Computer/Console games with your kids

[Clodfobble]

My stepdaughter is 5, and she's been playing Super Smash Brothers Melee on the Gamecube for about a year now.

Now before you think "oh great, violent games for the five year old, no thank you"... It's all very cartoony. You knock people off the screen (no one dies) and then they appear again at the top. And when the match is over, all the characters appear on the screen clapping for the one who won. This was actually very helpful to us because Megan's big problem with games (board, video, card, whathaveyou) is she doesn't like to lose. Once we could show her that Princess Peach was happy for someone else when they won, the idea that it was the right thing to do sunk in a lot faster. Princess Peach and Princess Zelda are pretty much the only characters she plays.

The other game she LOVES is Final Fantasy X-2 (she just watches my husband play; it requires too much reading for her to play herself) because the characters--all girls--change costumes constantly in these elaborate transformation sequences.

Jinx, have you tried any of the Blue's Clues CD-ROMs? I was surprised at how easy and yet in-depth they were.