After a long day at work, all I want to do is sit down and relax… by breaking legs and setting gangster’s head’s on fire. You’re able to do this extensively in the sprawling open world of Hong Kong, but make no mistake, this is no Grand Theft Auto rip off. Sleeping Dogs provides an enthralling narrative experience that is able to involve combat with grace, the likes of which have never been seen in gaming—until now. If you’re looking for a gritty, realistic adventure where you’re welcome to get your violent fix, Sleeping Dogs is definitely worth your time.
Sleeping Dogs is one of the most violent games we’ve seen in a long time—and I love it. The Kung Fu fighting makes for a realistic combat simulation that is thoroughly engrossing. You are able to take down inexperienced thugs with ease, but come across a group of four or more, and you could be in for some real trouble. Not to mention the special enemies in the game that spice up the combat, providing some real difficulty and spontaneity to your fights. The combat manages to keep everything simple and easy to remember, while maintaining a sense of challenge that adds a lot of diversity.
The combat system in Sleeping Dogs is one of the only times where I didn’t feel like I was pushed into unnecessary combat situations. Every encounter with an enemy felt real and natural, and managed to keep away from the monotonous, “enter this room, kill everything, walk out, rinse repeat” scenario. You didn’t feel as though you had to fight someone because the game told you to, you simply fought them because it was necessary for survival throughout the game’s tightly woven narrative.
The story of Wei Shen—a former triad member now turned cop—is one of the most interesting narratives that I’ve enjoyed in a long time. The story is rich, and explores every avenue of Wei’s mission; his struggles and his endgame motives. There are some predictable story twists and some obvious setups, but for the most part, United Front has managed to create a unique story that will leave you itching to hear the next chapter. After each mission, I couldn’t get to the next objective fast enough to hear the next bit of story. Not to mention the voice acting is absolutely phenomenal and immerses you into the narrative even more. Every character interaction and verbal confrontation felt real and natural. These believable characters lead you to further engage in the game’s story missions.
These missions provide a good amount of variety and you won’t have the same mission twice. They explore every part of the triad’s activities such as, racing, kidnapping, raids, boat chases and more. These story missions amount to a healthy 25+ hour single player experience, but if you are a completionist, there’s a lot more for you. You’ll have a ton of fun running around taking on side missions, cases, and raising face level to unlock new abilities, cars, clothes and more. The collectables are interesting, they serve purpose and are actually worth finding. This, coupled with an achievable platinum trophy, extends the length of the game to an easy 50+ hour experience for a completionist such as myself.
Sleeping Dogs doesn’t disappoint with its engine either. It boasts a good amount of technical prowess, with its vibrant lighting and realistic phsycis all adding to the game’s authenticity. Hopping over a table will cause everything you touched to suddenly fly off, adding a real cinematic flare to an already superbly told movie-like script. The lighting in the city and the hustle and bustle creates an accurate representation of Hong Kong, and makes for arguably the most immersive game world to this day.
However, it would seem that United Front spent too much time developing these functions and left certain aspects of the presentation on the back burner. Even in cutscenes, the graphics can be dodgy. The main characters are well rendered and all look great, but environments and certain vehicles look a little inconsistent. Some may find the lack of realism in the game’s jumping and driving sections to pull them out of the experience, but it all serves the gameplay. It allows you to let loose and not be too concerned with your car getting destroyed in the heat of all the chaos. These elements actually make for good functions, and you’ll be glad they’re there.
At the end of the day, this game will be compared to Grand Theft Auto in a lot of ways, and in most of those ways, Sleeping Dogs exceeds and pushes the bar higher for open world sandbox games. The linearity of the main story, combined with the fun upgrades, side missions and collectables make for one of the best single player games that have come around in a long time. Sleeping Dogs should be picked by all fans of the sandbox genre, and is a sure contender for Game of the Year.
