Personally I use Game Maker. It's very easy to use, you can use some drag and drop features. You can load almost any image types, music types, etc. You can even put cutscenes, and visit webpages through it. You can use a trial version, which just has some features taken out, or pay $20 for the registered version. In the registered version you can have multiplayer support as well as some cool features such as a particle system. I am currently a registered Game Maker user. I find it very easy to use, and almost fully customizable with a built in programming language.

I've also used Game Maker a bit, and it is incredibly simple to use and teaches you about the basics of game programming. The interface is pretty intuitive and there are loads of tutorials out there on the net for it.

I love RPG Maker 2000, RPG Maker 2003, and RPG Maker XP. They're just so easy, they are illegal though... Gamemaker is cool too, but I find it a bit more difficult than RPG Maker ones.