Children's First Games

Crash bandicoot!?

The NES era games are pretty much perfect for kids, grew up playing the original SMB, SMB2, and SMB3. The Megaman series is also really fun and colorful. Super Metroid would be good, its got that nice, kinda creepy but cool atmosphere filled with monsters you can blow up with artillery (literally, samus is a friggin' walking tank). Really, the entire NES and SNES catalogue would be grand, barring a few oddities. There's also the Genesis/Master system games that are also really good.

Mind you, young me was never good at these games, but man did I love playing them.

Whatever you do choose, play through it first, and stay with them. Some games, like Ocarina of Time, have parts that will terrify kids (anything with redeads and the entirety of the Shadow Temple) and one game, Willow for the NES, managed to make me put that game away for about a decade due to the freaking undead pig mages.

Obviously Civ V

If the kids like Lego, I would definitely look into letting them try Minecraft. My nephew is 5 and he simply loves it. He love building roller coasters and houses......and blowing up livestock with TnT XD

Just get a Wii.

I say get a snes and a bunch of games(Emulate if ya want).

Portal is perfect for all ages.

My daughter is 5. Sometimes we play LEGO Marvel heroes co-op together.

Mario and Mega Man on NES were the games I grew up on. Me and my dad beat Mega Man 6 together and I heartily recommend it.

He maybe only 5yo .... But doesnt mean he dumb... I did grow up with game like Doom, Earthworm's Jim, Mortal Kombat, Final Fantasy... And kids learn faster than us adult :') I don't want to know how my father was feeling getting beaten by his 5yo at Mortal Kombat x).. .. I miss being a kid .. I was better at video game than i am now lol

PS: Don'T Forget bomberman 1 and 2 :P ...

http://img.youtube.com/vi/gNlHBSSdM9M/0.jpg

Pokemon? Not that old but still loved by kids because it makes you think when you have to battle and lets them raise their pokemon.

You should get a Nintendo, and play Pokemon, Mario and/or The Legend of Zelda

well I can tell you, I played Doom when I was 5 (was practically my first game), I also played Myst around that time and Daggerfall//Arena as well as the Dig, and I didn't have any problems with it... as far as I can tell.

Outlast.

Then they'll stop playing games forever and become successful in life. :)

Deadpool

Postal 2

The Nintendo 2DS (which is a 3DS aimed for youngsters) is a good start. From there, you can pick up a bunch of Nintendo IPs.

Try "Nature", it has awesome graphics and sound effects. Do, however, turn on the gore filter.
Oh, it's free to play, too!

My nephew just turned 6 years old, and has been playing video games for a long time. We are careful with what games he plays as we don't want anything too violent. He especially loves Minecraft and all the Lego genre games - Star Wars, LOTR, POTC, DC, Marvel etc.

Age of Empires II

Thanks for all the suggestions.

Postal 2

Klonoa? I played the second one a lot when I was younger, not sure about the others.