Well it runs lots of games really well but there are those few that just do NOT like it, especially on Vista, and even DX9 games.

I'm not asking whether the game will run, I'm wondering whether I will be able to push the graphics up significantly.

Okay, sounds great. Thanks!

Should indeed run quite nicely, but maybe your laptop is restricting power consumption a bit to agressively.

A friend of mine has a 8600 Mobile version too in his laptop and can run crysis perfectly fine on medium-to-high providing he runs it in Dx9 mode under vista. (Dx10 mode has aweful performance in comparison for minimal gain in looks)

When you're at home always run the laptop of its adapter, that should eliminate most of the power restrictions it will be under when running of the battery. (it tries to make the battery last as long as possible, throttling back the GPU is usually step 1 since it guzzles juice)
Doing that should already improve performance dramatically, You can also check what power-save profile its using and reduce it a little, or have it turn off when connected to the adapter (i think this is the best option).
Lowering the power-save will reduce your battery life, because the graphics card needs a great deal of power to run at full capacity, but its no problem if you're running on the adapter.

And if you search on the net, there are ways of shutting down the power-save function on a laptop complete, but don't count on using your battery for much more than an hour of gaming at a time. (providing you're running off a 9-cell one)
I can't recommend doing this last step, since that will potentially damage the power-cells by drawing far more power from them than they can handle safely.

I don't play when I'm not plugged in because I value being able to play for more than half an hour at a time. Thanks!

We've seen "Minimum" and "Recommended" specs. Do the latter assume maxed graphics settings? If not, any chance we can get a set of recommended specs for max graphics?

Thanks And About what did the 8800gt cost you?