What is a good laptop for...

My parents agreed to buy a laptop for me for my birthday. They said they will pay no more than $500 themselves, but I could put in a little of my own money to get a little better one. My question is what should I get in the $500 and below range and let's say the $600-700ish range? I want to get something that can surf the web, run Excel, hold a good bit of music, and run a game like Skyrim or Far Cry 3 on fairly high settings. Could I get a laptop that will do all that for what I'm willing to pay? If not, how much more would it cost?

EDIT:
Sorry, I forgot about the template.

1. What is your budget? $500 AND $600-$700

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering? Nothing huge, Nothing tiny

3. What screen resolution do you want? Nothing huge, Nothing tiny

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop? Portable

5. How much battery life do you need? Not important

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)? Skyrim, Far Cry 3 on high

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.) Word Processing, Internet, and music

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need? Nothing extreme

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop? Until it dies

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ? Something that will read games and possibly make a CD

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons. I'm no fanboy

13. What country do you live in? US

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.