Which ThinkPad? It can either run things wonderfully or not at all depending on the specs...

Stay away from the Thinkpad T580 with the Geforce MX150. It's horribly throttled and can't even run Quake 3 properly although it should actually be capable of running Doom 2016.

Might be the same with the T480.

Depends on the GPU and how current you want to get with the titles, but yeah, should be fine. Just search around with the specific model name to double check it's Linux compatibility.

I've been enjoying my Thinkpad E16 that I got brand new from Best Buy. https://startrek.website/post/13283869

Depends on the specs and the games. Possibly/probably.

AMD cpu yes, intel no. Some AMD cpus have a good enough integrated GPU for light gaming

I have an X220 with an i5-2520M, I don't use it for gaming but I have briefly played Half-Life 2 with it and it was comfortably playable.

So I would say mid-2000s titles and before will be fine. It really depends on the age the Thinkpad you want is, and the age of the games you want to play.

I've got a 2015 T540p with integrated graphics. It's fine for low-spec gaming. I only run Linux-native games and haven't managed to get any Windows games running in compatibility mode yet. Here are the games that have "just worked" for me so far.

Dwarf Fortress

Cataclysm: Dark Day Ahead

Darkest Dungeon

Baldur's Gate 1 and 2

Caves of Qud

Unity of Command

Stardew Valley

Planescape: Torment

Shovel Knight

If that's the kind of retro gaming that floats your boat, an old Thinkpad is just fine.

Modern games are not going to run well. Look for a Thinkpad with a Thunderbolt 3 port (make sure it actually has 4 PCIe lanes, some only have 2) and use an eGPU. Retro games will run fine on integrated graphics though.

I can reliably play wii on an x230. I am pretty sure you can go ahead and play unless it is ps2 or xbox og or anything newer (wii/gamecube excluded)

I use a T440p and it works amazing for lightweight gaming (tested so far: Fallout NV, BTD6, Minecraft, and Enter the Gungeon)

I can tell E14 is not a good PC for gaming. Buy one with a good GPU

I'd say if you get a Ryzen, yeah. I have a P14s gen4 AMD that I use for my primary machine, and game on successfully. But I also have an old T14s gen1 AMD that work let me keep when I got refreshed. Right now I have Windows on it, to play some games that don't work well in Proton, but it works fine in Linux as well.

If you can swing it, the T14s gen3 with a Ryzen 7 6850u was a truly excellent machine, it's what I have for work right now. But we won't see it coming off lease for another couple years, so it's a bit early for good prices on the used market.

Yes it’s fine stay away from the discrete gpus there’s not adequate cooling for their extended use.

generally a thinkpad should be fine, but you'll want a 1.7ghz+ cpu, aswell as a dx8.1 video card for half life 2

It would probably be great for PS2 emulation

Geforce Now on my thinkpad is what makes modern games work.

For old not very demanding games by todays standard, yes. As long as you get something new enough to have proper support for Vulkan API (such that DXVK would work). As others have mentioned, AMD have better iGPUs than intel, so definitely look out for that.