Gaming laptops will give you significantly better performance for gaming at the cost of battery life and portability. The M2 MacBook Air can handle some light gaming, but it's not ideal for demanding titles. If gaming is a priority, you'll need to sacrifice battery and size for a gaming laptop within your budget. Consider looking at models with newer RTX 3050 or 4050 cards, which balance performance and price. Also, check the wattage of the GPU, higher wattage generally means better performance.