A Gaming PC for an 8 Year old

[Bells]

So, as i got a brand new pc, i decided to give my Old one to my Nephey, he just turned 8 and i'm on a mission to make him a nerd to screw with my sister's head.

I already bought him the full collection of The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. It's a matter of time now. I also introduced him to the Wii and from that got my sister to give him a PS2.

Now, this pc of mine, it's a rather Old machine. With limited specs and space. The main idea here is to fill it with a ton of games and software that can help him learn something and have some fun.

I went through my very very old collection of PC disks and so far this PC has

Castle Wolfenstein - Enemy Territory
Spiderman 2
Need for Speed 2
Revolt (RC car racing game)
Civilization 3
Age of Empires 2
Command and Conquer Generals
Command and Conquer Tiberian Sun
Rockman X8
Starcraft
Fifa 2002
Metal Slug 5 (via Emulator)
Bloody Roar 2 (via emulator)
Taxi 3
X Men Legends 2
Driver

So, it's a Sizeable collection, but i'm not really done. I want to give him a variety of games of several styles and types. Even quite a few i know he is too young to beat. Just to plant the seed of curiosity and mild frustration that we all had with out Battletoads and Starfoxes ....

And Shying away from Ultra Gore games like Soldier of Fortune 2 or Carmaggedon, even though he does Play GTA 3 on the PS2 and it's Oblivious the any Malice the game might impose. He just like picking up a bunch of cars and driving them to a parking lot mostly...

I also tossed Google Earth in there just for kicks...

So, any other games or software you guys would like to recomend? My pc will be able to play mostly anything up to 2007, here are the specs

Semprom 2500 (1.7Ghz Single Core)
512 Ram
Geforce FX 5200 256mb

I have about 10Gb Free right now...

[Specterbane]

Looking at my Steam list I'll put down a bunch of indie titles since you can get them pretty cheep.

World of Goo (http://store.steampowered.com/app/22000/)
Pants vs Zombies (http://store.steampowered.com/app/3590/)
Worms Reloaded (http://store.steampowered.com/app/22600/) (or any of the Worms games)
VVVVVV (http://store.steampowered.com/app/70300/)

You could also do Half-Life (http://store.steampowered.com/app/70/) if you think he'd be ok with the violence, but I can't imagine that's any more violent compared to Wolfenstein. And Puzzle Bots (http://store.steampowered.com/app/80300/) might be something you're looking for.

Best of luck, if you've got time look for deals too. They pop up on steam all the time.

[bluestarultor]

I grew up with the likes of Hocus Pocus (http://www.3drealms.com/hocus/), Raptor (http://www.3drealms.com/raptor/index.html), Word Rescue (http://www.3drealms.com/word/index.html), Math Rescue (http://www.3drealms.com/math/index.html), and Paganitzu (http://www.3drealms.com/paganitzu/index.html).

Fun, challenging, and educational options, all of which should work on the machine. And if he needs to learn to use DOSBox, well, you want him geeky, right? ;)

[Bells]

These are actually great ideas, thanks! Although in this day and age it might be hard to win over an 8 year old with 2d Games... hell, the kid Plays Burnout! Sure, it's just for the wrecks, but still!

i thought about Portal, but it's such narrative driven, for a child it would probably be boring...

Also, aside from Google Earth, anybody knows of other Multimedia Software similar to that for stuff like Anatomy or Astronomy or Just overall science? Might be interesting to leave it there too... probably there are some freewares of that around, but i couldn't find any!

[Krylo]

Dragon Age: Origins.

[akaSM]

Lets see...

Outrun 2006 Coast to Coast is a fun driving game. Yup, you drive from point A to point B instead of racing other cars to get a 1st place, actually, you can choose routes A to E.

I'm not sure that PC can run Rhythm Zone, if you have it in your Steam account, try it first. Playing Guitar Hero with your own music is really fun :3

You mentioned Portal, if that PC can run it, try TF2, maybe L4D

Braid is a nice platformer when you can do your own weird time shit

Does he have photosensitive epilepsy? No? good. Beat Hazard is a flashy shooter that changes depending on the music you select

Serious Sam First and Second Encounter are 2 nice FPS that have local/lan/internet co-op, you can play campaign with up to 8 people IIRC. Get the classic versions at GOG, the new HD versions lack the local co-op.

Try this Road Fighter remake (http://www.braingames.getput.com/roadf/), my sis loves it, maybe he won't mind the un3Dy graphics

Maybe Cave Story?

There are a couple free episodes of Sam & Max at the Telltale store page

Maybe the Halo games that got a PC release? (Halo 1 and 2)

I think that's about it, I haven't really played all my games :sweatdrop

[Melfice]

If he's creative, let him play Minecraft.

[Specterbane]

If he's creative, let him play Minecraft.

This is possibly the single greatest idea you've gotten to foster creativity.

[Ryong]

No, seriously, if you're doing emulation, where's Super Mario Allstars + World?

[Melfice]

This is possibly the single greatest idea you've gotten to foster creativity.

Hell, even just pointing him to Minecraft Classic can be loads of fun. No need to buy him anything then!

[Sky Warrior Bob]

ScummVM (http://www.scummvm.org/) & whatever games that you can get your hands on. The old classics are all pretty fun, even this far removed from the original release. And having a good amount of what ScummVM supports (http://www.scummvm.org/compatibility/), I can attest to this.

Might want to look into if any of Telltale games's stuff is compatible (http://www.telltalegames.com/).

SWB