I loved several Infocom games back in the day (the Zorks, Enchanter & Sorcerer, Hitchhikers, etc). Before that I was a Scott Adams (not the Dilbert guy) fan. I especially remember Mission Impossible Adventure.
For a different genre entirely, maybe check out Rogue (see where all the Rogue-like/lite chatter comes from) or NetHack (The Dev Team Thinks of Everything).