Sleeping Dogs Review

Sleeping Dogs experienced anything but a sleepy development cycle. Originally set to be a title in the True Crime franchise, the project was cancelled by publisher Activision when almost being ready, much to the disappointment of developers United Front Games. However, in stepped Square Enix and with their assistance and a small re-branding, the game was back on track. Despite these dramatic events, players will be happy to know that Sleeping Dogs is a fun and diverse open world experience with tons to do, an engaging and serious story, and a memorable and authentic setting. Small gameplay issues and potential lack of variety aside, this is an enjoyable and respectably lengthy outing that can hold its ground against the leaders of the genre.

In this third person action title, players assume the role of Wei Shen, a hard boiled police officer that is sent undercover in Hong Kong, in order to dismantle a Triad gang from within. Although Wei was originally a local, he has lived much of his life in the USA, we are told, due to his family moving there. A man with a troubled past, including suffering through the deaths of his family members, Wei has returned to Hong Kong hoping to forget, but also potentially due to a personal vendetta against the Triad gang who addicted his sister to drugs.

The plot in Sleeping Dogs plays out remarkably well-orchestrated. Though it’s an open world experience, the story is tightly detailed with memorable events and engrossing characters. Given that other titles, such as GTA 4 or indeed Saints Row 3, often choose to throw humor into the mix, Sleeping Dogs is a refreshing take on open world storytelling with a serious tone and down to earth approach.

The entire plot is focused on Wei’s troubled times, trying to draw the moral line as a cop without blowing his cover, and avoiding becoming personally attached to his undercover work. It’s also all about the internal politics and unrest within the Triad gang that Wei has infiltrated, and while the whole intrigue is well told, there is no time to discover more about rival gangs who occasionally enter the picture. Overall though, this is a well told story that lasts around 10-12 hours with zero filler. It could have only been better if it encompassed more of the global struggle in the city rather than focusing on a single gang – it works, and provides a detail-rich experience, but one that feels limited in scope.

Story missions themselves are again standard affair, but that’s not to say that they are bland. You will often be tasked to visit locations, solve “problems”, and do whatever is necessary to advance the plot through some cool set pieces. Driving, shooting, fighting is all in the day’s work. Missions often include a few nifty minigames as well – aside from the awkward Karaoke, they are fairly original and fun to do. And for those often frustrated with GTA missions, Sleeping Dogs does have a checkpoint system so you’re not starting the whole thing over, should you fail.

But of course, there is a lot to do outside of the main story. The game map is filled with collectibles to locate, gangs to bust, cars to steal, people to help, and much more. In a side story that runs parallel to the main events (independently) you can help put away some bad guys for an ambitious HKPD detective. You also have your homes, which can be upgraded with nifty additions that are purely cosmetic. As such, everything is up to par for a modern open world title and you won’t find a lack of objectives to take on. And though it lacks the insane variety of side mission gameplay found within GTA4, it’s still a highly varied environment.

Now you are probably in a hurry to cause havoc in this setting, but hold on. When it comes to action, Sleeping Dogs is a unique beast. Like a character in the game says, “This isn’t America, and guns are rare here.” Indeed, Wei will very infrequently wield a melee weapon – even less often, a gun. There are no stores that sell guns or ammo, so most of the shooting will be done during specific story missions where guns can be picked off from enemies. Even so, you will be unlikely to keep the weapon after their conclusion. Interestingly, this makes the guns feel extremely satisfying to use and they feel great during firefights.

When aiming and vaulting over objects, the game automatically enters slow motion, letting you aim and take down multiple opponents in style. During the vehicle chases (be it on land or water, but there is no flying in the game) you get similarly great-looking takedowns, as cars roll and explode in slow motion after shooting out their tires. And finally, you’re able to “action-hijack” nearby vehicles if you drive beside them and hit a prompt at the right moment to land on the roof of the target vehicle and take it over. Things don’t get as obsessive as Stranglehold, but these time slowing mechanics add just enough personality to the flow of the action.

A lack of guns means that almost all of the action is instead melee-based. Before everyone starts comparing the hand to hand combat in Sleeping Dogs to that of recent Batman titles, there are a number of things to consider. Yes, it’s all about having a light attack, a heavy attack, and a combo system. No, you can’t block, but you can counter when enemies telegraph their attacks, which is usually your main way to avoid damage. And yeah, the final enemy to fall does so in slow motion. Great, now that we’ve drawn the line, let’s see what original mechanics the game offers.

First off, the combat style is extremely grounded and highly authentic. Those of you who are fans of martial arts are likely to spot some very cool moves, all of which are well animated. There’s no crazy jumping around like in Batman, as the combat is very focused on realism and grittiness. You can grapple most enemies, which allows you to pull off some direct punches but more importantly, slam them into a wall or object.

The gimmick during the game’s combat sequences is that you can use the environment to instantly dispose of foes – by literally throwing them into a dumpster, smashing them with a car door, slamming them into a railing, pushing their face through a ventilation fan, throwing their body at an electrical panel, and much more. It’s a visually brutal yet satisfying system that allows you to get an edge during fights where you’re always outnumbered by quickly dispatching foes. Perhaps the only aspect that breaks immersion is that you can’t throw enemies over the edge – an option that is sorely missed when fighting on rooftops.

Enemies come in three varieties throughout the game, and require different tactics. Regular foes can be taken down with your usual attacks, while special combat-trained baddies and those wielding weapons cannot be grappled, and require a slightly different approach. Once you get the hang of combat, it’s a very satisfying and responsive system – and a far cry from the potential button-masher that Batman games can be. Enemies that carry weapons can be disarmed, giving you a very good advantage with the help of knives and crossbars. Melee weapons actually degrade when you use them – that provides for a balanced fight (otherwise you’d slice your way through the crowd very quickly), but doesn’t make sense realistically: it’s improbable that a crowbar should become unusable after you bash a few bones with it.

There is a surprisingly diverse character upgrade system that presents 5 independent upgrade paths. You gain more health by locating praying shrines across the city – it’s a mechanic that fits perfectly within the game world, and it’s not like you have stores to buy bodyarmor. Melee training functions similarly – you are tasked with collecting special statues that most often appear during missions only. Taking these statues back to a training dojo allows you to learn one new combo skill. These two skill areas present a nice alternative to the usual XP-based character improvement.

The other three paths, though, are in fact based on experience that you earn. As you complete missions and fight your wars, the game keeps track of your actions and assigns into three categories – Face level, Triad level, and Police level. Your Face level is an interesting one, as it essentially states how important you are in the eyes of the city. Face levels are gained by helping people in the city, performing some miscellaneous tasks, or going out on dates. Earning a higher Face level basically lets you purchase better clothes, cars, and other goodies. It also apparently helps you in battle – landing enough punches enters some kind of frenzy mode that intimidates your enemies, but honestly it felt to have little impact.

Triad and Police levels are somewhat of a retrofit to remind everyone this was a True Crime game. Triad points unlock new combat moves and actions, while Cop points allow for better gun skills and the like. Anytime you’re on a mission, you have ability to earn XP in both categories, and they work in interesting ways. Triad experience points start at zero and you gain more by beating bad guys, performing takedowns, and so on. Cop points, on the other hand, work in the opposite direction – you start off with a full meter, and points are deducted each time you do something unlawful. Careless driving that causes damage to public property, or hurts a civilian, is going to dock you points. It’s a brilliant mechanic that makes perfect sense in the game world. The only problem – for players looking to cause as much havoc as possible, as earlier mentioned – you’re technically being punished for it. Of course you could get by with not ranking as a Cop, but it will probably annoy some players none the less.

Sleeping Dogs comes up short in a few areas – for example the abovementioned dates to improve your Face level. You meet a few women during the course of the story, and that gets you a one-time option to do an activity or minigame with them next time you free roam; after which time they are never heard from again. Sure, everyone was sick of your friends calling in GTA4, but this seems too basic in comparison. The game also takes Cop deductions a bit far, penalizing the player’s cop points just for failing any free-running prompts because it’s “clumsy”.

In another example, your garage functions differently from other open world games – you can’t actually store your vehicles there. Rather, you just get a choice to use whatever car or bike you’ve purchased from a dealer. So say goodbye to your freshly hijacked supercar, you won’t have it next time you load the game unless you’ve put down some big cash to have it always available in the garage. Also, some vehicles are entirely inaccessible if they are deemed by the game to be somehow involved in the mission, which certainly breaks the “do anything” immersion.

Sleeping Dogs succeeds in creating a very detailed world, that while isn’t physically huge, is instead very detailed and life-like compared to its real world counterpart. Though never having been to Hong Kong, the aesthetics seem to be very closely recreated in the game – everything from character designs, to the well-written dialogue that often switches to Cantonese, to the city streets themselves. Everything looks detailed and well animated. Characters get bloody in fights, and Wei remains that way until you wash up or sleep. The little events that make up the world make it even more believable – like Wei driving around in a stolen cab, only have an unsuspecting passenger get in when you stop and then realize their mistake.

The title further benefits on PC thanks to being very well optimized, supporting mouse in the menus, 3D visuals (not tested), a wealth of visual settings sliders, and also offering a high resolution texture pack as free DLC on launch day. Running through the benchmark, we were able to fully max the game (high resolution pack, full AA) on our HD5870 and i7 930, while getting a very respectable 40 frames per second on average (29 min fps, 85 max fps).

There are some technical quirks of course. For some reason, and this becomes a very frequent annoyance, the combat’s Counter and open-world Use are the same action in the game’s eyes. The combat flows well using right and left mouse buttons for attacks, but when you’re driving and accidentally hit the right mouse button (traditionally used for aiming), you find yourself on the sidewalk. Aiming is instead binded to Shift. So, you have to make a choice between smooth brawling and awkward aiming, or the other way around. Why on earth we couldn’t get “Use” as a separate button such as “E” is mystifying. And speaking of which, the game seems very nitpicky over where exactly you must stand in order to enter a vehicle, which gets frustrating.

For those who want to play with others, you’ll be sad to know there aren’t any online modes in the game. You can, however, compare your scores on the multitude of leaderboards for everything from mission scores to highest jumps and longest chases. Leaderboards can be toggled between friends only and global, letting you see where you stack up. Oddly, we experienced a bug where the mouse refused to work specifically in these Social Hub menus, as a mouse is required to scroll through the different sub-menus within the same category. But all we could do was switch categories and change between local/global leaderboards, unable to see the stats for the sub-menus.

So what is Sleeping Dogs? Well, to sum things up it’s an engaging open-world experience that combines a little bit of modern GTA with a little bit of Batman, and spices it all up with some Asian flavor. Trying to walk line between authenticity and gameplay is the key for the title, and most often the authenticity wins out, for better or worse. There’s a fun story to follow, a lot to do in your spare time, and compete with friends a bit through leaderboards. And though the game comes up just a little short in some aspects, it overall still feels like a solid and complete experience.