Sleeping Dogs is essentially True Crime 3, the game that we should have gotten but never did. So I think because of that, There is certainly a bit higher expectations then there would a normal open world game. And on many parts, Sleeping Dogs totally delivers but in some parts, It struggles greatly.
There is a decent story about an undercover cop named Wei Shen, who has to work his way deep into the triad organization in order to dismantle it. Yet sadly, It kind of falls off mid-way through the game and never really picks up until the very end. The combat is certainly a lot more polished than Grand Theft Auto offers and reminds me a lot of True Crime in a way. I just wished that they had offered different styles of fighting in addition to the special moves you can unlock as you progress in certain factions (Cop, Triad and Face).
The vehicle mechanics, which I feel often suffer in open world games, are pretty tight and easy to manage. And while gunplay is definitely a secondary option to the melee based combat, It is still enjoyable to fire off a few rounds when you can. On top of all that, We are given dozens of side missions, races scattered throughout the world that is progressively unlocked as you work your way through the main story. Yet sadly, The lack of quality sub-plots is a disappointment for such a vast world and the addition of needless collectables just adds to the tediousness that the game offers at times with its repetitive mission objectives.
And similar to other open world games, There are plenty of bugs to be found even after patching and some can very well make you restart a mission/checkpoint or make you quit the game in general in order to fix it. Taking a taxi is the only form of fast travel, Which is incredibly annoying considering how long it takes to drive around the entire map. And I'm pretty annoyed with how the GPS leads you out of the way at times and takes quite a bit to reroute you if you choose to go a different way.
Overall: 6/10
I am genuinely surprised there isn't a Sleeping Dogs 2 considering that the groundwork is there for a great sequel. They simply need to add more story to it and focus on changing up mission objectives every now and then.
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