Sleeping Dogs does right what so many open world games try and an intense story that grabs you from the very beggining.
Fortunately Sleeping Dogs takes some risks with all the elements that go into a sandbox game and it comes out stronger for it. The story, while linear, a brave choice considering todays games focusing on choice, especially one where the main character has to lead a double life, is almost perfectly told. There are moments of old school gangster gritt that if you allow yourself the moment to step back, you can apreciate it in the way an art fan would a peice of work. The action, is kind of simple and a bit dumbed down to be honest. For the fight sequences they really focused on Batman Arkham's build; a pro and con which I will get into later.
FIrst off, the city feels alive. Small neighboorhoods, in other games, can be walked through in seconds, actually feel like they could be their own levels. The designs are all about the detail and while walking around in the flea market, where everyone is selling illegal or forged merchandise, I felt like I was there. Again, this wasnt some small block in a fake city, this was a full on environment that thrived on its own life. Playing this game is a great escape from all those Sandbox games that take place in New York, and Las Angelas rip offs.
The story of Sleeping Dogs is about an undercover Chinese Cop, Wei Shen, who gets reassigned to go undercover in Hong Kong's Triad, the Soon On Yee. The start of the story is pretty basic to it's own genre. The hero, starts off pretty noble to stereotype of the good guy. He get's along with people and is very smart, almost too smart to use others as pawns.
From that moment on, the game takes a level of cerebral nature. In this game, you are not the main character, but if allowed to immerse yourself, it feels like you can hear his thoughts. You begin to think for him, something I can't claim alot of games have ever been able to pull off.
I found myself thinking, one character will be my in onto the bigger fish. Persons X and Y, I don't like and hopefully will try to arrest. Then when a man gets shot infront of Wei, I thought, "THEY JUST KILLED A MAN!" In Wei Shen's eyes, I see him thinking the same thing.
The story changes in nature several times, all the while half the focus is on how Wei Shen changes as these people start to treat him more and more like family, as he descends more and more to the nature of honor and street justice. One scene culminates this, when, your sitting in a car, and a man asks you, as you are on your way to a shoot out, if you can pull the trigger when the time comes.
I felt it. Up till now, Wei Shen, has been using his fists. Now the violence was about to be upgrade to its most lethal form. Wei is being forced to decide just how much he is willing to commit to being undercover, what the cop in him is saying, and what the code on the street demands. In a later scene, the man I swore to bring down and arrest is shot, and bleeding on me, and I need to take him to the hospital, and standing infront of me is a rival gang and I am going to shoot my way out, woe be the people foolish enough to stand in my way.
This game is filled with moments like these. They are almost iconic in nature, where a simple moment in the game, can represent so many different things, and the layers they come with. Adding attention to detail, are the little things. Every time Shen wakes up after a tough day previous, he dreams of flashbacks (provided via voice over) of the conflicting adventures previously. If you dont move him, he will get out of bed, start pacing, and seemingly trying not to have a panic attack.
It boils down to the little details and you realy can see the character shift in Wei Shen. Who he is, constantly changes but in a highly credible way. These changes are magnified by scenes where he talks to his "handler" (A cop on the inside who makes sure he is still mentally competant). More and more, as the fear grows that he will get caught, or that he is in over his head, we are allowed to understand what are the moments that push him even further down the dark path, and what point is there no return. To be honest I would keep singing praises for the story but then the reader would have nothing to experiance themselves.
The gameplay breaks down into several components. There is the city to explore, and some colectables to find. You can change outfits and buy stuff from cars to food. You can get in fights and practice some parkour. The majority of the gameplay, outside of the driving and walking will be fighting, chasing, and shooting.
The Fighting mechanics are basicly stripped from Batman Arkham. You have one button to attack, and the other counters moves when an enemy is highlighted in red. The attacks range from light attacks (tap the button) to heavy (hold button.) You can grapple your opponent and commence light attacks or heavy. There are aslo run attacks, and my favorite, environmental attacks. Basicly for an environmental attack, you hold the guy, then run to the interactive object in which to finish the guy off. These can range from trash cans, in whic you throw them in, or dropping a car engine on their torso.
The con of fighting is simply that the moves dont feel as bone crunching as they could and the fighters don't have much presence in the same way as they would in other games. The fight just feels like my avatar beating up another, not two imposing folk fighting it out with all out gritt. However alot of the moves do add some depth, and eye squinting pain. Also alot of the counters are completely beatifull and feel good to get in.
The shooting mechanics boil down to ducking and taking cover, aiming, using Shift, and jumping over cover. As your technique evolves and you upgrade your shooting abilities, you can enter slowmotion when you jump over cover, get head shots, and increase your kill count. By the end of the game, with the proper upgrading, you will find yourself being a one man army, and being that the slow motion can end at any second, there is a frantic nature in making sure you keep the kills going. Should you fail, you wont be in cover and have a room full of guys shoot you, which is no bueno.
In Hong Kong, there are some fun activities to do. You can go street racing, which is perhaps better in this game, than it is in others. The cats and vehicles all have a specific feel and handling to them. Some are majorly built for high speed, others can turn on a dime. Motorcycles are a great alternative and speeding through the highway on those is always good fun. The game also rewards you with parking lots scattered plenty of places around the city, each holding all your successfull cars and you may find yourself to become quiet the collector.
Other activites include, cock fighting, where you find small gathers of people betting on roosters that fight eachother and you bet on one to win. The good news is they toned down the gritt nature and it doesnt feel as depraved as it could. We dont see the small hooks or blades attached to these beasts, and sadly, the animation of the fighting is not to the standards it could have been. There is really zero interaction with Cock Fighting other than to bet money.
If you find a place, you can challenge a fight club. You find these locations on your map then you enjoy increasingly larger and difficult waves of opponents until you clear six of them. The reward, is a little pocket change and nothing much more.
These activities, while they have their fun, I can't help but feel like they could go more in depth or immersion. The game boasts the activities you can do in Hong Kong, but despite the underground nature of some of these activities, I don't feel like I am a member of the criminal underworld in doing these things. They just lack a level of immersion and perhaps a carear in these fields. You do get to build up your face meter, but it just doesnt reach its full potential.
My favorite two activities though are the drug busts, in where you insert a hidden camera and catch crooks in the act by using survalience to catch criminals in the act, and the other is Kereoke. Here you go to a bar, court a girl you like, and sing silly songs. It is slightly a rhythm game where you move the cursor via the shift, and W, S, to hit the notes you need to hit. It also helps that the actor playing Wei Shen is not that bad of a singer.
For fun, and to progress the character, you can shop for cloathes, food (that come with health benifits, and get to enjoy the atmospere. For driving around in your new gangster, street level, or formal Red Pole (you will learn what that term means when you play the game), it helds devlop a sense of self in the character. The music stations however are kind of minimalisticly done, and not to the same extent that the GTA series is known for. This is kind of a shame just because listening to the radio in GTA can be half the fun of driving.
If this game just went half a step further, if that much, this game would easily make 9 out of 10. It is honestly a gem of a game, and a rare one at that. I would say that I spent 11 hours to beat the game, might not be a big deal considering that I find myself almost wanting to replay the game from scratch. Its a fun game, old school fun. It tells a great story heavy on iconic moments. The quality is huge across the board and the worst elements of the game are passable. Its fun to get into a fight, its fun to get into a shoot out, its fun to street race in the rain listening to chinese music. It is, in some ways an ambitious game, and I thank to Developers, Unied Front for making this project, and Square Enix for taking a risk on ressurectng this. I say this is a classic, and it might not be in the vein of some of the other more famous classics, but its an example to this generation, of what a good solid game. The kind of game, that sits well with you long after you finish it.