![]() ![]() Like I said at the beginning, even though it might not be as polished as GTA, Sleeping Dogs is nevertheless compelling and filled with interesting things to see and do. I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I started this game, and playing through it has been a real joy for me. At half the price, I think it's a great buy. My advice is to wait until after the holidays, and pick this up in the post-Xmas sales. This is an older game, and I feel it's hard to justify that price when the PC version – basically the same game – costs half as much.Ĭost aside, Sleeping Dogs offers a living, breathing Hong Kong that is a vibrant sandbox filled with fun and games. I get that work has gone into overhauling the graphics and tech, and the end result is highly impressive, but even so. To be blunt, I think Sleeping Dogs is rather overpriced. "Year of the Snake" and "Nightmare in North Point" both extend the game significantly, and there are 22 other pieces of bonus content to further flesh out the package. Since this is the Definitive Edition of Sleeping Dogs, there's a load of content to keep you busy. Missions are well put together, the storyline offers a great platform for a variety of different gameplay styles and challenges, and the characters and their situations are very engaging. While I did run into a few glitches, such as hitting a K-car head on in my minibus, and watching, amazed as zoomed back down the road as if it were a football, and there are some questionable animations on the ambient population, generally speaking, Sleeping Dogs is solid. Its version of Hong Kong is a bright and colorful place to spend time, and offers a host of activities to keep you entertained, and hides a ton of different things to collect. In Sleeping Dogs, there are many ways to dispatch enemies, and much of the fun involves dynamically figuring out what landscape assets you can use - and when you should use them. Especially in some of the showpiece fights, where you have a seemingly endless parade of bad guys to punch, kick, throw off buildings, slam into telephone boxes, or electric junction boxes, or even air conditioning units. It's an effective way of keeping the fighting interesting, and the deeper you get into the game, the more canny you have to be with your bag of tricks. Wei starts out as a fairly capable brawler, and learns new skills as he levels up. Instead you constantly find yourself fighting groups of people – something that's frankly a lot more challenging than shooting people in the head. Guns and ammo don't figure particularly strongly in the game, and it's so much the better for it. Firstly, it plays like an odd cross between Shenmue, Final Fight, and GTA V. I found myself enjoying the game's overall storyline and repartee more than I did Grand Theft Auto V.īeing an open world game, there are obvious parallels to Rockstar's series, but there are more than enough original aspects imbued into the game to make it stand on its own two feet. The supporting cast is similarly effective, and there are some really interesting characters to meet and talk to. His sarcasm-laced, tough guy rhetoric, and bone-dry delivery works perfectly here, and adds humor in the right places. The voice acting is excellent, particularly the protagonist Wei Shen, who's played perfectly by True Blood's Kazuo Ryuichi. I'm learning all sorts of top-drawer Cantonese swears too, which is the icing on the cake. What I'm particularly enjoying is the dialog, whose half-Cantonese, half gangster banter is really entertaining to listen to. It's playing out like a 90's Hong Kong cop movie, and it's ticking all the right boxes. Yes, it's a little contrived, but to me Sleeping Dogs is spot-on. I wanted to make all that clear so you'd know exactly why I'm thoroughly enjoying Sleeping Dogs' clichéd story of a Chinese-American cop going undercover to infiltrate the Hong Kong Triad. The latter pair are up there amongst my all-time favorite movies, while newer flicks like Internal Affairs and Firestorm have ensured my love affair with this genre has endured to the present day. I grew up on the Jackie Chan Supercop series, and of John Woo classics such as The Killer and Hard Boiled. ![]() Part of my affinity with the game is the fact that I just love Hong Kong action movies – especially ones involving cops. That's me with Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition. You're just enjoying it anyway, and perhaps even having a blast. Maybe its storyline is predictable, or there are plot holes, but it doesn't matter. Have you ever played a game that's perhaps a little flawed, but you just don't care. Some content, such as this article, has been migrated to VG247 for posterity after USgamer's closure - but it has not been edited or further vetted by the VG247 team. This article first appeared on USgamer, a partner publication of VG247. Also available onPS3, Xbox 360, PS4, PC.
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