Good games a really crappy laptop can handle?

Does anyone have any suggestions on games I can play offline on a really old laptop that sucks the big one?

Bonus points if:

• I can play it with a touchpad
• It's easy to play at the same time as doing work
• It's free (but I'm willing to pay $ if it's actually worth it)

So far I have already played: Sudoku, Minesweeper, various Scorched Earth/Worms variants, way too many pong variants, Civ 1 (better believe it), Master of Orion 1, X-com, Simcity 2000, Heroes of Might and Magic (never ever want to play this game for the rest of my life), and The Incredible Machine.

 

Defcon=== cool game

 

masters of magic sounds like one you might like

its like masters of orion and homm

 

yugi oh! duel monsters (?) or maybe buy some pc versions of FF7 and FF8.

resident evil...

 

Gunbound Revolution

 

Warcraft 3

 

Yahoo Chess

 

Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds. It's a strategy game and is just plain fun:
http://lucasarts.com/products/battlegrounds/splash.htm

 

I have that game too! Think Age of Empires with Star Wars units.

 

O my goodness Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds use to be one of my favorite games! I was going to recommend that game also, until I saw your post Chaz!

 

Close Combat 3 and 5 will run on anything that have 32Mb of ram or more and atleast 66Mhz processor, but a very strategic, fun and intresting games.

 

Deus Ex? Or is that too demanding?

 

I know there is a shortlist of games that can be run on various Intel Integrated graphics, but is there any site out there that has a full(er) listing of games that can be run on these graphics? It's all very well that Intel has a site that states that Quake 3 and Doom 3 can be run, but it failed to mention that games like Silent Hill 2 cannot be run on the laptop graphics (namely the dark rooms in the game, which is mostly dark...).

A list of this nature would be very helpful.

 

I'd definitely go with Age of Empires II (ps galactic battlegrounds is not only like it, its based off of it). Easy, simple to learn, and utterly addicting...

 

My favorite game of all time: Starcraft

 

diablo 1 and 2

 

Tyrian!!!!

Classic classic game

 

Defcon is good!

 

The Longest Journey! I just started playing it a few days ago and I'm sucked in. I bought this laptop to handle modern games, yet I'm playing a game that could probably run on a laptop made in 1998. It requires only 4MB of video ram and 64MB of system memory.

It can usually be found for $10, but if you have a Half Price Books in your area, you can get it for around $6. My girlfriend works there so I got it even cheaper.

I've never played a traditional adventure game before this and I'm very into it. I suppose the fact that there is an onscreen 3-D character roaming around the settings and whatnot does help. I don't think I could get into the Myst series or anything that is too much of a point & click adventure. But this game is awesome.

I play the game in windowed mode, because playing it fullscreen looks horrendous. I tried playing with AA enabled through the NVidia control panel, but it seemed to prevent close-ups of certain items or surfaces in game from displaying, as well as many other issues.

Also, the original Unreal Tournament i still a blast. I think I prefer it over UT2004, even with it's incredibly outdated graphics. But I wouldn't attempt playing it with a touchpad.

 

I will mention Defcon for the third time. It seems to run easily on low end sytems. I haven't played it yet. The reviews have been pretty good.

Age of Empires II is a GREAT game. Surprised only one person has mentioned this one. I liked it better then #3.

 

Command and Conquer?

 

i second diablo 2, you can a no cd crack and play the game in window mode, and if you have an internet connection you can play online for free

 

I'll second all the old C&C games: Tiberian Dawn, RA, Tiberian Sun, and RA2/YR are all good fun, and you can get them all (plus all expansions) along with Generals and Renegade (which may run - you didn't specify just how "crappy" your laptop is) for around $40. Not at all a bad deal.

 

Thief - The Dark Project

 

You can play all those games on "touch pad"?

Wow, you guys are good..

 

Here is a pretty comprehensive of all the games a laptop with 32mb video memory, 128ram and 10gb HD can run ok... these are probably the greatest games of all time, a lot of them are FPS games so playing them witha pad may make it difficult.

(Ive put a * next to the ones which are REALLY good and will porbably suit you)

*** diablo series -rpg
*** starcraft series -rts
*** warcraft series -rts
* command & conquer series -rts
* commandos series -rpg
* arcanum (maybe) -rpg
* nox -rpg
* baldurs gate series -rpg
* need for speed series -racing
grand theft auto series -rpg
*** fallout series -rpg
sim city series -rts
age of empires series -rts
doom series -fps
quake series -fps
serious sam series -fps
delta force series -fps
* rage of mages series -rpg
*** jagged alliance series -rpg
* majesty -rts
mech warrior series -fps
*** myth series -rts
starsiege series -fps
* total war series -rts
soldier of fortunes series -fps


you can easily find these at game store for under 10$ or simply download them if you know where and how

 

The GTA series is not an RPG.

 

Wow I'm really surprised at the number of responses this got. I made a list of the games you suggested along with some comments:


Defcon x3 - I just dl'd the demo...it's really well done graphically, playing against the computer is pretty boring though so I would have to find some people to play against. Office mode sounds awesome (don't think I could get away with it in my office though ) Great suggestion.
Masters of Magic
Yugioh - Isnt this like Pokemon. Doubt it's my taste
FF7/FF8 - Should have mentioned I hate RPG's, especially FF. The movie was also so lame
Gunbound Revolution
Warcraft 3 - Unfortunately I can't run this on my comp. But I played it a few times and thought it was kind of boring honestly. Maybe I just didn't get into it enough but it didn't feel like anything new.
Yahoo Chess - Can't top chess, too bad I suck at it.
Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds x3 - As mentioned, looks like AOE with Star Wars units. Doesn't sound all that exciting but I've never dug the whole Star Wars universe anyway, especially after the 3 recent movies left you with the feeling that you want your seven hours back
Close Combat 3 or 5
Deus Ex - This is about the limit of what I can play on this comp (anything newer than 98 or 99 usually fails.) One of the best games I've ever played ever. Totally brilliant. The sequel was the biggest letdown though.
AOE x2 - Never got the hype. Played it a few times but seemed pretty dull. Feels like a cheap clone of the following game. Many of you will probably consider such comments heretical.
Starcraft - This to me is the high water mark of RTS gaming. Now I haven't played all the RTS's out there, not even half, but I've played many of the best and Starcraft feels to me like the one that comes closest to being as classic as chess. Not only does this game have more strategic depth than any other RTS I've played, but it also had a memorable plot in the campaign, an area where most RTS's are still a joke. In 20 years this will be a game people will still remember.
Diablo 1/2 - Two very very evil games. These were the first and the last RPG's I ever plan to play. How can a game destroy your will to live so much that killing some zombie boss a million times so that his 0.00001% chance to drop Something Really Good actually seems like "fun." The only good thing about this game was that you could make money playing it, but honestly I'd rather clean sewer pipes for a living than play more of this game. What kind of demented game encourages playing for 3 days straight? (yes Blizzard was complicit, it was called the ladder system.)
Tyrian
The Longest Journey - Always heard about it, been meaning to try it.
UT - I never dug the whole UT/Quake shooters, I always preferred more "realism" in shooters like CS (although I realize how unrealistic that game is too.)
Command and Conquer - I also never thought it was as good as Starcraft
Thief - Played the demo, didn't think it was much fun. The stealth system seemed too arbitrary and was just frustrating.
GTA - At first it felt bad running down all those civilians and killing all those cops for no good reason. But then it got boring.


Thanks for all the suggestions, they were great. I saw a few here I'll be looking further into. The kind of games I really am looking for are games like Defcon...something that can be picked up or put down easily, something that doesn't require your full attention to play (bonus to run in a window), something that's possible to play on a touchpad and offline. Basically casual kind of games.

 

The Longest Journey does require some thinking for solving puzzles. I'm not used to adventure games, so I was a bit baffled for a while with some of them. But once you start to get exactly how much you have to think about the puzzles, it gets easier. Making sure you understand all the attributes and purposes of the items in your inventory is important. And you need to be somewhat creative. I'd say you'd need to be creative more than logical. I often times only see the logic of solutions in retrospect. "Oh yeah, it says the screwdriver is magnetic. Duh."

I have to admit that I have gone to a guide a few times. It hasn't hindered my experience at all. I do nearly all of the puzzle solving on my own.

Just be prepared for lots of dialogue. Nearly all of it is spoken as well as in subtitles. So it doesn't necessarily always require reading unless there's a weird name that is easier to recognize in text.

Oh, and it can be played windowed. I'd actually recommend it, as it's max resolution is 640x480 and looks pretty blocky at much higher resolutions. Setting it to windowed mode isn't available in the options menu, but if you want to do so, go to C:/Program Files/Funcom/The Longest Journey and open the file "preferences" in Notepad. Change "StartFullscreen=1" to "StartFullscreen=0" and it will open in windowed mode.

Sorry, I'm just very excited about this game. I'm almost assumign you are going to play it.