I’ve been putting off this review for far too long, but seeing as the Definitive Edition comes out next month, here we are. (tl;dr at bottom)
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Riveting storyline and main missions | Stubborn camera angle when driving, no first person view |
| Intuitive combat system | After a while, you'll notice that the textures on street assets like bus stops and billboards are re-used again and again |
Where do I start? This game is amazing. When I first got it, I couldn’t take my eyes off it. I was glued for hours. Let's talk about the setting, which I loved but is not without flaws. United Front Games’ rendition of 21st century Hong Kong is vibrant and full of life, accurately depicting the bustling city at its best. Just like in real life, sometimes taxis are ridiculously hard to find and sometimes there are three in a row. Night market hawkers call out to you and rival gang members throw menacing insults as you wander the streets of Hong Kong island. The sometimes humorous pedestrian chatter and various bilingual radio stations provide a great illusion of reality. But when you’ve driven around Central one too many times, you’ll begin to notice that the same signboards and Dragon Kick adverts are plastered rather too abundantly around every corner. North Point, where the player starts, and Kennedy Town are the only areas with any real sort of character and diversity to them. If I were comparing this game to GTA IV in terms of superficial beauty, GTA would win hands down. Although it's been done many times, I'm reluctant to compare this game with Rockstar's product. Why bother? The GTA series clearly have their own style and niche, but Sleeping Dogs is something different altogether.
Combat is the standout feature of Sleeping Dogs. Every punch you pull at your opponents looks, sounds, and feels powerful. Although you will have to take on countless thugs during the main missions as well as in side quests, fighting never feels like a chore because of the sheer amount of fun to be had while unleashing devastating combos upon your enemies. And when you’re tired of demonstrating your martial arts prowess, simply heaving your opponent into a dumpster or running his head into a grinding machine will do the job just fine too. With so much focus on melee combat, gunplay is comparatively clumsy but as another character explains, guns are rather rare in Hong Kong, so much so that police attention will be drawn if you carry an unholstered firearm in public. I personally have had enough of guns and open world shooters for a lifetime. You get plenty of time to shoot your heart out during missions anyway, and while gun possession outside the main story might give the illusion of false empowerment, it is much less original, and much less fun than going all old-school on your enemies. Much more common (and fun) are meat cleavers, kitchen knives, briefcases, nightsticks and handbags (yes, you can snatch a woman’s handbag and then proceed to beat her over the head with it.) Where’s the fun if you’d just shot her in the stomach? Wei is a veritable force of nature who laughingly takes on 20 thugs at once — and wins easily. He also does crazy things like hijacking cars by leaping between fast-moving vehicles. What’s not to love about this guy?
Another highlight of this game is the storyline. It is just amazing how well-written and real the characters are. Wei Shen is one of the most developed video game protagonists I’ve seen since Max Payne. The game not only manages to balance the cop and triad side of his personality, but makes his divided loyalties painfully believable. You’ll be going about your merry business intimidating stall owners when you suddenly realize you’ve become attached to your sweaty, steroid-pumped fellow triads. Every punch you throw suddenly has a purpose and a fierce sense of loyalty. Missions are original, well thought out and brilliantly choreographed; from violent shoot-outs at weddings, masquerading as a doctor to scope out a hospital, or breaking into a fellow triad’s house to wreck his feng shui, Sleeping Dogs has everything covered.
Side missions are available as an outlet from the storyline, which can get intense at times. There are plenty of culture-appropriate activities to choose from, including street racing, poker mah-jong, cock fighting and, if you’re reluctant to stray too far from your cop spirit, drug busts to initiate. Dating is also available in-game, with your first dateable girlfriend being voiced by none other than Emma Stone. As expected with open worlds, there are plenty of collectables as well, with jade statues scattered around the city granting access to deadlier kung fu combos, health shrines to increase the max damage you can take before dying, and numerous lockboxes with hidden goodies inside. The thing I like about Sleeping Dogs is that everything has value. Nothing is worthless. In GTA you would accumulate mounds of cash for simply completing the main missions and all of this moolah would be worthless, firstly because there is nothing to buy and secondly because what is available for purchase is laughably cheap. Even getting arrested or killed would only take a small and unnoticeable bite out of your considerable funds, allowing you to continue on your merry way without any real punishment at all. In Sleeping Dogs, main mission rewards are satisfying but not excessive. You really need to work for that new car you want to buy, or that suit you had your eye on (and you will want that suit, trust me. Wei looks fucking sexy in a suit). In some cases, even if you have enough money you’ll need a high enough Face level to purchase some items. No car dealer wants to sell a no doubt painstakingly stolen car to a nobody. Likewise, the monetary loss in the event of death or police arrest in the game is actually a meaningful chunk out of your money. You really feel the sudden debit transaction and it gnaws at you for several game hours, a reminder of your clumsy mistake.
Cops are relatively easy to escape, with a variety of options available to you for getting them off your tail including ramming their cars, outstripping them in your sports coupe or simply turning them around with a sharp kiss from a heavy vehicle. Annoyingly, they show a strong presence in the game, even when you’re conducting police work (drug busts). As mentioned before, the possession of firearms in the game is a criminal offence, which completely negates one of the benefits of reaching the top of one of the Police upgrade trees, which grants access to guns stored in police car trunks.
Compared with other titles I have played, Sleeping Dogs is one of the better PC ports of its time and genre. Surprisingly I was able to play this game on max settings with HD texture pack installed on my i5 laptop with sub-par Nvidia 610m chip, which has never been able to handle anything more than The Sims 3 on medium settings. Another reason why I am so impressed with this port, which is already a huge improvement over the console versions.
tl;dr:
Sleeping Dogs is a thoroughly enjoyable open world martial arts/shooter that could be a serious contender for game of the year once the remastered edition is released. The combat system, which is arguably the strongest and most enjoyable feature of the game, feels fluid, natural and powerful. You take control of a heavily conflicted bad-ass who parkours over shipping containers, leaps from car to car during high-speed police chases, and kills his enemies by impaling them on an array of swordfish. Nothing is impossible for Wei Shen. Having said that, I am a stickler for detail in open worlds and the current game suffers from a lack of variance in asset textures and of a definitive style demarcation between geographic zones — issues which even the HD texture DLC didn't fix. Hopefully, these are aspects that we'll see improvements upon next month.With the exception of a very controlling camera angle (which can be fixed) gameplay is practically flawless.
Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition comes out October 10th.