If you go back a little into the 80's, you've got great stuff happening with Sierra, LucasArts, Origin, Microprose, Infocom, all sorts of great, smart stuff. You've also got the heydays of the NES and Sega, if you're too young to remember Atari, Coleco, Intellivision, etc. People were playing flight sims, including space flight sims.

The best sims, the best adventures, the best RPGs, all came from the 80's.