From around 2000-2005. Not sure my laptop graphics can handle better. intel(r) g945, something like that.

Good fun games, all sorts of genres (not sport). Adventure, strategy, shooting, whatever. Just say your favourites from this period, possibly earlier, or later without high end graphics.

Thanks

max payne
nobody lives forever
halflife mods online (digital paintball, counterstrike, etc)

civilization IV
warcraft III
sim city 4

deus ex, great storyline
diablo ii
anything by blizzard really

Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War + Expansions
Rise of Nations + Thrones & Patriots Expansion
Rome: Total War
Far Cry
Silent Storm
Call of Duty
Myst IV: Revelations
Baldurs Gate Series
NeverWinter Nights
Age of Wonders II

civ IV
fallout 2
rollercoaster tycoon

diablo ii
half-life
command & conquer series

Half Life 2. Nobody Lives Forever is a great game too (second one is also good). I loooove the Max Payne games, the second is one of my all times faves.

Diablo 2
Guild Wars
Neverwinter Nights
Max Payne

Delta Force 1. Did anyone else play this game regularly around 2000-2002? It sucks that the online game is totally dead now and the sequels are nothing like the first one. And all the good players from 2001 are gone.

diablo 2 for the win
also counterstrike!

Max Payne was pretty meh imo (or maybe it was MP2 I played...either way, wasn't that impressed, and I beat it in 1 day).

Get System Shock 2, it's like BioShock but better. Jedi Knight II came out in 2002 and was a cool shooter - actually, I don't remember if it was this or if it was Jedi Academy I played, but the Star Wars shooter series have always been pretty good so both are prob good choices.

Oh yeah, FREELANCER, awesome space shooter. Game is [censored] sick. They seriously need to make a sequel already. I was mad addicted to this game for awhile. It's kinda like Oblivion structure-wise in that there's a main quest, but even outside of that there's a ton of stuff to do and places to explore.

QFT on Deus Ex, I never got past the first few levels for some reason and I've been itching go go back and play it recently even though I rarely do that with old games that have crappy graphics. Sometimes I wish companies would take awesome old games, port them to new engines, and re-sell them; I'd totally shell out $40-$50 to play Deus Ex in HD on my 360.

Knights of the Old Republic.

Oh, duh, and Morrowind (prequel to Oblivion). Awesome awesome awesome awesome game, one of my favorite ever until I played Oblivion. You can prob pick up game of the year edition (game + its 2 or 3 expansions) for like $20 and then kiss 150+ hours of your life goodbye.

I think Morrowind was better than Oblivion in a lot of ways (gameplay mostly), so even if you've played Oblivion I think there's a ton of things Morrowind does better (most notably story and difficulty progression) that will keep it fresh and fun. I imagine the graphics are even still pretty good too.

EDIT: I remembered playing Psi-Ops on Xbox and thinking it was pretty fun, and its Wikipedia page says it's available for PC. Definitely a console-styled 3rd person shooter but I liked it. Same story (I played on Xbox but supposedly available for PC) with "Beyond Good & Evil", fantastic adventure game, I really felt in touch with the story by the end of it.

Loads of good suggestions. I think you all just made me fail university.

Thanks, I think.

Max Payne games for me.

Great first game.

Perfect sequel in every way.

Please don't play Max Payne in lieu of Deus Ex. Max Payne was an above average shooter with some cool elements (bullet time), but Deus Ex is one of the greatest games ever made. From everything I've heard that goes for System Shock 2 as well (same developers as Deus Ex), but I can't speak from experience on that one.

QFT. Also want to add that this doesn't apply to Deus Ex 2 - while a decent game, I'm still pissed that they screwed up big time and the game retains almost none of the greatness of the original. I could have designed it better, bastards console-ized it too much. I'd probably pick Max Payne over DX2.

Jedi Knight II. Amazingly fun and deep light saber combat and force powers. That's really all that needs to be said. If you like Star Wars at all, you'll like this.

Planescape: Torment if you want to play an RPG. It's not typical swords and elves though; it takes place in a very strange and disturbing world and you start off the game not knowing who you are or how you got there.

STARCRAFT!!!!!
Diablo II (fun for like a week)
Halo (the first one for pc, I still love it)

I'd also like to add day of defeat...you get it for free with half life and counterstrike...it's an AWESOME WWII shooter

Deus Ex was made by ION Storm, and SS2 was Irrational Games/Looking Glass Studios. Warren Spector (DX designer) was involved with the original System Shock though.

And yeah, SS2 is sick sick sick plz plz plz buy it. And DX too. And Freelancer. And Morrowind. Those are prob my top 4 choices from the games mentioned in this thread.