torchlight posts on CNET

Updated: 30 great games you can play on a Netbook

Update, July 7: This post has been updated to include additional games.

It's time to add a new selection of entries to our list of PC games well-suited for Netbooks. Especially as we expect to see many of these low-cost, low-power laptops in the hands of students during the back-to-school season, it's important to have a little action/RPG/adventure/puzzle break handy when one gets tired of taking lecture notes.

As usual, many of these entries are re-releases of classic games, originally available when even high-end computer hardware was at best comparable with today's entry-level systems. Online services such as Good Old Games and Steam are great resources for these.

One important exception is the new online gaming service OnLive, which takes current high-end PC games, renders the 3D graphics remotely, then streams you the video as you play. It sounds like a crazy idea, but it actually works pretty well, even on Netbooks. Check out our extensive hands-on look at OnLive here.

Hands-on: Steam gaming on four different Macs

With four different Macs sitting in the CNET lab right now, Valve couldn't have picked a better time to release its Mac Steam client, at least from a testing perspective. We just spent the past few hours with Steam, as well as Portal and Torchlight, two of the more graphically demanding games available for Steam at launch. So far, we find Steam on the Mac just as seamless as the Windows version. The games are also mostly trouble-free.

First, to accompany this launch Valve is offering Portal as a free download until May 24. If you haven't played Portal, or even if you have, we recommend it. It's fun.

The Steam software itself should feel instantly familiar to anyone who's used the Windows version. Valve recently gave Steam a cosmetic overhaul, so even Steam veterans might need a minute to adjust, but overall it remains intuitive to navigate. One considerate touch: In the Steam store you'll see the full list of titles available for download, Windows titles included, but a mouse-over message will warn you if you hover over a game that's unavailable for the Mac. That will hopefully prevent any incompatible purchases. At launch, there were roughly 50 Mac titles available.

For the games themselves, we have few complaints about their performance on our various test systems. Granted, we'd expect neither the older Portal nor the purposefully lightweight Torchlight to challenge a halfway respectable computer. With more games coming to Steam for the Mac from Valve and (presumably) other game manufacturers, future titles may provide more of a challenge to the Macs we tested. For today at least, we find that Apple's higher-end Mac laptops and all-in-ones make capable gaming systems.

Our four test systems:

27-inch iMac with 2.8GHz Core i7, 512MB ATI Radeon HD 4850 27-inch iMac with 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo, 256MB ATI Radeon HD 4670 15-inch MacBook Pro with 2.66GHz Core i7, Nvidia GeForce 330M 13-inch MacBook Pro with 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, Nvidia GeForce 320M… Read more