Review: Sleeping Dogs

As promised, this post will be about a sleeper hit (get it?) from 2012, Sleeping Dogs. Contrary to the texts I've written previously, this time around, I'll go ahead and try my hand at writing a straightforward review.

The Premise

Sleeping Dogs is an open world action-adventure game (a "GTA clone", in other words) set in the context of a Hong Kong martial arts film with a dash of Assassin’s Creed added in for flavor. Still, stating that Sleeping Dogs is merely a GTA clone is doing it a disservice, since it is a thoroughly enjoyable and, in some regards, even an original take on the genre.

Hong Kong has left-hand traffic, which takes some getting used to

The game places the player in the shoes of Wei Shen, an undercover cop infiltrating the world of Triads. As Wei Shen, the player will go through a fairly run-of-the-mill undercover cop story, whose main driving theme is Wei Shen’s struggle to figure out where his loyalties lie – with the police or with his newfound brothers-in-crime. The gameplay revolves around roaming the streets of various districts of Hong Kong either on foot or on wheels (or boats), conducting missions for the police and the Triads and getting into cool kung fu fueled fistfights. In addition, as one would expect from an open-world game, there is a plethora of side activities to get distracted by. Some of these include singing karaoke, betting on cock fights (har har), fighting in martial arts arenas, pimping out Wei in your choice of clothing and hunting for the numerous hidden collectibles that are scattered around the city.

There are plenty of chase sequences where you get to utilize Wei's
freerunning skills, borrowed from the Assassin's Creed games

There are some gadget-based minigames where you have to open locks or hack security systems, for example.

The Good

To start off with the positives, the two most notable strengths of Sleeping Dogs are its original and cool setting in Hong Kong and its brilliant hand-to-hand combat system. First, Hong Kong, as portrayed in the game, looks really good. Everything you see is vibrant and colorful, and there are plenty of different types of locales to explore. Hong Kong is also a very fresh setting, which makes it much more interesting to explore than, say, a fictional city in the US. The setting is also brilliantly used in the game’s audio department, which is another of the game's strengths. The characters switch fluidly between English and Cantonese in their dialogue, and the game’s radio stations play a curious mix of Western and Eastern music.

Lights, so many lights everywhere!

Secondly, there is the hand-to-hand combat system, which was marketed as one of the game’s main selling points. It is basically the combat system from Batman: Arkham Asylum, but expanded to also include some light grappling elements. There are three different types of enemies in the game: regular thugs, brawlers and wrestlers. The brawlers block strikes but are susceptible to grappling moves, and vice versa with the wrestlers. The different enemy types, as well as armed enemies, bring some welcome variety into the combat. The real highlight of the combat is, however, the glorious environmental takedowns.

A big part of the combat is fishing for counterattacks and following
them up with a flurry of strikes, à la Assassin's Creed

The environmental takedowns are performed by grapping an enemy and dragging him to a pre-determined background object, such as a telephone booth or an electric eel tank, and then pressing a button to execute an instant kill move with occasionally a rather visceral death animation. I found that there is enough variety in the environmental takedowns to keep them satisfying throughout the game. Overall, the combat system is reasonably simple, but has enough depth in it to make melee combat fun and satisfying throughout the length of the story.

Tyrannosaurus Rekt

In addition to the above mentioned setting and combat, I would count the story of Sleeping Dogs as a positive as well. The story is essentially about Wei's conflicting loyalties between being a cop and the his relationship with his Tried buddies; nothing groundbreaking, in other words. Still, I found that the story works quite well in the context of the game. It was simple and straightforward enough to not overpower and distract from the freeform nature of the game, and yet compelling enough to provide the player with a constant drive to progress in the game to see what happens next.

Working your way up in the food chain

The Bad

Although the game is fun, it also has some kinks that would've required further development time to iron out. As it is, the core gameplay is fine, but some of the side activities are clearly undercooked. A prime example of this is the dating mini game, where Wei Shen has the opportunity to take a number of women out on dates. In reality, these dates do not amount to very much (although I do rank them above GTA IV’s infamous "let's go bowling!" in their fun factor), but hey – at least they got Emma Stone to voice one of the dateable women! Surely that counts for something, right?

Meet Emma St- I mean Amanda Cartwright

Another example of a gameplay element that could have used further consideration is the security camera hacking side missions. The idea is that you go to a location, beat up a bunch of thugs, hack a security camera and go back to your apartment to identify a drug dealer. While this is fun the first few times, the problem is that this routine is heavily overused, and thus becomes a tedious chore later on. Fortunately, many of the other types of gadget mini games, such as opening locked boxes, are used more sparingly, and thus remain fun.

You'll be doing this...

...and this a lot, if you're a completionist

Moving away from the gameplay and into the story aspects, I think that Wei Shen’s moral dilemmas about operating on both sides of the law is a subject that could have been addressed more. He is shown having nightmares about the things he experiences during the story, which quite effectively builds tension for the eventual resolution. Unfortunately, this tension never really pays of, which is definitely a missed opportunity. Additionally, the police side of the story is overall weaker than the more personal struggles Wei faces in the Triad circles. The story also seems to thematically clash with the gameplay in the sense that the gameplay is rather arcadey and fast paced, but the story is entirely serious and even turns quite dark towards the end.

Finally, there are some weird visual issues with the game that are perhaps worth mentioning. First, the entire game has about three different character models for non-plot related characters, which means that you will see identical characters ALL THE TIME when roaming around in the city. Secondly, while the game looks rather beautiful overall, it also has some jarringly horrible textures to be found in some places, such as store windows and the various food stands that are scattered across the city.

Delicious veggies...

Finally, the game also features firearms, although they come into play more towards the end game (which I think is a good choice). Unfortunately, the gunplay is nowhere near as fun or satisfying as the hand-to-hand combat. Rather, when the guns enter into the picture, the game turns into a very rudimentary cover-based shooter, which I found to be more limiting than it is empowering. When guns entered the picture, I went from fluidly taking on a dozen guys at once and hitting counterattacks left, right and center to hiding behind chest-high walls and playing whack-a-mole with the enemies heads. the focus of the combat system is clearly in the hand-to-hand combat, and that's without a question where the game excels in. Hell, the guns even look odd, like they're plastic toys rather than actual firearms.

I'd rather give them a good ol' knuckle sandwitch

The Verdict

So, in conclusion, the two main strengths of Sleeping Dogs are its fantastic Honk Kong setting and the fluid and fun hand-to-hand combat. Furthermore, although the story is hardly original, I would still count it as a strong suit for the game. The main weaknesses of the game are found in the underdeveloped side activities and the poor gunplay. Overall, I think Sleeping Dogs is a worthy entry into the genre and definitely worth picking up on a sale, if not at full price.