Sleeping Dogs Review

The neon lights of Hong Kong shine on the blood pool of a rival gang member as you stand triumphantly above him with a tire iron in hand and the honour of your triad in the other. You ride off into the sunset with a moped that you stole from an old lady back in the fish market. That is the kind of freedom you will get to experience in Sleeping Dogs and for the most part it is a good experience, read the full review after the jump!


The story involves undercover cop Wei Shen infiltrating one of Hong Kong's infamous triads the Sun On Yee. Wei has to endure challenges that arise both from his Triad allies and his police superiors resulting in Wei questioning himself as the story progresses. The storyline itself is a mixed bag, the first few acts of the main story are strong giving the player an insight into the infighting that the Sun On Yee is suffering from but then towards the end it becomes predictable with an ending that I could have seen coming from a mile away. The biggest crime that the story commits is that at not one point in the game does Wei need to choose between his Triad and his police department which is a shame because the Triad shows sincere respect, care and love for him whereas most of Wei's police peers give him a hard time and at times are more villainous than the Triads themselves. By not having a branching path in the storyline is a huge waste of what could have been a brilliant story.

The voice acting is spectacular and is one huge reason why I felt that the storyline went to waste because the banter between Wei (played by Will Yun Lee) and his Triad allies is one of the best examples of voice acting that I have heard in any game, you could sense that there is true brotherly love between the Sun On Yee members and Wei Shen.

Some stand out characters include  Jackie Mah (played by Edison Chen) and Winston Chu (played by Parry Shen). Jackie fills  the role of little brother/silly sidekick in the game, you can feel the brotherly relationship between Wei and Jackie and you will sincerely care for Jackie because despite him acting like a fool in most of the segments that he is in he still remains a loyal to Wei.

Winston is essentially your boss in the gang and is a lieutenant in the Sun On Yee so that meant that he was initially distrustful of Wei when he was first introduced to the gang but as the storyline goes on you feel that Winston is not the stereotype steroid munching gangbanger that he appears to be, he is in fact a leader that used to make some stupid decisions based on his short temper but as Wei proves himself to Winston he becomes the voice of reason in Winston's head and Winston in turn becomes more level headed and calm. Winston is perhaps only character to evolve to become a better man throughout the story and his desire to become one in the company of psychopaths makes Winston one the best characters in any game.

Winston enjoys his time off by pointing his gun at the screen.  

Some other big names joining the cast is Tom Wilkinson who plays Police Superintendent Pendrew, Robin Shou who plays big muscle lackey Conroy Wu, Kelly Hu plays as Inspector Jane Teng and the ever lovely Emma Stone who plays as potential love interest Amanda Cartwright.

Think of the gameplay as a hybrid of Grand Theft Auto's driving mechanics, Batman Arkham City's melee combat system and Assassin's Creed's parkour system.

The vehicles in the game are varied, you can drive mopeds, taxis, sports cars, buses and boats. Each vehicle has its own characteristics in handling, speed and acceleration which is a huge plus in this kind of game. The driving mechanic is solid which should not come as a surprise because it comes from the same guys who made Modnation Racers.

The parkour system is  fluid but you can't help but feel that it feels linear, most of the on foot chases has only one route that the player can take to head off his opponent which makes the parkour system worthless.

The combat system on the other hand is simplistic and somewhat clunky and sluggish, the melee combat revolves around four key aspects, striking, countering, grappling and environmental kills. The problem with the fighting is that switching from target to target is not smooth as it could be and at times you will kick and punch nothing but the air because of it. The grappling is intertwined with the striking mechanic and it's used to pull of combo attack but these attacks require such strict timing and complex button pushes to pull off that there is very little point to do them in the first place. The countering however works well and is not so strict when it comes to the timing as the combos. The saving grace of the melee combat system has to be the environmental kills, these are essentially one hit kills using pieces from the environment where the combat is taking place, I thoroughly enjoyed ramming the enemies in fans, speakers and walls but my favourite by far throwing your enemy on a bunch of swordfish in a fish market.

It was at this point Bob knew that his henchmen days were over.

The game tries to vary up the melee combat system by adding special enemy types like the grappler who is a big mammoth of a man who cannot be grappled with and can only be brought down by strikes. Other additions include melee weapons which range from the ever handy tire iron to the reliable knife to more comedic weapons like frozen fish and handbags...since everybody knows that the Triads greatest shame is Death by Handbag.

You can say that *puts on sunglasses* he carped that diem...YEAHHH(oh god the pun)

There are guns in the game but the fact is that you are overpowered with the gun each shot will stun the enemy long enough for a follow up shot so theoretically the enemy will die before getting a shot off. To make things worse is that the enemy AI charges in groups in front of your gun barrel resulting in very quick multikills and even when they do use cover it is so predictable as to when they will pop out their head. There is a slowmo effect a la Max Payne but it feels tacked on and there is no real point in using it. The saving grace of the gun action is when you drive and shoot at the same time, the enemies will riddle your car with bullets as they speed on their motorcycles and as you shoot their tires they fly into the air in slow motion.

Wei Shen always did dislike rush hour traffic...

The game's missions can be split into three groups which comprise of the main storyline missions which is very combat based and is seen from the Triad perspective, the Police Cases missions which involve Wei trying to solve 4 major case files given to him to by perhaps the only friendly ally in the police force Inspector Jane Teng, these missions are more based on investigation and detective work rather than all out combat and the final mission variant are the Face Missions which are a myriad of sidemissions given by both random people and main storyline characters roaming the streets, these missions take into account all the game's mechanics.

The atmosphere of the game is undeniably well done and is one the few aspects of the game that is flawless, the developers makes it feel that the player is actually in Hong Kong. The civilians walking on the street yell at you in Cantonese, the food stalls sell roast duck and pork buns and the temples have monks that will break you into pieces if you mess with them.

Hey do any of you know where Jackie Chan lives?...Anyone? 

There are collection missions in the game whereby you hunt for Health Shrines, Lockboxes and Jade Statues all over Hong Kong but the difference between these collection missions and that found in other sandbox games like GTA4 is that all these collection quests are beneficial and in the case of the Jade Statues the developer took the trouble to put in back story as to why you need to collect them. It's only in this game I was motivated to find everything in regards to collection quests and I commend United Front Games for doing that.

The sandbox mechanic is one of the stronger aspects of the game, there are so much to do in the game world from fight clubs to street racing to mahjong poker to cock fights(the cock fights involving chickens...not that other cock fight, get your mind out of the gutter) to *shudders* karaoke.

Air Supply is the biggest contributor to the Triads since 1980

There are some of glitches in the game many of them laughable and some can be a pain. One glitch involved my car being stolen by a random thug after I beat his friends. The camera angles can at times be a serious pain but it wasn't bad enough to detract from the gameplay.

The graphics overall are average at best but what is impressive is that despite how large the map is the game did not freeze or lag in anyway. Each mission can be replayed so that the player can improve his or her overall score and as an added bonus the player retains all upgrades and improvements in all missions the player replays. 

Finally there is no multiplayer and only has online leaderboards where you compare your stats with your friends. This is a wasted opportunity considering how fun it was to team up with your buddies in Saints Row and GTA. 

All in all Sleeping Dogs is a good game with brilliant atmosphere and voice acting but it could have been so much better had the fighting mechanic and the enemy AI been improved. The biggest let down by far was the story, by not giving the player a choice the freedom to choose how the story ends was the biggest mistake that the developers made. 

Sleeping Dogs
Developer: United Front Games

Publisher: Square Enix
Platforms: PS3, Xbox 360 and PC

Platform Used for Review: PS3

My Purchase Date of the Game: August 16th 2012


Please do leave a comment with your thoughts, complaints and compliments I promise to respond to each one in due time :D