Quake 3 Arena

One of the best first person shooters of all time, this game has made more than one professional gamer a tidy sum of money. Played at tournaments all over the world, Quake 3 Arena is a high speed frag-fest. Will it run on a netbook? Thankfully, yes.

Both the original game as well as the newer version distributed through Steam will work on a netbook. Installation is problem-free with both versions. The game runs smooth and with an attached USB mouse be prepared to put up a decent frag count.

When Quake 3 Arena first came out, widescreen monitors were just a dream in the sleeping minds of gamers. Your netbook likely has a widescreen monitor and runs at a widescreen resolution (1024 x 600 in the case of our test unit). To set the game to a custom resolution you need to get into the command console. This is easier than it sounds. When you get to the main menu of the game, press the ~ key on your keyboard. Once in the command console you will need to enter the following three commands and then restart the game:

• r_mode -1
• r_customwidth 1024 (or whatever width you'd like)
• r_customheight 600 (or whatever height you'd like)

Changing the resolution as described here will make the game look and play a lot better however you likely won't be able to watch any of the game cinematics. Really though, Quake 3 Arena was never about story line. Happy fragging!

Acer Aspire One
Intel Atom N270 CPU
1 Gb RAM
Intel 945 graphic chipset
8 Gb SS Hard Drive
16 Gb HCSD card used as a second drive
8.9" LCD screen