Wide Screen Monitors Vs Standard Monitors

You will be fine. You will have to change the resolution to match that of your new monitor.

Upgrading to a widescreen is really simple, for any games that don't do it automatically just change the resolution to something in 16:10 resolution. These are the most common 1440x900 and 1680x1050 and 1920x1200 and finally the best of all 2560x1600, there are more of them and some of them have worse looking numbers but those are the most common. As a matter of fact most things are built for widescreen and adapted to standard (like DVD movies) so yes, you'll be fine.

Some older games don't let you choose widescreen resolutions. BF2 was one of them.

Resolutions are not the issue. Field of view is. BF2 can be forced into any weird resolution you want, but the FOV can't be changed without poopbuster kicking you from servers for cheating. Without FOV changes, things look stretched, especially the GUI.

You can use graphics drivers to change the scaling. For example, I use a widescreen monitor but Need for Speed: Most Wanted only plays in 4:3. I go in the Nvidia control panel and set the monitor to use Nvidia scaling. The game plays with black bars on the left and right of it, but the 4:3 ratio iis maintained and no distortion is present. You don't even notices the black lines when you are into the game anyway.

The type of scaling you choose is up to you though. You can choose to have the game stretched. I personally don't like everything to be fat and unrealistic though.

Most new games will play at either 4:3 or 16:10, even 16:9 sometimes, because newer monitors use that ratio.

Scaling and FOV are different. At native resolution, scaling doesn't happen. But the image can still be stretched if the FOV is too low and/or the ingame interface/HUD doesn't scale itself properly. It is the problem with the game, not the monitor.

all modern games are better on widescreen IMO .

In shoters especially you have far better peripheral vision .
Some older games have issues , but thats not going to be a problem .

No way would I ever consider an monitor that wasnt widescreen .

Do they even still make them ?

most new games are made for widescreen... i highly doubt crysis was developed for 4:3  

Alot of games also "zoom in" on wide screen monitors. This is done for 2 reasons I can think of. 1. keep an equal playing field. No one should be able to see more then another player and 2. To minimize graphical loads, the more objects seen the more that needs to be drawn. Both are total BS IMO. But if you own Half Life 2 mess with the FOV slider and you'll see first hand what these games do.

I played the demo in 4:3  

Well nowdays 16:9 IS the standard, 4:3 is just legacy...

What I'm wondering is how games would react to a standard 1080P resolution. I'm thinking of getting the Acer H213H 21.5 at Newegg in February along with an LG Blu-ray drive. Most games support a 24" LCD's 1920 x 1200, but will 1920 x 1080 pose image problems?

The 21.5" 1080p is cheaper than the 24", which is why I'm considering it.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...