Hey, recently my friend has been thinking about buying a new gaming laptop, and his budget is around 1000-1300 dollars. He isn't really expecting much at all from that price range, but if at all possible he would like to be able to play games like UT3, Gears of War, and Bioshock at High or maybe even max graphics. Any suggestions?

Just look for maximum memory (2-3GB), big hard drive (100GB +), fast processor (3GHz+) and good graphics capability, in the price range you posted. There are AlienWare laptops that are built for gaming but they are very pricey $$$