Hey, I'm looking at getting into game design, programming, and things like multimedia applications, and media art (Such as photoshop) but I need a computer. My parents are split so it's very hard to manage files and stuff, and I don't have a laptop. I'd also like to play new games such as Crysis, TF2, or Farcry 2, but I don't see how I'll get a good enough laptop for anything lower than 3000. I could always build a computer but then I'm restricted to using it one place. Either way, what kind of laptop should I look into for the applications I listed? The games would be a bonus but if the laptop can't run them, I'll live I hope. I'm looking for max. 1200.

I was gonna point you towards building your own laptop:

http://computershopper.com/feature/build-your-own-laptop-200804

But, I've gotta say that Talroth's idea sounds like a really good one too.