At first glance, Sleeping Dogs looks like nothing more than Grand Theft Auto with Hong Kong skin. However, at second glance, you will find a multitude of differences and reasons why Sleeping Dogs deserves it day. As you follow Officer Wei Shen, you are taken through an interesting perspective on organized crime and the tumultuous life of an undercover cop.
What is most appealing and intriguing is that Shen isn't your typical criminal trying to make his way up in a criminal enterprise. Shen is a well trained undercover cop, returning to his home town of Hong Kong to infiltrate a division of the Triads. He is smart, calculating, and motivated. However, as the story progresses, the lines begin to blur about what side Shen is on. He spends all his time working with these criminals and its only natural for a genuine connection to be established with these people. It becomes almost difficult to know whats going on in his head. The only times where you can see Shen break down all the lies and be genuine is when he is waking up from a nap. You can hear his thoughts and what conversations are weighing on him. All this makes for a very interesting character and a very engaging storyline. You never know what he will do next, what lengths he will go to, and what lines he will cross. For me, this is what had me coming back for more.
Another addicting and intriguing part of this game is the leveling system. For the majority of the missions, your points will be awarded in the Cop category and the Triad category. You start out the mission with a full Cop meter and an empty Triad meter. As you screw up as a cop (ie. smashing into other cars, shooting cops, failing to vault over an object properly) your cop meter goes down, and as you do well as a Triad (ie. successfully counter attack, kill enemies, evade cops) your triad meter goes up. I found this to be extremely fun. Also, there is a Face level which goes up by doing side missions. Your Face level allows you to buy better clothes and even have a valet bring you your car.
Shen is a ladies man
Lots of fun gunplay
One nice thing, is that the entire map is open to you from the first time you jump in a car. There are four distinct districts all around Hong Kong connected by highways. The only thing that takes getting used to for U.S. players is the fact that you will have to drive on the left side of the road. Speeding up to an intersection that I have to turn on, the majority of the time ends up with me turning into oncoming traffic. Its hilarious and sometimes terrible. The navigation for Sleeping Dogs is top notch. You can quickly cycle between main objectives with R3, and set more specific points of interest from the map, but that's not the exciting part. There is, of course, a colored line on the mini-map telling you the best driving course, but, in addition, there are onscreen arrows stuck in the middle of the streets that you need to turn on. This frees you up to focus on the road and keeping your speed up, instead of constantly glancing at your mini-map.
A decent sized map
A decent sized map
There are a wide variety of things that you can do in the world of Sleeping Dogs (from stopping at street vendors for food to stopping and getting a quick back alley "massage") and you will almost never be bored. In fact, there is so much to do, that you may have a hard time staying focused on doing the main story missions. Overall, the story mode takes around 20 hours, but there is a lot more you can do in Hong Kong. The Platinum trophy is attainable with diligence and I think you will have a fun time achieving it too. The story is fantastic and I strongly urge you to stay until the end, because the ending is surprisingly epic. I had some problems with the graphics and repetitive missions, but I feel this game is well worth $48 out of the $60 that it was released at.
Written by Dexter Jaekel,
Editor-in-Chief for TechFixtion
Just picked up this game! Can't wait to play it!
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