Sleeping Dogs Review
Sleeping Dogs, the game that almost never was, but should it have stayed in oblivion?
Format(s): PS3 (Version tested), Xbox 360, PCSleeping Dogs has had a rather storied development history, as it actually started life as True Crime: Hong Kong, the 3rd title in the True Crime franchise, it was cancelled by Activision, as they believed that it would not be able to compete with other open world games and would not generate enough profit to justify development costs. In August 2011, Square-Enix bought the title and stated that they would continue development of it, having not purchased the rights to the name True Crime, the title would be given the new name of Sleeping Dogs. After a long development history Sleeping Dogs has finally seen the light of day.
Set in the violent world of the Hong Kong Triads, you play as an undercover cop, Wei Shen, tasked with infiltrating the triads in order to take them down from within. During his time in the Triads, Wei Shen will be witness to a brutal underworld, where he may be required to commit some questionable and morally challenging deeds to keep the trust of his fellow Triad members. The story will see Wei Shen attempt to bring down certain members of the Triads without raising suspicions, but the line between Shen's police responsibilities and his loyalty to the Traid becomes increasingly blurred.
Wei Shen's conflict of working as an undercover cop and trying not to arouse suspicion of the Triads is not only there for story driven narrative, but the whole structure of the missions rely upon this very conflict. At the heart of the game there is a rather extensive levelling and upgrade system. Unlike other open world titles, the game encourages you to be a responsible person, as you are an undercover cop and not an actual criminal, by rewarding the player with Cop experience points.
Cop experience (XP) can be earned by not harming civilians or police officers and by not damaging public property too much. Triad experience points (XP) can also be earned by meeting certain criteria, such as countering enemy moves, using the environment to perform finishing moves and being as accurate as possible during gun combat sections. Earning enough cop XP will allow for cop specific upgrades such as, new shooting abilities and gaining an easier time escaping a high speed cop chase, whilst earning Triad XP will let Shen upgrade new melee combat moves.
As well as the 2 main levelling up meters, Cop and Triad, there is also a levelling up option for the Face meter. The Face meter can be levelled up by completing the various side missions in Sleeping Dogs such as Favours, Events, and Street Races. Gaining XP and levelling up the Face meter will allow various upgrades to be accessed such as, longer health regeneration, Shen's toughness in combat is improved and faster cars will become available. The face meter gradually increases over time during combat and can be used for extra strong attacks against opponents, which can become very useful against more stronger opponents or during situations that Shen is surrounded by a high number of enemies.
Sleeping Dogs is a slow burner and does take a few missions before the game really begins, the first few missions are not the most fun, for instance, an early mission involved Shen driving a mini bus dropping off thugs to beat up other thugs and attempting to make another mini bus pull over by beeping the vehicle horn. It does not sound like the most exciting thing to do, but it did involve a small amount of melee combat to break up the monotony of driving a slow mini bus.
The killer app of Sleeping Dogs is unquestionably the melee combat, an area that is somewhat lacking in the majority of open world games with modern settings. It is evident that the developers are really proud of what they achieved with the combat in the game. The first few hours of the game feel like the developer really wanted to showcase the melee combat, as early parts seem to sound like the developer is enthusiastically screaming, "look at this combat, look at how cool this is." To those that have played the Batman Arkham games the combat should feel very familiar, although unlike Batman, it is less fantastical and a little bit more realistic. Sleeping Dogs melee combat is brutally satisfying and is obviously influenced by, not only the Hong Kong setting, but the martial art fighting style of none other than Bruce lee.
The surrounding environment also plays a part in the melee combat, almost anything in the environment can be used to your advantage, by using it as a weapon, enemies can be thrown into dumpsters, against concrete walls, or, as seen in a number of gangster movies, by dunking a thugs head into a toilet bowl. The combat can be intense, but those with a weak stomach need not turn away, well maybe towards the end as, well ... those poor thugs.
It actually takes a few hours before guns are introduced into the fold, through a rather interesting tutorial. The tutorial will showcase everything that can be achieved in gun combat. The basic shooting is there, aim using this stick, fire using this button and use this button for blind fire, but the tutorial highlights that environmental objects can be shot in the enemies vicinity, not just the usual exploding bright red barrels, and also a slow motion, Max Payne style, mode can be triggered whilst vaulting over objects giving more time for accurate aiming.
During the missions there will be a number of high speed car chases, which involve pursuing targets or escaping from the police, not really a new thing in a modern open world videogame, but Sleeping Dogs manages to make them exciting and enthralling chases. Shen can hang out the side of a car and jump from one car to another, assuming that Shen is within a reasonable distance from a vehicle, cars can be rammed into by pressing a specific button, and the tires of enemy cars can be shot, offering a strategic method of dealing with pursuing vehicles, rather than just shooting at the enemies within.
Of course, as with other open world games, the main objective of the game can be ignored and the player can just run around the environment and cause mayhem. A number of different real world licensed radio stations are available as you drive around in all the vehicles the world has to offer such as, Kerrang or Road Runner records. Almost whatever genre of music I wanted to listen to was available, I was able to listen to Heavy Metal sounds from Killswitch Engage, or more traditional Rock like Queen, perhaps I was in the mood for more traditional oriental music and sometimes I just wanted to listen to some Classical. I have to admit, there is nothing quite as exhilarating as riding around the streets of Hong Kong on a Scooter causing absolute mayhem as you listen to Motzart Piano Sonata No 11 in A Major.
Hong Kong is a rather huge area to cover and sometimes you will just want to reach an area as quickly as you can. Sleeping Dogs has a Taxi fast travel system, which is fine for quickly reaching missions that I wanted to start immediately, but Taxi's are not very frequent in Sleeping Dogs, which can be quite annoying at times. Also, a minor grip I had with the Taxi system was that I could not create a custom marker on the map and travel anywhere I wanted, I could only travel to missions, side missions, shops and other locations highlighted on the map.
Hong Kong is home to an array of visually stunning environments, with the day and night cycles and also the weather changes from hot sunny days to horrible cold and wet days and nights. Graphically, Sleeping Dogs looks superb, especially when the weather changes from a sunny day to a sudden downpour of rain. Shen's clothes become wet, creases will show up in Shen's upper attire and drops of water can even be seen dripping down the silhouette of the character as he runs around. Occasionally, I did notice some screen tearing at times, but not to an extent of crippling my gameplay experience.
The game should take anyone between 20 hours and 30 hours to complete, even with completing all the side missions, not a huge amount of hours compared to a number of other open world games. To extend the experience there are a number of collectibles, for those people that want to 100% the entire game, including finding health shrines, which in turn will increase Shen's maximum health. Shen can also, optionally, look for his mentor's Jade statues that have been stolen and are conveniently dotted all over Hong Kong for Shen to collect.
Each time Shen discovers one of his mentor's statues, melee combat moves are unlocked, so it is probably a good idea to search for all the statues, even for those individuals that do not normally search for collectables. As well as unlocking trophy achievements, there are a number of substantial medals to be earned in the game for achieving certain accomplishments such as, driving safely and winning a number of street races, two quite ironic achievements when compared to each other.
The game is not littered with glitches, but I did encounter the odd one or two glitches at certain times in the game. I finished the mid mission objective during the hospital mission, which triggered a cut scene where two characters began talking to each other, and it was rather strange as the thugs that I had defeated could still be heard goading Wei Shen, as if the battle was still being fought. Another audio issue I found was when Wei Shen is walking around the city, conversations of the passing public can be heard, but at certain times the NPC dialogue would just cut out mid sentence for no apparent reason.
Conclusion
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