Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy

Seeing as it's based on the Quake 3 engine, we had high hopes for Jedi Academy. We weren't disappointed. For our trial we used the Steam version which installed itself without issue. The game ran fine in both single and multiplayer modes at 800 x 600 resolution. With an attached USB mouse we found that there is no reason a netbook user can't successfully defeat a desktop user at Lightsaber combat.

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

Sim City 4

First of all, yes, Sim City 4 will run on a netbook. In fact, SC4 is pretty forgiving to netbooks as it allows a lot of customization in relation to your graphics settings. The graphics settings in Sim City 4 include an option to switch to software rendering if you're finding the itty bitty graphic chipset in your netbook is having a problem rendering your city when it gets large.

Sim City 4 installs well from an image file though the installation takes a little while. When all is said and done, SC4 will take up approximately 920 MB of storage. The default graphics settings will allow the game to play smoothly. However, with no wide-screen resolution you might find it difficult to navigate your city as the control menu at the bottom of the screen takes up a large portion of your view.

Will you create a metropolis to rival New York? Or will you lead your city to ruin? Good luck!

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

World Of Warcraft

It's not the most original MMORPG (Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Game) on the market nor is it the prettiest. However, there's one thing that World of Warcraft has that no other MMORPG does: over 10 million subscribers. What's the mystery behind WoW's overwhelming success?

First of all, WoW got a huge jump-start on to the scene simply because of the Blizzard brand name. Being the developers of Diablo, StarCraft and Warcraft, consumers knew that Blizzard produces a quality product. However, if hype was all WoW had going for it, it wouldn't have shown the staying power that it's demonstrated through it's two major expansions (The Burning Crusade and Wrath Of The Lich King).

Blizzard's biggest accomplishment with WoW is knowing just how far away to dangle the carrot at the end of the stick. Leveling up your character in WoW does take some grinding but the next level never seems that far out of reach. New skills and abilities are scattered throughout the leveling process so that there's always a reward, even if it's just a small one. This process feeds the addiction centre of the brain explaining the nickname World of War-crack.

Now if in addition to owning a netbook you are one of the over 10 million World of Warcraft subscribers, you probably skipped over the proceeding paragraphs to find out if you'll be playing WoW on the run anytime soon. Good news: yes you will.

One of the nice things about WoW for netbooks is that you can download the client from the World of Warcraft site. This saves you the hassle of dealing with image files or a USB optical drive. For the purposes of our test however, we ripped the Wrath Of The Lich King DVD to an image file and mounted it on the netbook over our network. If you have the Wrath Of The Lich King DVD you'll find that it contains all of the WoW data and Burning Crusades data as well, you don't have to install them all in order first.

If you own one of the base model netbooks that only has a small SSD hard drive, you won't be able to run WoW with all of the expansions installed. Wrath Of The Lich King pushes the World Of Warcraft directory up to an impressive 12.9 GB. However, if you own an Acer Aspire One like our test model, you can do what we did and install the game to a 16 GB HCSD card placed in the left SD card slot. This slot is designed to be used in the same manner as a swappable hard drive.

The installation is a long process and even after WoW's installed you'll be waiting some more for all the patches to install. Once installation is completed and you're in the game at the main menu, go into the options menu and then to video. Change the resolution to 1024 x 600 and lower all of the graphic settings as low as they will go. This will give you a very playable frame rate that hovers around the 20 frames per second mark. It's not going to look as smooth as it will on your desktop with a dedicated video card however with the small screen, it's actually pretty good.

We took a level 60 Paladin out running some quests in Silithus and had no issue killing giant bugs and worms. Afterwards, we went to Stormwind to see how things would render in a major city. During peak hours the frame rate dropped to 8 frames per second near the auction house but we were still able to move and tell what was going on. After the auction house we went and competed in the Alterac Valley battleground, holding our own and helping our team to victory.

In summary, you're not going to be playing WoW on your netbook if a desktop's available but it's certainly an option when you want to Play On The Run.

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

Monopoly Tycoon

Released in September of 2001, Monopoly Tycoon has surprisingly pretty graphics and a catchy soundtrack. With a variety of game modes and multiplayer support this business simulation game is fun by yourself or with other netbook buddies.

Monopoly Tycoon installed quickly from an image file and doesn't take up much storage space (approx. 112 mb). The game will run on a netbook at it's maximum graphic settings however it doesn't have support for widescreen resolutions. Play On The Run recommends using 800 x 600.

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

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

Steam

Obviously Steam itself isn't a game, it's a digital distribution service. The appeal of Steam to netbook users? Well some netbooks, like our test unit, have a small solid state hard drive. Steam gives you access to your game collection anywhere you have internet access allowing you to install one or two games at a time and changing them up when you want to try something different. This lets you keep hard drive space free and saves you from having to play around with a USB optical drive or image files to install your games.

The Steam client itself downloads and installs quickly and without issue. However, there are occasionally issues when running the client. Loading Steam and connecting to your account sometimes takes up to a minute and if you get impatient and click-happy, the client will lock up. Downloading a game over the Steam network will slow down the client and again, if you get impatient and click-happy, the client will lock up.

The Steam library is large already and as more publishers come on board, it's only going to get larger. In addition to the newest, most resource hungry games on the market, Steam also has PC classics with system requirements that will feel at home on a netbook.

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

The Sims

The best selling PC game of all time for a reason. But does it run on a netbook? Yes it does!

The image file was mounted in Alcohol 52% and installation was smooth. The first attempt to run the program at 1024 x 768 did not result in success. The Sims only loaded on the left side of the display and the colour scheme was way off. The program locked up shortly after but was able to be terminated in the Task Manager. Attempt number two involved running the game at 800 x 600. The game loaded up and ran smoothly. Occasional slow game play when mousing over a moving Sim but hardly noticeable.

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