So here is one for all you parents out there. You grew up with these games... or perhaps drank your way through college with them perhaps... whatever the case you grew up and you turned some special woman into a spawn point (sorry I don't have a one liner for the ladies, but that was too good to pass up)
But we all know these kids of yours are out of touch with the old skool, what with their normal mapping and HRD lighting.
What games do you really want your kids to play and do you have a reason for that?
Conversly if you had to punish your kids with a game what would you make them play?

New games are perfect here, try to get ANYONE to play one of the hideous Barbie games.

Well I may have long way to go before I'll end up with bunch of kids (it's not like I don't want them, but study is not much of a family buisness :D ), BUT I can be proud of myself nevertheless: I have brought my nephew to play Fallout, Duke Nukem 3D, System Shock and he actually liked them! (I was surprised myself about System Shock: In his 10 years, he really discovered every corner of Von Braun and red every one log he found on the way!). And, because he's 'the cool kid', he even brought bunch of his friends to play old games too! :D He is succes. I am proud of him too. We're big, happy family.
Oh, and I've heard term 'spawn points' for woman for the first time ... And I think I have new nickname for my GF. Spawn point. She's gonna love it. And she may never know what it means...

oh yeah, I think I would make someone play Unlimited Saga

If I did have kids, I would at least want them to play the classics. I would hope they learn to appreciate game play over realistic graphics. Classic games had more originality to them with creative stories and settings. I would try to convince them to play the Fallout games first for something with freedom of choice and a good story. I would also love to have them play the very old classic shooters such as Doom, just to have fun and not give a crap about pure "realism." Just blast away and smile.
Personally though I would go pretty far back to old arcade and console games too. I am a big fan of the old simple games such as Galaga. Hopefully they would enjoy it and learn to enjoy the simple yet challenging games.
It is frustrating on other game forums to just hear kids today trash games because of graphics alone. Some images were released for Left 4 Dead recently, and it just got wrecked by all these children laughing at their graphics and saying Crysis like graphics is what all games should be. Not to mention if a game doesn't have extreme realism in it, it also sucks, etc.
I don't know what game I would subject my kids to for punishment. Games are so cookie cutter these days, it's tough to pick a newer one that is just truly terrible.

Well we can say any game with Cabela or Rapala in the title could be served as punishment

Nice! While I'm not sure if having a 10 year old play games like Duke Nukem 3D is the best idea, it' still great that he's getting into classic gaming!

Well, that brings up pretty good question: What do you think are good old games for children? Personally, I think whole thing with violence and sex messing up children's mind is a bit overrated (well, I was playing pretty violent games too and I really don't feel affected... Yeah, I need to kill real human every month, but since I am able to burry bodies so noone can ever find them, it's like nothing happened), sadly one would never know for sure... And I don't have children, so I can't really tell what my behavior would be in this matter. So what are ideal old games for, say, 7 year old? I guess Blood won't fit in there :D

When I was writing this post I gave that a quick thought... I was a teenager when I played most of the games we are talking about on here....
Its funny though I don't know how I feel about duke.... as the years have gone on it is far more comical (than it ever intended to be) against the violence and suggestion we see now....
ok fun side note though. I remember my younger brother and I were playing duke around the time it came out and I gave money to one of the strippers and my brother could not understand why I kept giving them money.

I don't have any kids yet, but I hate it when somebody just can't stand a game because it's old. I mean, my friend saw me playing Final Fantasy VI, and brushed it off as being boring and lame.
It makes me sad... :(

Being only 16 i guess im one of these kids your talking about. Most teenagers arent hardcore gamers and even the ones that are are mostly concerned with their halo rank. I grew up playing pc games on a crappy computer so ive played some of the classics but only like 2% of them.
Its hard to get younger people to play games, a lot of them look at games mostly as a social expereince and want to be able to play some sort of adversarial mode and those who are cool with SP still have a lot of challenges. Old pc games are #1 on PC, a platform almost nonexistent to teenagers, have "bad" graphics and have archaic game mechanics.
As important as i think it is for gamers to know the history of games i dont really think its something that will happen. We should just be happy they know who Mario is.

Or perhaps.... your friend is lame. I vote for that :)

He's not lame. He's misguided.

There we go, that's what I was looking for.

Granted some games just aren't for everyone, games like this are something people may eventually grow into as they learn more about them. The FF series I was never much into, but recently I became hooked, and now play any of them I can get my hands on. Hopefully he'll learn that they can be more fun than they originally appear!