Is this a reasonable gaming laptop?

You need 8Gb of ram, a 7200RPM hard drive, and an i7 or at least an i5 2500k if you want to game. So you will need to configure all that before you buy this laptop. The 1GB of video ram and dedicated is real good and the wide screen is good too. 15.6" is big enough for gaming. Asus is a good brand, but for gaming they have their g series ... this is a k series. If you can't configure all that then have a look at the Asus g series.