Too bad! Gameplay issues make this awesome game irritating
User Rating: 7 | Sleeping Dogs PC
Wow! This was the first impression I had when I first played the game. I am a GTA fan and if you are also you will love this game. Sleeping dogs is far more interesting with great cinematic scenes and super-duper wow graphics and plot. You already know the storyline I am going to head straight to my review and justify the 7 score I have given. This game could have got a 10, really but there are some crucial points that keep the game in a lower score. First of all if you are a PC user and you play this game you will immediately notice the problems with the game especially when you are used to play games like GTA. GTA was awesome and very easy to play with keyboard and mouse. Sleeping dogs makes things almost impossible, although it is much more complicated than GTA because there are a lot of key combinations the handling of the controller suffers. I have been playing games with keyboard and mouse for at least 15 years. It is the first time I have encountered so difficult to handle game and so awkward controller layout. If you leave the default keys you have to destroy your mouse buttons from clicking; if you change the layout and place everything over the keyboard it is impossible to play and not to lose (just because of the bad keyboard response). The moves are so complicated and the fights are so difficult that make the game like an arcade "Street Fighter" so besides that there are so many combinations you have to remember in order to beat the crap of the opponents, fighting with the keyboard is almost impossible even with a lot of practice. Fortunately driving is better but running also suffers from keyboard handling. On the top of that there is no way you can save the game between the missions (there are a few checkpoints) but you have to watch all over the videos and the dialogues (you can only skip some) and the game in most times does not bring you to the last position of the challenge; you have to do it from the scratch (which is very annoying). Besides that, the game is far more interesting than GTA and with great graphics. Also you can interact with almost anything. Another thing I noticed is also the cops low AI (if you smash a car next to the cops or go with a red light they will not hunt you down). This game is very cool and I would recommend it to anyone!
Pros:
+Interesting Story & Plot
+Awesome cinematic & characters
+Great interaction with surroundings
+Awesome graphics (I have to disagree with gamespot review)
Cons:
-Gameplay issues
-Controller with keyboard and mouse (even after remapping) makes game almost unplayable and ruins the gameplay
-Lack of savegame whenever you want; you have to start over most of the challenges even if you have completed them by 95% (you also have to watch the dialogues again; some cannot be skipped)
