I love The Movies. Best part about that game is adding in ridiculous subtitles to scenes. I used to have Zoo Tycoon and it was pretty awesome "accidentally" leaving the fences unfinished and releasing lions on all the people.OrpheumZero said:Sims is always an obvious choice.
The Movies, if you can find it, is also pretty fun. While not a full on God game, the idea of playing a "Directoral overlord" is pretty fun.
Then of course you have things like Spore, Black & White, Civilizations and so forth.
As far as more recent games go, Spore is good but it gets pretty boring after you've gone through all of the stages. The Sims is always a classic.