHON 2

Hot Wheels
Phantasie
Hat Hat Harry
Shoot em Up Construction Kit

Man.. there's so many I can't remember at the moment.

Project Firestart (early sci-fi survival horror)

Alien (also survival horror, though graphically very primitive)

Any Infocom Text Adventure

Shoot'em Up Construction Set

Times of Lore

Wasteland

Any Bard's Tale & Dragon Wars

Autoduel

The Pawn

Guild of Thieves

Turrican

Castlevania

Boulder Dash, and Impossible Mission! - "Stay awhile....stay forever!!!"

Dig Dug, Moonrover, and a couple others are up there too.

Jumpman and Jumpman Jr.

I always liked Summer Olympics, could never go wrong with team Epyx.

definately jumpman

http://www.c64.com/

Rather good resource.

I was about to mention... Summer Games and Winter Games, both by Epyx. I always loved those.

Raid On Bungling Bay
Raid Over Moscow
Beachhead

Farmers Daughter.
It was an adult themed text adventure were you try to "know" the farmers daughter. A buddy of mine swiped it from his step dads room when we were about 12 or so. All it had was text, and I could never figure out what to do, but when I was 12 having an adult themed game was great.

Airborn Rangers
Like someone said - All Infocom Games

Impossible Mission
the epyx games series
GI Joe
A couple of those "create-you-own-game" things
Hacker
etc.

I liked Pole Position as well as Shamus

I remember playing an ungodly amount of Lode Runner and Boulderdash. Also, I loved Commando and Green Beret. I'd forgotten about Impossible Mission until other people mentioned it. I wasted hours on that game.

Best game of all: Wasteland

Castle Wolfenstien
Racing Destruction Set
Might and Magic I & II
Law of the West
Pool of Radiance
Curse of the Azure Bonds
California Games
Bruce Lee
Ace and Ace II
Ninja
Maze Master
H.E.R.O.

Ooh, a lot of good choices so far.

I haven't seen anyone mention a bunch of my favorites, though:

Paradroid (one of my all-time favorites)
Defender of the Crown
Maniac Mansion
Zak McKraken
The Ultima series
Roadwar 2000 and Roadwar Europa
Legacy of the Ancients
Seven Cities of Gold (there's a PC game for you)
Neuromancer
Adventure Construction Set
SSI's D&D games

Of other people's choices:

Archon
M.U.L.E.
Below the Roots
Impossible Mission
Infocom text adventures
Wasteland
Raid on Bungling Bay
The Olympics games

Edit: I'd forgotten Law of the West. That was such a fun game. I liked trying to either avoid shooting anyone or antagonizing everyone into attacking me.

Anyone remember racing construction set or something like that. You would build tracks and change the gravity characteristics. When racing you would modify a set number or cars and trucks with additional weight.

Thx Goblincat: it was Racing Destruction Set

Archon
M.U.L.E.

Racing Destruction Set was awesome, spent ages creating crazy tracks.

Barbarian - having lots of different movies was pretty rare for a 1 on 1 beatem up back then (particularly with a 1 button joystick) and being able to behead your opponent in the first second of combat was a nice touch (no amount of hit points are going to save someone from having their head lopped off).

Phantasie - one of the first rpgs I played, good fun.

Gridder - first game I played, and still classic.

Last ninja 1+2 - great games but back then I found them really hard!

Paradroid - I think this was the one where you had to take over more and more powerful droids to progress. Great idea.

Wizard of wor - one of my few carts, great arcade action for 2 players, later levels were insane

I second Archon & Summer Olympics, but have to add:

Spluenker
Lode Runner
Castle Wolfenstien (more like a puzzle adventure game long before the Nazi FPS of the same name)