A new open world franchise is born with this Hong Kong gem.
The very first enemy you encounter you realize Wei must be a Chuck Norris clone as he throws very powerful combos. It can range from light to heavy and of course the very heavy. The game excels in insane deaths, as you easily grab a chump by the collar various red environmental objects will lead to an instant brutal kill.
This is where the game shines, of course. It's no secret it is borrowing from Arkham's arsenal, but so what? If it works and it's fun, use it. And it's damn fun. You can impale wanna-be gangstas on sword fish, push their face into table saws and throw them in a furnace. Wei Shen ranks up more kills than RoboCop.
As the game progresses so does the fighting, bigger enemies can't be grappled and have to be dealt with by counters. It's also not uncommon to find a circle of enemies all having knives too. The game doesn't let you fight one-on-one, 2 or 3 will try to hit you from behind, so you have to be quick with the counter. You will die in battle, but you're never too far and you usually learn a lesson or two for the next time.
The story is well paced and the voice overs are exceptional. You really feel to know Shen as a person by the end of the game, you get to see both sides of the battles, and the game isn't afraid to up the body count on your homies either.
I had fun with the driving, it wasn't Forza or NFS, nor was it trying to be. It was just fun drive and drift action with insane mid highway car jacks by holding the Y button. There is something very fun going 110 down the highway and jumping to another car.
Sleeping Dogs awards XP per category (police missions, story missions, and so on). As you complete these missions you earn upgrades, I suggest looking down the tree very carefully when choosing your first upgrades, combat and counter is ideal.
The game isn't perfect though. As you tend to do a whole lot of driving in these type of games, radio is key. GTA and Saints Row have hilarious satire channels, and Sleeping Dogs fails to follow. The song choices are terrible and very few, I heard the same 4 songs over and over it seems. There is small glitches like clipping and enemies stuck in mid air and all that fun stuff. But none of this really detracts from the pure fun of the game.
I can argue there could be much more fun to be had. No where's in the game can you actually buy a gun. You only get one during a mission when you need one. This is a mistake, many people like me enjoy loading up and creating chaos for hours. I can understand that it wants to focus on combat, but there is a small missed mark there.
Sleeping Dogs isn't trying to be a blockbuster GTA killer. It wants to be a solid game that tells a meaningful story while offering lots of side quests and collectables. The sequel needs to polish it's shooting, some small technical issues and create even more variety to enjoy. I clocked in at forty hours, that's only for grinding stats to get my 1000 gamer points. The game can be finished in under 20 hours but to be fully enjoyed you better allow more free time to enjoy the best Hong Kong we'll probably ever see.