My parents bought me multiple editions of Encarta in my childhood and I absolutely loved it as we didn't have internet at that time. It was much more than an encyclopaedia; you could explore ancient sites and play educational games. It was great fun.

As great a free resource as Wikipedia is, each article's quality relies on a knowledgable contributor to really make it worthwhile, and those are few and far between. Wikipedia is dry and lacks what Encarta had