Sleeping Dogs Review
Varied missions, hard-hitting melee combat, and a captivating setting make Sleeping Dogs an enjoyable escapade.
The Video Review
Caro takes you through the underbelly of Hong Kong in her review of Sleeping Dogs.
The Good
- Savage melee combat
- Alluring atmosphere
- Fun driving and gunplay
- Varied missions
- Numerous collectibles to hunt down and other enjoyable diversions.
The Bad
- Artificial-looking character models and animations.
What does it take to survive as an undercover cop who infiltrates one of Hong Kong's most ruthless criminal organizations? If Sleeping Dogs is any indication, it takes martial arts prowess, good marksmanship, driving skill, a reckless willingness to leap from one speeding vehicle to another, and the confidence to sing karaoke. None of the individual elements in Sleeping Dogs are best-in-class, but they're all thoroughly enjoyable, and the structured story missions have you switching from one type of action to another frequently enough that you're never tired of what you're doing at any given moment. Additionally, the fictionalized version of Hong Kong where Sleeping Dogs takes place is an exotic and atmospheric setting for this tale of conflicting loyalties; you probably wouldn't want to live amid the ruthless criminals who populate the game's cast, but this world sure is a nice place to visit.
You play as Wei Shen, a Hong Kong native who has returned after spending some time in the States. Driven by a desire to avenge his sister's death, he accepts a dangerous assignment to infiltrate the Sun On Yee triad and help take them down from the inside. Starting out on the lowest rungs of the criminal ladder, he rapidly climbs up through the ranks, behaving in ways that sometimes make his triad cohorts suspect he's a cop and sometimes make his police superiors think he's getting too attached to his brothers in crime. It's a typical tale of an undercover cop possibly getting in too deep, and the story doesn't have any surprises in store for you. But solid voice acting and writing that convincingly blends English and Cantonese make it a narrative that's more than capable of supporting the gameplay, providing context for many a dramatic mission and building up to a cathartic climax that's bloody enough to be taken right out of one of John Woo's Hong Kong action films.
Sleeping Dogs is an open-world game, but it doesn't start out by setting you free. The opening chapters keep you on a tight leash as they introduce you to the basics of movement and melee combat, which is good, since that combat plays a huge role in the game as a whole. Taking its cues from the standard-setting brawling of Batman: Arkham Asylum and its sequel, this combat has you unleashing combos and using timed button presses to counter enemy attacks. Wei's attacks look and feel powerful, and the bone-breaking animations may often make you squirm and make your enemies flinch.
But what sets Sleeping Dogs' combat apart from games with similar systems is the emphasis on environmental attacks. In most places where you find yourself needing to clobber some fools, you can drag enemies to certain objects around you and use these things to finish them off. These environmental finishers range from the relatively restrained old standby of tossing a thug into a dumpster, to the much more original and brutal attack that has Wei impaling an enemy on a swordfish head. There's a good assortment of these attack opportunities throughout the game, and a number of chances for you to make your own fun with the environment, too. Tossing an enemy from the upper level of a swanky club to the level down below isn't, strictly speaking, one of the game's contextual environmental attacks, but don't let that stop you from doing it. It's empowering and effective.
The early stages also introduce you to some of the atmospheric pleasures of this fictional Hong Kong. People believably appear to go about their business; cooks fry things up in restaurants, merchants hock their wares at the marketplace, and dancers perform at a street festival. What's absent from the behavior of non-player characters is almost as important as what's present. Strangers can sometimes be overheard discussing story events, but they don't constantly call out to you as if their existences revolved around you. (They do, of course, but it shouldn't seem like they do.) Unfortunately, close inspection can shatter the illusion. Character models look like plastic dolls when viewed up close, and some gestures characters make are rigid and unnatural. Despite these oddities, the PC version is easily the best-looking version of the game. A high-resolution texture pack is included as free downloadable content, but even if you need to run the game at low settings, everything is much crisper than in the comparatively fuzzy console versions.
Still, Sleeping Dogs is more about wide-angle, big-picture atmosphere than about fine details. The skyline gleams with towering skyscrapers. Neon signs hang from every available outcropping on busy streets, crowding the air above you with glowing Chinese characters. This city may not be accurately modeled on the real Hong Kong, but it nonetheless has a powerful identity, and while you're playing, you feel transported to this dangerous land. Collectibles scattered across the island make exploring it worthwhile as well as enjoyable; finding health shrines increases your maximum health, while blue lockboxes hidden all over the place reward you with cash and sometimes with new items of clothing.
Once you complete the first few missions, you're free to explore the island as you see fit. But Sleeping Dogs is an open-world game in which you're sure to enjoy the structured missions more than the opportunities for free-form mayhem. It's fun for a while to run around jump-kicking people to death, or fatally tossing them off of three-foot-high railings. However, unlike other games in the genre like Just Cause 2 and Saints Row: The Third, which reveled in giving you ways to wreak incredible havoc on your own, Sleeping Dogs is at its best when you're playing through the story. Missions typically string together a number of activities, switching from one type of action to another frequently enough to keep you on your toes and ensure that you never get tired of what you're doing.
I consider the game as Shenmue spiritual successor,,
this game is pure fun, don't expet realisim but it's great arcade fun
The camera is twisting while driving, the Batman-like fighting is dull, just counter - strike - heavy strike - ... Gun fighting is more exciting with slow-mo, and driving is good. 7/10.
just tried out the demo and it was horrible, was so hard to control the character, when running around the mouse turns so slowly then when you have a gun it was so sensitive I couldn't aim at anyone. The melee combat was almost the same as Batman but terrible.
lilmcnessy
You just need to change up some settings. That's what i did and changed my opinion after that.
not even in top 10 in its genre,the whole map looks the same and the action parts become boring at some points. 6~7 of 10 is much fair.
how to download this game???
cool game
PC version is better than the consoles and yet it scores the same?
GTA V: Post-UK-Semi-Free-Trade-Hong-Kong edition. I'm on the fence about this game. Just when I get fed up with it or bored, there's something that's "kinda cool..." that keeps me going for a bit, then I get a lame mission or something and I get all flustered again. The fighting is obviously cool, but gets old after a bit. I know I'm crazy for not using a controller on the PC, but the camera angles when I first get in a car or on a motorcycle seem broken until I get going in a straight line. Not sure if a controller fixes that. All in all, not a horrible game like people make it sound, but I think I'm just about burned out on sandbox/GTA-type games for good. The game seems like a mashup of GTA meets Fast N Furious: China Drift. None of this is a knock on SE, they've always been well-respected in my book as far as video game accolades. This is all just my opinion, which means nothing, and I realize a lot of you won't agree. Just felt compelled to share my .02 with the interwebz.
Everybody knows you use controllers on games that are mutli platform except first person shooters.
this game is really booring :( i ended this game, after that, there is no another police cases or something like true crime new york city..
dj_anr plz tell me how did u get this game i dont know from where to download plz reply as soon as possible......
dj_anr
Sleeping Dogs PC version only available on Steam.
this game is pure FUN
True Crime: Street Cleaners
This game looks suckish,i thought this was going to be a good one and now i'm disappointed.The gaming industry has failed me once again.
Are you devoid of meaningful opinion? "This game looks suckish" is your casual observation based on basically nothing and from that you get to criticize an entire industry? Grow up.
pauldanielj No,i meant what i said.I have been playing video games as long as i can remember and i am sick of the mainstream industry of gaming that cares more about making money than the fun of gaming,the mainstream industry ruined a lot of game titles in the last couple of years that were good before.And they keep making these movie based video games that suck.I have played so many bad video games that now i can easily spot one just by reading about it.You shouldn't attack random people on the internet,you are the one that needs to grow up.
ahmed_tawfeek98 "Movie based"? What movie is this game based on? What the heck are you even talking about? If you've got some sort of grudge against the entire industry, go find a new hobby. Gamespot gave this game an 8.0, and most comments on here have been positive, so you have no basis for criticizing the game. I mean literally you have no basis for what you're saying, you're just babbling and whining for no purpose.
ahmed_tawfeek98 well..if u think the game industry no longer make fun game, just stop playing games man.
leakky No,not the whole industry stopped.There are few gaming studios that are still trying to keep it real.
ahmed_tawfeek98 Fuck you! This is a great game!
@DeathCl0ck It might seem so to a simple-minded person like you.
Great game. I haven't enjoyed or stuck to a game this long in a while. I use my 360 controller on it. Never tried the keyboard.
Overall - game is good.
But, unfortunately, for me it's COMPLETELY UNPLAYABLE because of the controls.
Controls are ABYSMAL! Worst controls system I've ever experienced!
Mouse lag is unbearable, sensitivity changes when you in a vehicle is just way too high, key presses in a fights periodically lagging without any reason...
I just don't understand this - how Square Enix could ruin such a good game by this horrible controlling system?
3 of 10. (+3/3 GFX, +3/3 story, +3/3 gameplay, -6 controls)
And it will stay this way until SE do something about controls.
Thank god I didn't buy it (I've almost did)!
Serpent17 agree, my head hurts after few minutes of driving
best game ever
Wow, this forum looks a lot cleaner and less hateful than it did yesterday. The moderators have clearly been busy. I don't know what makes people want to personally attack a talented editor for doing her job and stating her opinion, but I really hope that it isn't a growing trend.
danbolivar
So you are saying Carolyn was born a man? Granted it's hard to tell.
In my opinion this game sets new standards for sandbox game play and surpasses the GTA series.
Carolyn you should have tried playing with the texture pack first, it makes everything look so much better.
Actually true crime wasnt bad specially on story sequences. The problem was the glitches and bugs beyond the level of normality.
theCCyberDDemon Yeah, I remember the controller lag as being insane. But they were still fun.
Game has been cracked and is "sailing on the ship".
l2humpie lol i see what you did there :D
Sakuban if u know what i mean :P
l2humpie The first place I look since the evil demon lord disappeared :(
i was expecting more from ths game
Beat up game? Im on.
The combat looks good, but I am fearful that there are only a handful of attacks. It might be awesome for the 1st ten minutes, but repetitive attacks can start to dry up the experience a bit. At least there is a variety of ways to smash your opponents into objects in the environment. That almost never gets old if there is enough variety involved there.
ZOD777it's definately not GTA4 where it looks like they spent a whole day on the melee combat. feels clunky sometimes, but i'm having alot of fun, though I'm not far into the game
Kickable Yeah Melee in GTA4 was something they should probably have just left out of the game, it was horrible.
As far as I can tell, there's nothing wrong with the environment, and the character models look as acceptable as other open world games I've played. It definitely beats GTA IV and Saints Row The Third. There's nothing wrong with the facial expressions worth mentioning. Keep in mind that they had to low brow this thanks to being limited by the DVD DL size restriction of Xbox 360 games.
But that is why Square Enix went above and allows us to get an HD Texture pack for the PC version of the game. The animation syncing could have been worked on better, like how I had to move a piano in one mission, but didn't grab it from the front, so when it got lifted up and moved, it looked as if I was grabbing the air and executing the animation.
The animations themselves were very satisfying and realistic/believable. Nothing much to complain about there.
This is the first Open World game I've played that had the best work done on NPC animations. The only time I see a plastic or artificial look on characters is when they are wet/bloody or it is rainy. It usually makes their clothes look like slippery plastic.
Lordbleck this game runs on my other PC which is pretty terrible. 2.0ghz geforce 9600gso. i don't mind suffering dated visuals if it means more people would get to play. it manages to do it without horrible object pop-in too that plagues games like these usually.
Kickable Lordbleck I'm having a hard time on gtx 570
Orgil220
how is that possible ?!
i am running the game on 1080p res and only AA is turned to normal, other than that all settings have been set to extreme and high .......i get a min frame rate of 44 and usually working all the way long on 60 FPS ...
I have a GTX 560 Ti, I5 2500K (not OC) and 4GB ram @1600 MHZ
?!
moataz1993 1600 on extreme i barely get 20fps, but everything on high then im getting decent 40 fps
Orgil220
What are the specifications of your PC ?!
I have to say, regardless of all the garbage written below, this game has me intrigued. The selling point, A WELL WRITTEN AND ACTED STORY! How I have desired and craved such a game since ENSLAVED: ODYSSEY TO THE WEST.
I bought the game, and to tell you the truth, its good. But theres some little things that makes me dessapointed. I like the fighting moves of the game, but at times when Im fighting two guys at a time, the one thats glowing red, misses me, theres like a little frezze, It only happens when they miss. I think that the fighting style of the game is fluid, but I still get some delays and glitches!
Game Emblems
The Good
User Reviews
Although it has not achieved its full potential, Square Enix has done a good job bringing this game back from the grave.
Sleeping Dogs
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- Publisher(s): Square Enix
- Developer(s): United Front Games
- Genre: Action
- Release: Aug 14, 2012 (US) »
- ESRB: M