Featured Game: Portal

No Intel graphics for newbies

Year: 2007

Genre: Puzzle + Platform

Recommend: Depends

If you're a daring soul who loves to tweak and mod your netbook to get any game to work, you can probably get Portal up and running. If you're not, Intel's graphics won't cut it. Fortunately, Nvidia and AMD have made netbooks excellent Portal machines.

What you'll need

Reviews and Awards

Portal received excellent ratings all around the board, plus a big ol' list of awards, some of which are for GLaDOS's epic villianness (is that a word?). GameSpy stated "What Portal lacks in length, it more than makes up for in exhilaration." Metacritic ratings average 90/100, with GameRankings' rates very slightly different at 89.15%.

Tips

Go here for advice on Portal for Intel's graphics processors. Do it. It's in the description.

Featured Game: Vindictus

You can play it if you have the right hardware

Year: 2010/2011, depending on region

Genre: Fantasy MMORPG

Recommend: Depends

Best MMO nomination at E3 2010? Best free-to-play MMO of 2010? Playable on a netbook? Yes, yes, and yes. Oh, and did I mention it's free? Vindictus is a great game for netbooks, if yours has the chops.

What you'll need

Reviews and Awards

Besides its nomination for best MMO at E3 2010, Vindictus has received other praise for its graphics and action. IGN awarded Vindictus as the "Best Free-to-Play MMO Game of 2010". "Ever wondered whether or not it would be satisfying to break a pillar in half and smash one of those halves into the face of a giant wolf-man?" MMO Hut gave Vindictus an Excellent rating for its "great skill and attack animations" and other positive features. Vindictus got dinged a little for its repetitive combat and limited choice of playable characters.

Tips

Having trouble playing? Open up the Task Manager and kill all processes you can do without, using End Process. In extreme situations, this might even include Windows Explorer. Killing Explorer isn't as dangerous as it sounds; you can always use Task Manager to restart it if needed.

Screenshot from MMO Hut