As many of you may or may not know, my computer is severely outdated. I bought it in 2001 from my employer at the time when it went off lease (which I later discovered wasn't true when I called dell support and was told that they can't help me with it because there is an outstanding bill of 10k for the computers in the lease). At that time it was a three year old computer. So here I am with an 8 year old P3 550 clunker so it is definitely not gaming friendly...I could play warcraft 3 but always lost online matches when my opponent would bring his entire army to my base causing my system to slow to a crawl. By the way this is a huge testament to the state of the computer industry. As a programmer, web developer, graphic designer, and any other hat I've had to wear to keep food on the table I have been able to run everything I need on an 8 year old computer including eclipse, oracle, visual studio.net, photoshop, dreamweaver, crystal reports, and ms office among others.

So, I have been stuck in PC Gaming limbo...no Half Life 2, Doom 3, UT 2004, or any of the other good titles that have been released these past few years. My company decided that I needed a new laptop since I will be at client sites pretty often. I picked up an hp pavilion ze4900. While not the strongest system on the planet, it's good enough to handle some of the newer non-fps titles and I've got my eye on Guild Wars, Sims 2, and WoW. Of course I have my employer's blessing to install any entertainment title I'd like onto the machine (seeing that I'm self employed and all).

If anyone has any recommendations that a reborn pc gamer should pick up, I'm all ears.