Also, when I was about 7 or so, my favorite game was Dune 1.

My daughters are grown up now, but they enjoyed games produced by Humongous Software (Ron Gilbert) back in the late 1990s. These are adventure-lite games designed for kids, still look and feel relatively good, and can be played through scummvm. The series include Putt Putt, Fatty Bear (which my 5 year old loved at the time), Freddi Fish, Pajama Sam, and Spy Fox. The latter two are slightly more advanced than the earlier series. They all include a good deal of humor, and are designed to encourage exploration of the game world. The games can be purchased for about $5 each through kidssoftwareoutlet.com. The other game that really caught my daughters' attention was the Sims, though that might be a bit advanced at present. Good luck finding something interesting for them.

Same here, except that whenever I meet German my index finger twitches a little.


On GoG, things like Rayman, Creatures, Goblins Trilogy and everything else with none or innocent-natured violence.

And what about free flash games?

Let's see, when i was that little I enjoyed Super Mario and Tetris-like games. Well, that was pretty much all i had :/ Since you mentioned the Wii, you might want to take a look at Boom Blox. It's more of a mix of different carnival-like games where you play with blocks. In some modes you try to destroy structures with as ittle turns as possible, in some you pull blocks to collapse 8or not collapse) the structure, some are light gun games, in some you need to defend your base against enemies... There is really a lot of content, plus you can build your own levels with the editor and share them. It's also great fun in multiplayer. There are two games, the second one is like a "standalone exapansion" as they are called today, some things are better but then there are some things that are just bloated. Either way, they are more or less the same, although I tend more towards the first one for the lack of bloat.

Another one I can recommend is "Marbles! Balance Challenge" (Korrorinpa 2 in the US), it's a nice marble game where you roll a marble through a maze towards the goal. Unfortunately it's not as good as it could be, the levels get absurdly crazy after a while requiring to play them several times to lern where unfair dangerous points are, you'll often have to do leaps of faith and when your marble rolls towards the camera, the camera doesn’t rotate. it's not a bad game, but there was not much thought put into the level design, it's just plain unfair in places. The music varies between nice and just annoying. The graphics are nice and cute.

Some people mentioned Zelda... I really can't recommend any Zelda after the fith one (Ocarina of Time on N64). The ones on GameBoy Color and GameBoy Advance were OK, but the rest... Just watch a Let's Play from beginning, don't skip anything, and then decide yourself if it looks like fun. I'm not going to tell you not to get them a Zelda game, I just want you to know what you are buying. Many have played Ocarina and the later games at young age and for a child the first thing is always the best one, so there is a lot of nostalgia surrounding the series. (personally my first Zelda was the fourth on the original GameBoy and I've played all the games up until Skyward Sword on the Wii when I finally had enough)

Well, truth to be told, if you are a good uncle and take your responsibilities seriously you could play any game they like.
As long as you don't leave them alone with that.
You could even play Manhunt or Amnesia together with them if you are responsible and capable enough to tell them the difference between good and bad, right and wrong and CGA Tomato Ketchup and real blood.

Get an emulator.
Get some USB controllers (PS3 and X360 work)
Get Donkey Kong Country 1-3 (3 is the easiest to pick up IMO)

Enjoy the best games ever.

Command and Conquer.. on easy...Every one loves destroying things!

My answer is the best, screw games like King's Quest 4 and Goblins.Those are bad answers Ok maybe Goblins is OK but screw King's Quest 4. At least get them something that is fun while looking better than a cave painting. You're giving them a gift, not punishing them. That's right I went there.

Do kids like videogames? Yep.
Do kids like Harry Potter, Batman and Star Wars? Yup.
Do kids like Lego's ? Yup
Do kids like things that are fun but aren't too complicated? Yup.
Do you like saving money? Yup
Am I right as usual? Yup.

DAAAAYUUMMMM

Command and Conquer is the most simple and easy RTS' to pick up. I started playing when I was 5 and still play it to this day.

Give your kid the gift of C&C, with the cheesy 90s live action cutscenes, and they will love you forever.

If your kid is really smart and good at puzzles, Machinarium is brilliant.

Yes, why not tell him to play some hentai game with them, and follow it up by watching guro anime? I mean as long as he knows it's just cartoons, it's all good, right?

If the criteria is simply "it's not real, so as long as you explain it to the kiddies it will be all right", then that applies to a whole bunch of stuff, does it not?

Recently released Snapshot seems like a good choice too.

Maybe even SpaceChem; if not now then as soon as they can comprehend what it is about; to see what they are capable of before the archaic education system impairs their creativity.

I bet no grown up ever got nightmares from playing games like Amnesia or watching horror movies, right? And if they did, it was probably just because they had a bad education and didn't know right from wrong. ;)

The old Disney platformers (Lion King, Jungle Book, Aladdin) seem pretty child-friendly to me, but they're probably hard to find these days and would need DOSBOX to run ...

How about World of Goo, or [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWU0YTiNNgI]Botanicula? Depending on how skilled they are, maybe also Psychonauts, Beyond Good and Evil or Aquaria?

Also, games where you can customize your own character and play around with them however you like. I know some kids like to play Neverwinter Nights and there are a few kid-friendly modules for it, but it's a bit outdated regarding the graphics. You'd have to know how to mod it and maybe play it online with her, because the original game is not that interesting for an 8-year-olf girl, I think.