Author Topic: Sleeping Dogs Review  (Read 2970 times)

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Offline ColonelCarrots

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Sleeping Dogs Review
« on: October 21, 2012, 01:52:20 PM »
My Dad bought me Sleeping Dogs for my birthday and it is pretty fun.

The graphics look great, the look very clean and crisp especially the characters. The combat system is very picky though. Button mashers won't do as well. The game doesn't register your counter if you keep mashing it. A controller would probably help with combat for the melee. With combat you can ram people into a wall. Throw them into a dumpster, throw them into an AC unit and blood will spurt out everywhere things like that. You can even stuff them down into an air duct.

I like the design aspect you can play dress up. My guy is wearing a Left 4 Dead 2 shirt with the Midnight Riders on it. You can wear the Rico outfit from Just Cause 2. You can wear silly things like those plastic bracelets that are different colors like the "Livestrong" ones. You can even wear like knock off items which is really funny. You'll see a lot of things in the markets where they're selling fake stuff, and even in the story you may have to help a vender with his stuff. I had to extort a vender who sold fake DVDs.

I kinda wish I could play the game in subtitles while the characters speak Chinese. I don't like the voice acting all that much in English, they sound like they're all from L.A. or something, or that at least had better accents.

As far as story I like it. You're an undercover cop named Wei Shen. Trying to make your way through the Triads. If you're a fan of kung-fu movies you'll enjoy Sleeping Dogs. A lot of sequences where you're chasing someone down an alley and he meets up with 4 other guys and you end up having to kick their butt. Its a great open world crime game. It isn't silly like Saints Row or GTA, but a more serious style one like the Mafia games.

So I give it an 8/10 for being an enjoyable game. Its nice to see a game that is open crime sandbox that isn't in New York or something that has been used too many times. I like the focus on the melee combat too. In most of these type of games melee is a last resort, but it focuses around it. Its not a sandbox game changer, but it is a breath of fresh air.

Offline SSG Snuggle Bunny

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Re: Sleeping Dogs Review
« Reply #1 on: October 23, 2012, 09:46:40 PM »
Nice.

Good review, too.
According to the Bible, "know" means "yes."

Offline ColonelCarrots

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Re: Sleeping Dogs Review
« Reply #2 on: October 24, 2012, 06:47:33 PM »
Some things I've discovered recently in Sleeping Dogs.

Karaoke, like a Guitar Hero-ish game. Had to do it in a mission to woo a lady.

Cock Fighting, won $2,000

Massage parlors

I bought some DLC that gave me a Wing Chun outfit that makes me go into Slow mo for counter attacks. Game got 100% easier. If you've seen Ip Man then you can do a combo where he does the rapid punch to someone's chest. Really sweet.

Also I can beat someone to death with a fish.

Offline SSG Snuggle Bunny

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Re: Sleeping Dogs Review
« Reply #3 on: January 01, 2013, 09:25:51 PM »
I just finished the game.

It clocks in at just over 30 hours of game play (GTA IV is 40 hours).

The graphics are pretty damn good even on Medium settings (Extreme crashed my comp) but there was some occassional clipping and pop-in issues.

The sound design is excellent.

I use an XBox 360 Controller on my computer and the game responded faithfully.

Overall impression: the game strikes me as a mash-up of Tekken (martial arts), GTA (open world crime-based storytelling), Burnout (racing with lots of crashing) and Mirror's Edge (parkour). Normally it's hard to get anyone of these elements right but when you stuff them all in to one game you risk ruining one or more (or all) of these elements and the game as a whole is ruined as well. However, SD delivers on all fronts. Maybe not as well as a title that has a singular focus but the game provides enough depth to each of these that none of them feels neglected.

The world map is pretty vast but not every square meter is utilized but you won't feel cheated because you feel like you have plenty of space to move around, even in the crowded back alleys of Honk Kong.

But SD is first and foremost a storytelling game. Your character, Wei Shen, is going in undercover to infiltrate the Sun On Yee Triad. The plot never feels stilted. The dialogue (tons of f-bombs) is snappy and well delivered by the actors (including Kelly Hu and Lucy Lui). While the game does take you into a foreign culture it never degrades its subject matter or insults the audience with cheap stereotypes (I'm looking at you, Just Cause 2). All the characters have depth. When your character has to concoct an excuse to keep himself from falling over the line it not only seems plausible but it allows him to satisfy both the Triad and his police handler.

And then there's the story.

Dear God -- the story.

On more than one occassion my heart started pounding wondering what would happen next. That's hard enough to do watching a movie where you can look at your watch and say, "Meh! They still got to fill another 60 minutes or this is a short-ass movie" With a video game you know it's a game. You're holding the controller. The graphics may be good but they're obviously illustrated computer models. At times the gameplay was drawn from the soul of over-the-top Hong Kong action cinema.

So why the hell was my heart racing when my character and his boss were called to see the Chariman of the Triad?

By the time I got to the finale missions my heart was racing. I felt I had to get *there* in time. I wanted revenge but I feared the next opponent would be my last as events took their toll. I felt driven by duty and loyalty, not just to the badge but to the people who called themselves my brothers.

The game worked very hard to convincingly wrap-up the conflict between the two worlds Wei Shen straddled.

My only unrealized wish for this game (apart from cleaning-up the graphics glitches) is that there are no dialogue/action choices to alter the story. When you're running a mission for the Triad you gain experience for them and the police as well but you lose police experience if you run over property like parking meters or hit civilians with your car. Other than that there is no decision-making on your part. What if I want to go full rogue? What if I'm willing to kill an important character?

Considering the development history behind the game this isn't surprising. It started out as an additional installment of the True Crime franchise before being sold off. Then it stalled and looked to be in a terminal nose dive until it was picked up by Square Enix and re-branded. With such a troubled on-again-off-again development it probably would have taken too much time and money to script, act and program the decision-making element.

Oh well. It's still a damn good story and I think it's going to give me nightmares of a vengeful Mrs. Chu walking towards me.

I give it a solid 8.5. Minus 2 points for lack of moral choices and graphic issues but an extra .5 for the story.
According to the Bible, "know" means "yes."