PC Game recommendations for a 2.2 Ghz laptop f

My 11 year old son just bought a cheap laptop 2.2 Gghz processor, 2GB DDR3 mem, ATI Radeon HD 4250 video card with WIndows 7, 64 bit. He got it for 300 bucks new--but is trying to figure out if he should just wait a few years to get a PC (we have Mac) if it won't even play older games.

I really have little f*cking clue what all that stuff up above means, to tell the truth.

What I would really like from you guys are recommendations for non-shooter games (his mother is making that a no-no)...no M rated games...older ones are fine.

Strategy ones like Civ, Total War, etc...are fine. But Medieval Total War won't work on it (though I had already bought it on Steam).

Any recommendation for older games (or newer ones) that will work on this for him (with that rating qualification)?

Thanks!

Paul

There are a ton of old Star Wars games that my 10 year old loves. Some are shooters, but some (Empire at War) are more like RTSs. He also loves Knights of the Old Republic (again, some shooty shooty here).

Torchlight is a huge fun Diablo clone that is also a big hit - not sure if your wife will have a problem with hack-n-slashing of monsters.

We draw the line at "real" war games at our place - for now. Fantasy and SciFi only.

Plants vs. Zombies is a great "protect your castle" game.

Portal is crazy awesome. You can get it from Steam without the rest of the Orange Box (I think).

My kids also really like Heroes of Might and Magic 4.

Just about everything has a demo you can download.

Rome Total War is fine--basically--games that are very graphic in basically shooting other real people is what is off limits

Trying to figure out what works on WIndows 7 64 bit seems to be the bitch of the problem, though...thanks for the suggestions so far!

Zombie Peach wrote:

Torchlight is a huge fun Diablo clone that is also a big hit - not sure if your wife will have a problem with hack-n-slashing of monsters.

Plants vs. Zombies is a great "protect your castle" game.

Portal is crazy awesome. You can get it from Steam without the rest of the Orange Box (I think).

Segundo on the first two here. TORCHLIGHT is a hack up the bad guys game, but it's much lighter in tone than DIABLO 2. ESRB bears this out--DIABLO 2 is M and TORCHLIGHT is T.

My four year old loves him some PLANTS VS. ZOMBIES--that game scales well, I have bought and beaten it on two platforms now.

I'm not so sold on PORTAL for a kid--it's pretty effing confusing if you haven't played a lot of FPS's. I'm not sure I would just toss someone into that one. It's got some shooting sounds from robots and what not, but you never actually shoot anything. Not sure of the technical details on your wife's ban.

Depending on his mindset, some of the TYCOON games are awesome. Or X-PLANE--that things not even a game, really, but it's awesome.

Armageddon Empires
King's Bounty (Legend and Armored Princess)
Puzzle Quest
Freedom Force
Railroad Tycoon 3
Bookworm Adventures
Galactic Civilizations 2
Psychonauts
Uplink
Spectromancer
Casual games like Tradewinds Legends or Chocolatier: Design by Decadence can be pretty fun.

I found Torchlight to be a bore, honestly.

Remember that most games come with demos if you're worried about whether the game will run or not. If the demo runs, so should the game.

Plants vs. Zombies is great.

All the young kids should play the Monkey Island games. Any kid who does will instantly earn 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,957.68 cool points if they do. The first 2 games have been given some really classy remakes, highly recommend them. Good puzzle solving, plus he'll laugh his ass off at some good, clean humor to boot.

Most of my favorite games I played on just such a system.

Psychonauts
Freedom Force
Sid Meier's Pirates!
Grim Fandango
The Quest for Glory series
The Longest Journey

The first Rogue Squadron game rocked balls, too.

As others have said, Plants vs. Zombies... It's pretty easy to beat the adventure mode, but so entertaining and has tons of replayability with all of the mini-games and puzzle games.

I also like Sid Meier's Pirates! and Battleship Chess. If he's into puzzle games at all, I've enjoyed Safecracker.

SleightOfHand12 wrote:

Psychonauts
Freedom Force
Sid Meier's Pirates!
Grim Fandango
The Longest Journey

I'll 2nd these. But The Longest Journey has a fair share of foul language.

How could I forget Sid Meier's Pirates! Awesome game.

Browncoat wrote:

But The Longest Journey has a fair share of foul language.

Ahh, my fuzzy memory. It's an M, not a T. Oops.

FWIW, my 10 year old had no problem with Portal - at least the initial 18 (16?) levels. Once you "break out" it got a bit too challenging.

Armageddon Empires

Space Rangers 2!!!