HP Omen 15 Gaming Notebook Review, A Bit Of Mojo And Voodoo

As 47, a killer for the International Contract Agency (ICA), you have a very dangerous, but action-packed life. The Hitman franchise has been winning praise from critics throughout multiple games, of which Hitman: Absolution is the latest. When running this game’s benchmark, we set AA to 4X and pump the Quality Level settings to Ultra, making for a grueling gaming test.

Hitman: Absolution
DirectX 11 Gaming Performance
gameshot hitman

hitman omen

Hitman: Absolution at high settings is brutal on midrange gaming systems. You’ll clearly want to choose more moderate settings for a better experience. Even so, the Omen stays neck and neck with the Lenovo Y70 and comes within striking distance of the other much larger, heftier machines.

Metro: Last Light
DirectX 11 Gaming Performance
gameshot metroLL

A sequel to Metro 2033, the dark and spooky first person shooter (FPS) Metro Last Light continues the journey of Artyom. Armed to the teeth, you fight your way through monsters and hostile commandos as you search for the Dark One. Metro Last Light has some unusual gameplay features, including a health system in which you heal slowly, rather than using the typical med kit. And, because good bullets are hard to come by, Metro denizens use bullets as currency. We use the Very High quality settings when running this game’s benchmark.

metroLL omen

Metro: Last Light is another demanding game engine and benchmark, and again, you’ll probably want to adjust the settings a bit when you play it on the Omen. Its score here falls a little short of the Y70, but this HP gaming notebook is perfectly capable of handling today's current gen DX11 game titles at medium to high quality settings.

Joshua Gulick

Joshua Gulick

Josh cut his teeth (and hands) on his first PC upgrade in 2000 and was instantly hooked on all things tech. He took a degree in English and tech writing with him to Computer Power User Magazine and spent years reviewing high-end workstations and gaming systems, processors, motherboards, memory and video cards. His enthusiasm for PC hardware also made him a natural fit for covering the burgeoning modding community, and he wrote CPU’s “Mad Reader Mod” cover stories from the series’ inception until becoming the publication editor for Smart Computing Magazine.  A few years ago, he returned to his first love, reviewing smoking-hot PCs and components, for HotHardware. When he’s not agonizing over benchmark scores, Josh is either running (very slowly) or spending time with family. 

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