You might want to check out Chorus, it’s on sale super cheap on GOG right now. It’s an action game with some levels on foot and others in space.
An honorable mention is Star Wars Battlefront 2 (classic) - maybe not exactly what you want, but it has space combat where most of the action is with ship dogfights, where you can also attack the opposing capital ship and disable its core systems to win the match. The whole single player game ensures you’ll get one hell of a power fantasy as the ace/hero, even on harder difficulties.
Unless they did a proper rework of space combat, it’ll get old fast, just like ground combat. I also remember you could pile up dozens of “Kill space pirate Whoever” from several systems, travel super far away so that you could reset the quests, reset said quests, then manage to complete ALL of them by killing only one target
It’s a game that, as you build up money, it becomes less about flying around and more about managing fleets and your little economic empire. Still, one of the few that actually let you pilot fighters AND huge stuff like the carriers
Fable 1 was a game I had lots of fun with. Being Brazilian, I was more or less immune to the hype buildup around the game, so I had no clue what was promised vs. what was delivered until years later
Never too late to introduce them to all of your favourite classic games, either
Easier if you start with Bomberman Party on the PS1 or the arcade Neo Bomberman. I think those play much better than anything Bomberman released after 2004
If the kid enjoys strategy, starting out with Age of Empires should be easy. Or just leave them messing around with Settlers 2
I mean, you can set up a gaming pc or laptop to mostly work with a controller and have a general interface akin to that of consoles. Retro stuff like Lakka or RetroPie already do it super well. The “set up” part is where you’ll likely spend several hours, though
While I never saw the credit rolls (because the game doesn’t have it), Dwarf Fortress definitely changed something in my head.
From my initial attempts where I couldn’t even figure how to make my dorfs get food or dig, to reaching a point where most of my forts would be retired due to low FPS and, to this day, only failed attempts at taming an evil biome for more than 2 years, the game showed that procgen, by itself, is not an excuse for shitty looking worlds or terrains. Hell, the procgen can even generate interesting stories and situations, though no longer absurdly awesome ones like the story of Cacame Awemedinade. Quote:
Cacame, at the ripe old age of 12, he became a Guard. Two years later, an elven attack from the Field of Kindling’s city of Fish of Magic injured him in the lower body and killed his wife Nemo Ruyavaiyici (who was then eaten by Amoya Themarifa, the elf who killed her). Maddened with grief, Cacame set off to the nearest front as soon as he healed enough to fight.
During his first combat he took up his fallen commander’s legendary warhammer[name?] and slew many elves with it, being noted as the battle’s fiercest and deadliest warrior; for his deeds, the dwarves’ second-in-command acknowledged that Cacame would best put the warhammer to use and should keep it.
Two years after that, in 99, the Battle of Both Kings was fought. In this battle Cacame struck down King Nithe of Field of Kindling (who was finished off by another dwarf called Sibrek Handpages, though); however the other king slain was the dwarven king himself. The dwarves decided that Cacame, by now dubbed “The Immortal Onslaught”, should take over as their king.
Once made King, Cacame left in a brief quest to resurrect his wife. He returned riding a zombie wyvern, but without achieving his goal. In 111, at the age of 28, he moved his capital to the Gamildodók (Trustclasps) Fortress.
For an Animal Crossing-ish experience on PC, you can try Dinkum (indie, solo dev) or Hello Kitty Island Adventures (unironically good, but also limits some activities per real day, like AC New Horizons)