What I do have a problem with is what games they recommend to buy for kids and why. All Star Cheer Squad and a Nancy Drew game? High School Musical 3? Seriously!? The list of recommended titles has more hits than misses and has many notable omissions. So Mr. Ward here is going to help any of you blog-reading parents out with your game holiday shopping. Hit the jump below to see my awesome list of games you should buy for your kids this holiday season.

Mega Man 9 – Wii, XBOX 360, PS3
ESRB Rating: E for Everyone
Mega Man 9 takes the platforming series back to it roots from the 8 bit era of gaming. The game is challenging as there are a lot of obstacles and traps for players to avoid. These situations, in addition to boss battles, give players the opportunity to think and form strategies of their own in order to win. This is great because kids have it way too easy these days. For some reason, designers have felt having “accessibility for all” meant making many modern games brain dead easy to complete. To compliment the old school and challenging nature of Mega Man 9, the graphics and music resemble the best of what the NES had to offer many years ago. This game is just as good as Mega Man 2 or 3, and this download-only title is a great gift for your kids so that they can see how good you had it when you were their age.

Super Street Fighter II: Turbo HD Remix – XBOX 360 and PS3
ESRB Rating: T for Teen
Ridiculously enough, MediaWise forgot to exclude Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe from their games to avoid. Normally the level of violence would be a good reason to not buy this for kids, and even though the violence and fatalities were toned down for a Teen rating, it’s still noticeable. Putting that aside, kids are going to want it because it has Batman and Superman and it. That may be nice and all, but the gameplay is actually trash; furthermore, the execution of many aspects of the fighting engine are heavily flawed. The game is ultimate crap(I will post at a later date specifically as to why) and it scares me that parents will their children their first foray into the fighting genre with this. Please don’t do that. Instead, be a good parent this holiday and download Super Street Fighter II: Turbo HD Remix for your kids so they can have one of the greatest fighting game experiences ever. I spent much of my Thanksgiving Break playing it. The graphics and sound have been redone(and you can choose to go old-school) and the game has been rebalanced for a much fairer competitive play. For a fourth of the price of MK vs DCU, you will get way deeper fighting game experience.

LittleBigPlanet – PS3
ESRB Rating: E for Everyone
This is a cool platformer in which players can use teamwork to solve puzzles. The game is very aesthetically pleasing, with excellent level design and cute sackboys to control. This game also has the ability to create detailed levels and share them on the Playstation Network. Sony has been moderating player submissions as best as they can and so far the level of user-created content available is incredible. In addition to being a great game for the kids and family, this is one of the must-own titles for the Playstation 3.

Rock Band 2 - Wii, XBOX 360, PS3, PS2
Rated T for Teen
Don’t waste your money on Guitar Hero: World Tour. Get this game instead. I don’t care either way when it comes to the Simon Says music games, but everyone who is into them has told me that RB2 is the way to go. You can download songs in addition to the ridiculous amount of songs already available and on the PS3 and XBOX 360 versions, you can convert your old Rock Band songs for a small fee. Just make sure you have your kids play the classics so their musical tastes aren’t rotted by the emo scene!

deBlob – Wii
ESRB Rating: E for Everyone
Let’s face it, Nintendo dropped the ball hardcore with the Nintendo Wii this year. You probably have a good amount of dust on your Wii because nothing very notable has been released for it during the past few months. There is at least one good game this holiday for the Wii you should try out: deBlob. The game has you control a blob that has the task of restoring color to town that has had it taken away by an evil organization. The ways you can do this are very creative and overall the game is a fun and light-hearted experience. It has the visual appeal and warm nature that you would find in a Super Mario game or a Pixar film.

World of Goo – Windows, Mac and Wii
ESRB Rating: E for Everyone
World of Goo won a couple of awards at the Independent Games Festival earlier this year. It’s a very unique physics-based puzzle game where you have to save a certain number of goos each level by manipulating them with the mouse(or Wii-mote) and using them to construct objects such as towers and bridges to get them to safe locations. One of the main strategies to win is to provide support as you extend your towers and bridges since the goos carry weight on them. This can cause for some interesting situations to happen as towers and bridges can topple and break or the goos can cling to surfaces you do not want them to. World of Goo is very addicting and the PC version has a demo you can try out and I highly recommend doing so.

Spore - Windows and Mac
ESRB Rating: E+10 for Everyone older than 10
This game was hyped for years and while many people didn’t have their expectations met(and certain gameplay features were cut from the final release), this game is still a great present for kids. It’s a very simple evolution game where you take the most basic form of life, evolve it into a customizable creature, build a civilization, and then travel and conquer the galaxy to your liking. There’s a lot more to that, but like the aforementioned LittleBigPlanet, Spore encourages players to be creative have some control as to how they play the game. There are more than several different stages of the game divided into smaller metagames that are based on existing genres like strategy games(Civilization, Age of Empires) and simulation games(Sim City). These metagames are nowhere near as complex as the full games they are inspired by, but I think that is good for younger players who made not be ready to handle games of such complexity and depth.

The winter looks good for gamers of all tastes and ages so do your best to go out and get some great games this holiday season!