The so-called netbook PCs - super-tiny laptops available for £200 or less - may have featherweight processors and graphics chips that Left 4 Dead would laugh at, but they've still got plenty of games poke. Here, we've rounded up 17 games old and new, casual and complicated, pretty and fugly, that all play well on the tiny screens and keyboards of any current netbook.
A few complications. The built-in touchpads of netbooks aren't always an adequate substitute for a proper mouse. If you're playing anything that needs reactions, invest in a tiny, wireless infra-red mouse.
Secondly, the screens. Netbooks have entirely embraced widescreen, which makes them great for a cheeky spot of movie watching, but the need to keep costs low means they're also low resolution. The net result: screens with pixel counts that no game before this year had ever seriously planned for. By and large you'll be playing games as 800x600 with black bars at the sides.
More troublesome are the first-generation netbooks, and their frankly bonkers 800x480 resolution - with 800x600 the usual minimum res for games, you end up with the bottom of the picture disappearing off the screen. Invest in a better netbook if you can, but try Netbook Resolution Customizer to force your PC to display higher resolutions. It'll look a bit blurred and weird, but it does the trick for a few games.
Netbook playtime isn't limited to the games here. If you've found a great game that works on a netbook, let us know in the forum.
Diablo II £7, www.play.com
What is it? With its randomly-generated levels and a constant succession of quickly-resolved challenges and rewards, Blizzard's hack-'n'-slash RPG is a perfectly-suited for both low-spec machines and the stop-start nature of gaming on the move. It's also dirt cheap and retains a huge multiplayer and modding community.
Any tips? If you do find you're short on time, patience or room, try the ridiculously excessive Median XL mod (modsbylaz.planetdiablo.gamespy.com). It chucks in a crapton of extra monsters, quests and skills - but more importantly, an ungodly amount of loot. You'll feel like you're making incredible progress even if you're doing nothing more than furiously hammering your netbook's tiny left trackpad button. Even with Median installed, however, it's worth investing in a USB mouse if you can.
Plants vs Zombies £7, store.steampowered.com
What is it? Zombies want your brains. All that's stopping them is a mutated array of plants and seeds. Grow them on your lawn, and hope they'll keep the dead from your door. Casual gaming doyens PopCap know better than anyone that half the world has PCs that scream in terror at anything that even mentions 3D. This gloriously silly take on the tower defence genre is 2D, low resolution, and controlled with a single hand. With challenges that rarely last more than five minutes, it's also ideal for the limited manoeuvrability and regular distractions inherent to train or plane gaming..
Any tips? In the unlikely event you suffer any stuttering, simply turn off the 3D acceleration option, which disables a few of the whizzbang sparkly incidental effects but otherwise leaves the game unchanged and as fun as ever.
World of Goo £17, store.steampowered.com
What is it? Build bridges, cables and carry-cots from and for sentient, dopey goos to get them to safety. Comfortably last year's best indie game, with production values about as modern as they come - so there's no way this will run on a netbook, right? In fact, it plays like a charm on even the lowliest netbook, such as the original Asus Eee, despite that coming in under the stated minimum spec. One-button, broad gesture-based controls make it a comfortable play on a netbook trackpad too.
Any tips? One niggle - this psychics-based puzzle game doesn't let you change its resolution. However, stumble over to C:\Program Files\world of goo\properties, or C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\world of goo\properties if you bought it off Steam, and open config.txt. You can manually specify a resolution there - but make a backup.
LucasArts Classic Line £various, www.amazon.co.uk
What is it? LucasArts' era-defining series of point-and-click adventure games are already a benchmark for portable gaming systems. PSP, DS, iPhone - you name it, and someone's already ported free LucasArts emulator ScummVM to it. The control set doesn't extend beyond the left and right mouse buttons, so these comedy puzzle games may be just the sweet relief you need on a bored, cramped train journey.
Any tips Budget versions of Sam & Max Hit The Road, Full Throttle et al abound for around a fiver each, and have been jiggery-pokered by LucasArts to play nice with modern operating systems. Alternatively, if you have old copies or want to muck around with settings more, the aforementioned ScummVM (www.scummvm.org) will do the grunt work for you.
What is it? A blisteringly fast mix of toy-car racing, stunt silliness and puzzle track-laying. The TrackMania series might have a convoluted naming system (Nations, Nations Forever, United, United Forever... gah) but that reflects the fact its core tech hasn't changed since 2003. Which means the most recent version can make itself right at home on the wheeziest of netbooks.
Any tips? Unlike most racing games, this is built to be controlled with WASD or cursor keys, so you don't need to worry about breaking out a gamepad on the train. Immediately accessible, super-quick levels and inherently one-handed driving and stunting: TrackMania could even be the defining netbook game. Brace for the near-inevitable TrackMania United Netbooks Forever 2009 Championship Nations Edition.
GTA: Vice City £6, store.steampowered.com
What is it? The best urban crime 'em up, ever, starring you as one Tommy Vercetti, a blue-shirted psychopath on the road to a drug fortune. Also: murdering hookers and giggling at thinly-veiled Scarface references. This runs smoothly on even the most barebones of netbooks while still looking incredible. Even on a screen, that opening moped journey to the strains of Billie Jean is still a joyous moment.
Any tips? You can whack the settings up to the maximum without butchering the framerate, and so long as you turn on 'widescreen' in the graphics options, you'll be able to select your netbook's native resolution. Predecessor GTA 3 and successor San Andreas are also at home on a netbook, but again: the setting and soundtrack mean Vice City is both the prettiest of the bunch and the best for that air-punching raw joy factor.
The Elder Scrolls IV: Morrowind £7, www.play.com
What is it? The forerunner to Oblivion and Fallout remains a landmark RPG for exploration and freeform play. It's still a little taxing on the rock-bottom end of modern PC specs, so at first glance the idea of playing it on a netbook is insanity. Step forward the modding community, who've created various tools to rip ancillary guff out of the game in the name of better performance.
Any tips? First port of call: Low-Fat Morrowind (snipurl.com/hetnu), which reduces texture sizes by around 75%. You'll also want the Ultimate Morrowind Anti-Mod (snipurl.com/hetob), whose party trick is to axe a ton of static background objects, making a big difference to the famously chuggy cities. Finally, the FPS Optimizer (snipurl.com/hetpm) will auto-tweak stuff like draw distance to keep your fps high.
Dungeon Keeper 2 £4, www.amazon.co.uk
What is it? The second of Bullfrog's monster-management games lets you hire bondage queens and fat angry belch fiends. It retains a strong visual charm even a full decade on. An optional software rendering mode can shift the burden off your netbook's puny graphics processor onto the more able CPU.
Any tips? My Pet Dungeon is the mode for gaming on the move - a relaxed sandbox in which you can build lairs and train up beasties to your evil heart's content, enemies only arriving when you want them to. A legally grey mod/hack called Dungeon Keeper 2 Silver Edition lets you run the game from an external drive or flashcard, in case you're lacking a USB DVD drive. If you experience any graphical corruption turn off hardware acceleration and this to the command line: '-softwarefilter -32biteverything'.
Audiosurf £4, www.amazon.co.uk
What is it? Match coloured blocks as you ride rollercoasters defined by your favourite music. It's absolutely splendid for long, boring journeys, as it combines two of the most reliable tedium-killers - gaming and music.
Any tips? You'll need to drop the graphics settings low, but as the look is predominantly neon wireframe, no biggy. It can take a little while to analyse a song when you run it for the first time, so you're best off loading your favourite songs when you've got a little time to kill. Oh, and if you need to save space on your tiny hard drive, Audiosurf can happily browse for tracks on an external drive - tote a USB flash drive around with you, filled with your musical weapons of choice. To save yourself faffing around with Steam's infuriatingly unreliable offline mode (and the extra load times), get a boxed copy.
Neverwinter Nights £3, www.startupmedia.co.uk
What is it? This is essentially the infinite RPG. Its story has been vastly expanded thanks to the tireless efforts of a huge community. If you like your orcs traditional, and your dwarves beardy, this is your portable game of choice.
Any tips? To support unorthodox 800x480 or 1024x600 resolutions, you'll need third-party settings app Ndubya config (snipurl.com/hsgu5). You'll also want to patch it to at least v1.68 to remove the CD check. On more recent netbooks (those with an Intel Atom processor), sequel Neverwinter Nights 2 is just about playable too. You will have to use third party app 3D-Analyze to force emulation of some graphical features, however. Grab it from snipurl.com/hsgwu and check the options marked 'emulate HW TnL caps' and 'performance mode'.
The Sims/Sims 2 From £9, www.play.com
What is it? The world-conquering people management sim. Drive men, women, and men-women things to distraction by taking away their toilet privileges and forcing them to snog the maid.
Any tips? Aside from the perils of taking a day to install all the expansion packs to a netbook's slow-to-write flash drive, The Sims and its shinier, more elaborate sequel are very comfortable on most tiny PCs (though the latter isn't really fit for first-edition Eees and the like). The Sims 2 even natively supports 1024x600.
In the case of the first game, no-cd-drive installation can be avoided by first installing it (and expansions) to a standard PC, then copying the directory to your netbook. As EA haven't seen fit to patch out the archaic copy protection, you'll need to find a no-cd crack from one an online den of scum and villainy.
Ultimate Doom £6, store.steampowered.com
What is it? Doom remains ageless. Lightning fast, still visually distinctive and insanely challenging at the top difficulties - plus it was originally built for keyboard play, so you don't need to worry too much about your trackpad.
Any tips? To solve any modern-Windows compatibility problems and to improve the graphics and controls (ie, add mouselook support, and even jump, if you want it), fire up the original WAD files in jDoom, aka the Doomsday engine (www.doomsdayhq.com). It adds sharp, 3D walls and dynamic lighting/shadowing, and can even replace the 2D sprites with 3D remakes. It's also the easiest way to get the game running at your netbook's fruity widescreen resolution without screen-stretching or big black bars. Try free mini-app Oblige (tinyurl.com/cznclp), to randomly generate an infinity of new levels.
Deus Ex £6, store.steampowered.com
What is it? A tale of conspiracy, land-mines and modified humans in a world of nanobots, greasels, and angry Templars. A shooter RPG hybrid that all gamers should complete at least once.
Any tips? It runs almost perfectly on a netbook, but, annoyingly, it doesn't naturally support 800x480 or 1024x600. Head into the install directory, click through to the System folder then open deusex.ini in Notepad. Find these lines: FullscreenViewportX= and FullscreenViewportY=, then change the first to 1024 (or 800) and second to 600 (or 480). Save, and Ion Storm's finest hour will be running happily at your netbook's native resolution. That fix applies to any Unreal Engine or Unreal Engine 2003 game. For fresh adventures try The Nameless Mod - an epic fan-work years in the making (www.thenamelessmod.com).
Warcraft III £5, www.amazon.co.uk
What is it? Blizzard's last RTS is the best suited of their games to the netbook, with chunky units and crammed levels that focus on hero characters. Once you're done with the main campaign, try the Frozen Throne expansion.
Any tips? There's a slightly convoluted fix to save you from screen-scrolling or a compressed picture. You'll need to enter your registry: hit Start, click Run, type 'regedit' then Enter. In the left-hand window, browse to [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Blizzard Entertainment\Warcraft III\Video]. Find the entries called reswidth and resheight - right-click them and select 'edit'. On the screen that pops up, tick Decimal rather than Hex, and you can enter standard values. Width should be 1024 or 800, depending on your PC, and height either 600 or 480. Use the latest patch to ditch the CD check.
Peggle Complete £10, store.steampowered.com
What is it? This peg and ball based casual game became a surprise hit with the hardcore as well as part-time gamers, and with good reason: there's near-infinite replay value. As far as netbooks go, it'll pretty much run on an Acorn Electron, doesn't require an external mouse and offers very quick games. Oh, and it's very funny too. Peggle is the gift that just keeps on giving, and the exact moment that casual gaming was proven to be oh-so-much more than a fad for luddites who didn't know how to operate the right mouse button.
Any tips? There are no resolution-changing options, alas, but as the game is natively 800x600 it looks sharp and perfect when centred (rather than stretched) on a netbook's 1024x600 display. For first-gen netbooks, you'll have to use that horrible 800x480 to 800x600 compression mode, sadly.
Geometry Wars £3, store.steampowered.com
What is it? A legendary twin-stick Xbox 360 arcade shooter for sale on Steam for a ridiculously low price. Hover one hand over the WASD keys, the other over the trackpad, and blow everything, and anything, that moves. It's ideal for commuting, as the challenge is only ever to best your friends' (and, indeed, your own) high scores - hence, infinite replay value and sessions that can be as short as you like or as long as your skill and reflexes allow.
Any tips? You will likely lose some of the background effects due to an incompatibility with the poxy integrated Intel graphics, but if anything the loss of that undulating distraction makes the game easier to play. You'll need to be online if you want your scores to reach the leaderboards, so it's a better play on netbooks toting 3G modules or talking to a nearby wireless access point.
Quake III: Arena From £3, www.amazon.co.uk (marketplace)
What is it? The best pure deathmatch shooter available today. You're not going to be playing its cousin, the recent, free browser-based re-release Quake Live on a plane, unless you're on Air Force One and you're Barack Obama, but you can practise offline with the original. Whack the bot AI to the top and you're in a for a stiff challenge. Q3A plays like a dream on a netbook even with graphics settings maxed out.
Any tips? You'll need a USB mouse to play the game well, as netbook trackpads really aren't built for shooters as fast-paced as this. Unfortunately, like far too many of id's games it doesn't support true widescreen, so you'll have to put up with a bit of stretching or black bars. Other Quake III engine-based games are equally friendly with most netbooks too - such as Call of Duty 1.
JDoom is awesome and a great portable PC game. Unless you have a cutting edge laptop and can afford to play Crysis then Jdoom is a good choice, as well as Half-Life 2 (strangly missing from the lineup) which should run fairly well as the game dosn't need a monster rig to run at good detail levels.
Of course this is much harder if you have Linux on your netbook (as you should). I have had running natively World of Goo, Quake III, Warsow and Doom, with no need for WINE.
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