Sleeping Dogs Review | It's A Gaming World

For those that have been following Sleeping Dogs, you know that how lucky United Front Games is with being able to release their latest game. From changing names to changing publishers, there seemed to be a very high stack of cards stacked again the game from ever being released. Thankfully, Square Enix picked up the title, changed its name to Sleeping Dogs, and released it. Now, us gamers have the chance to play one of the better open-world games this generation. From an engaging story to enjoyable and deep combat, Sleeping Dogs won?t let you down.

Sleeping Dogs is an open world game based in Hong Kong complete with four distinct areas/districts of the city. Starting the game off the entire world is open for you to roam through, but your missions will slowly throughout the game move from district to district in standard city-based open world games. ?Besides some minor frame rate issues that pop up rarely, and I mean RARELY, Sleeping Dogs is wonderful romp through Hong Kong fighting, racing, running and killing.

You play as Wei Shen, an undercover cop who has been sent in to Hong Kong for an important mission. After his mom up-rooted his family at a young age from Hong Kong to America, Wei has made his way back home being an undercover cop with a mission to infiltrate the secret/yet-not-so-secret Triad and take it down from within. Seen from a mile away as you make your way through the story, and can?t really blame Wei, he starts to become more of a Triad member than a cop. Falling in love with his new life and rarely accepting his responsibilities as an undercover cop. I?m going to stay away from spoiling anything else about the story as this is easily one of the best single-player experiences in an open-world game this generation.

With Sleeping Dogs taking place in Hong Kong, a city smack-dab in the middle of martial arts world, the hand-to-hand combat is stellar, just as it should be. The fighting is a twist on the standard button-mashing that usually hinders combat, instead each move need to be carefully planned out and executed or you can be looking at a world of hurt. With multiple different combos possible and new moves to learn, then add in melee weapons and you have a formula for combat that never get boring. Not once. To keep you even further on your feet during fights are the different types of enemies; standard, grapplers and what I would like to call ?big boys?. Each one takes a little different approach to defeating and when you are swarmed by 8+ guys?you have a real problem on your hand.

For those instances where the fighting starts to take its toll on your interest, United Front Games have added in environmental killing moves that are possible giving, in most times, an insta-kill. See a phone booth AND being swarmed by 8+ enemies? Grab one of them, throw them into the booth and take him out quickly. Won?t ruin it for you, but there are two environmental kills that you will be able to do about half way through the game that will make you cringe.

The city of Hong Kong within Sleeping Dogs isn?t anything special. You have seen bigger cities in open-world games, and even more detailed. Don?t? take that as a bad thing, but realize that GTA IV or Saints Row: The Third had more impressive cityscapes. Even with the less-than-stellar detail within the city, there is still a bunch to do; from side missions, to races, to shopping at the various stores around the town; you shouldn?t get bored. Hong Kong is broken up into four distinct districts that are open straight from the beginning of the game. Missions will take place mainly in individual districts and the story will eventually move you around the whole map, but you are free to roam as you please.

Side missions in Sleeping Dogs range from brilliant to disgusting; from thrilling to boring. Some of the extra missions that you are able to do throughout the game provide some very fun and enjoyable moments, while others will leave you pulling your hair out from boredom. Which sounds better to you?

• Beating up drug deals and then catching them in the act of dealing drugs and arresting them

OR

• Walking around town with a girl and taking photos of her with your cell phone

So, which one is more exciting? Well hopefully you picked the first option, but not to fret, because you get to do both! How thrilling is that?!?! I know I have always dreamed of taking pictures of a girl with my cell phone; it?s not like I can do that in my free time.

Bringing in light RPG elements into Sleeping Dogs is the way you go about upgrading Wei throughout his journey. Be completely missions for either the HKPD (Hong Kong Police Dept) or the Triads you can learn different moves or abilities. Locating certain ?hidden? items around the world, you can unlock health upgrades and new fighting moves that you learn from a dojo.

Side note: I never understood how a person can all of a sudden from finding hidden statues or objects, that they gain more life. Like they now can survive multiple gun shots. In the world of ?realistic games? that isn?t very realistic.

Sleeping Dogs features the newer form of multiplayer that a lot of other single player games have brought along. You don?t actually play with any real person in the game, but you compete for different leaderboard statuses. Drive a really long time doing a wheeling on a motorcycle? Well now you can have your friends see that to try to beat you distance. As a person who really enjoys the singleplayer experience that games can offer, I quite enjoy this type of multiplayer in games. It works good and isn?t annoying.

In the end Sleeping Dogs is a lot of things; a crime game, a racing game, an exploration game, an RPG and a fighting game. With many, many games that try to be a lot all in one package, they never really are anything great because they are spread so thin. Well, besides in a few spots, Sleeping Dogs is the exception to that. Through and through Sleeping Dogs is one of the best open-world games to come out this generation. Just the story and the characters should be enough to have this game be on the top of best games of 2012; then add in all the other things the game does right. This is more than a rent, you need to buy this game.

Source: http://www.itsagamingworld.com/video-game-review/sleeping-dogs-review/

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