Stuff I Played: Sleeping Dogs

[Ben]

With the article section getting a wider range of topics approved figured I would kick it off with what should be a regular column from me covering various games I play.

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BACK STORY
Basically this game is a continuation of the True Crime Series which had 2 previous titles released in both 2003 True Crime LA and in 2005 True Crime NY. I played both of those games and basically they were GTA clones, that where fun but didn't even hold a candle to what they were trying to replicate. Sleeping Dogs was originally going to be True Crime: Hong Kong...but the original publisher blew there budget and cancelled the game. Square came in took it over dropped the True Crime name which really had little value and released Sleeping Dogs.


STUFF I LIKED



I'M SUN ON YE MOTHER FUCKER

You Play As Wei Shen a undercover Hong Kong Police Detective Who works his way up through the ranks of the Hong Kong Triad Sun On Yee. He has personal history with the Triad which causes him to go a bit off the wall at times. Overall though the story is actually really good as it moves at a nice pace from start to finish with some really great moments sprinkled in and a huge twist at the end. Shen is likable and there's a strong cast of supporting Characters that you become attached to even in there lesser roles. There's times when Shen acts like a cop and there's A LOT of times when he acts like he really is a member of the Triad as he struggles with that fact trying to do his mission but at the same time growing attached to the group of people he is trying to infiltrate.



BOOM RIGHT IN THE KISSER

This game is brutal, and didn't hold back in the department of showing how it really might go down in a Triad. From a guy getting his face blown off to a morbidly obese women hacking up rival gang members with a meat cleaver, there's plenty of top notch violence spread thorough.






EVERY BODY WAS KUNG FU FIGHTING

There was tons of gunplay in the game and it was done well right on par with GTA in that respect but where it set's itself apart is with the melee combat which you use quite often. It's something you actually want to use as opposed to something your forced to do when your without a gun. There's a bunch of moves available to you that you can upgrade through finding collectibles and then returning them to a dojo where you trade them in for new move sets. There's something like 1 total upgrades but for the most part there all really helpfull.

Also the ability to use the environment in combat is really cool. Basically you grapple on to your enemy and there's various things you can use to brutally murder them. Just a few I remember being cool was throwing a guy on top of a rack of sword fish, dropping a hanging engine on them and using a table saw for some facial reconstruction.


STUFF I DIDN'T LIKE

Not much I didn't really like about the game top to bottom it was damn good....but I got to bitch about something so here it goes:


SIDE MISSIONS GALORE

Don't get me wrong there was more than enough fun side missions that I actually wanted to play, Favor missions where fun, the races, hijacking trucks pretty much everything with some sort of action was great but there was some stuff that was just meh. My gripe is most games is collectibles there's to many of them and there next to no fun to get. Finding health shrines and lockboxes in this game was zero fun and something I won't finish.

Eliminate date missions for the LOVE OF GOD! There's various ladies that Shen encounters through the game that he has the opportunity to date...would of skipped these but for the most part they unlocked something you needed for other stuff. Missions where pointless not fun and just mucked down the story having to stop and do them. Only positive is they were all one and done type deal. Shen meets girl, calls girl, does random task, sleeps with girl, girl is never seen or mentioned again.


THAT'S IT
It's late and I prob could of put more effort into this but wanted to get one up and kind of get a general feel of how I want to do these...hopefully they get better overtime.

 

[Defiant]

Nice review, it's compact and organized.

I quite enjoyed Sleeping Dogs initially, enough to play through it a few times. The melee combat is easily the most appealing aspect of the game borrowing a bit from Arkham Asylum. The dialogue and voice acting are pretty enjoyable, there's heaps of customization, the side missions and extra sandbox activities are plentiful and no small effort has gone into making the world you're in really feel like Hong Kong. (Oh and if you've got premium version you can run around dressed as GSP).

Despite all of this, however, it really does feel like a GTA clone and for me it's charm has dwindled over time. While Sleeping Dogs does introduce some tweaks on GTA's base gameplay in terms of how the player can interact with the environment, it carries the same problems GTA 4 had of trying to include every conceivable game mechanic resulting in an incoherent game. Lots of shit to do, but no real meat to be found anywhere. Basically, If you don't find the story or characters compelling in Sleeping Dogs (though you probably will), then you probably won't find this game too engaging.

Sleeping Dogs does shine brightly during the melee segments which are thankfully abundant. I still appreciate that the counter system requires a learning curve to nail the timing. It all works and flows nicely with level up rewards to keep it fresh, but it doesn't do enough to stray from the Arkham Asylum fighting template to feel unique. There are some awesome environmental finishers but those are too few and not varied much. Once guns are introduced... Well, it isn't a game changer, but again there's little unique about it, it's just cover-based with bullet time. I'd have preferred if the shooting was less prevalent so the devs could focus on the kung fu that makes Sleeping Dogs really stand out.

So overall, there's a lot of fluff in Sleeping Dogs and offers little that hasn't been seen before as a game, but it's definately a competent, good looking, well paced and well written game. I can almost guarantee there'll be some fun to be had on your first playthrough so check it out if you're interested in a beat em up with a personality.

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One last comment on Sleeping Dogs, a nitpick really. What's the point of casting Emma Stone and Lucy Liu in the game and having them appear only a couple of times, in side missions? Weird.

 

[ThatGuyFromNukemHigh]

Best part of the casting was Robin Shou(Liu Kang from the Mortal Kombat movies, Gen in the newest Street Fighter movie)

 

[We Are Legion]

True Crime NYC was legit. Loved that game. The scale map of Manhattan was fucking impressive, particularly for that era.

That being said, I didn't know this game was practically the 3rd installment of that series. Might have to check this out.

 

[Ben]

True Crime NYC was legit. Loved that game. The scale map of Manhattan was fucking impressive, particularly for that era.

That being said, I didn't know this game was practically the 3rd installment of that series. Might have to check this out.

Worth picking up, think you can get it used right now for $40

 

[AF.]

I think I'll be borrowing this from a mate in the coming weeks. Looking forward to it and remember liking the True Crime games.