The game is a mix of yakuza and gta. It is set in china so one of the first big difficulties i went through was getting used to drawing in the left side of the road. The graphics and visuals are pretty good, there are a lot of details and objects in the world that are interactable at any time, so the world feels rich. In terms of gameplay, the fighting is stiff but satisfying at the beginning, however eventually it gets repetitive and not interesting anymore. The driving is weird, it also feels kind of stiff but it is much much better than GTAIV's driving, i got used to it and it stopped being a struggle. The story is great, there is a level of pacing, there are emotional moments, there is a twist, its great overall although i think its a bit short but thats no problem. There are activities in the city like karaoke or cock fighting that are optional, personally i don't see the point, the karaoke gameplay is boring and the cock fighting is heavily unfair. There are a quite a few of bugs in the game that sometimes made the game unplayable but not too much. there are 3 dlcs in the game, one included in the base game and 2 are playable from the main menu as standalone dlcs. they all take about an hour each to beat excluding the side content. My favorite is the zodiac tournament, it's so goofy and epic and intentionally cliché. Now, i 100% completed the game with all achievements and that took a lot of time. It is so time consuming, there is just a few interesting side things to do, all the rest is just brainless. i'm dead aside. The hardest achievement to get is 'pure gold', to get 30 gold stats, which are extremely time consuming and general and repetitive. If you have time to waste, go ahead and complete the game, it's not hard just long and that's what she said.

I’m probably not the first person to admit this, but I don’t think the Grand Theft Auto games are actually that fun to play. They are spectacle crime simulators, with arcady driving and mediocre gun combat. While their narratives feature top notch voice talent and good moment to moment writing, the stories themselves end up as cliche Mafia stories involving feuding gangs and eventual betrayals. Enter Sleeping Dogs, a game developed by the now defunct United Front Games, a GTA clone with a Hong Kong action twist. And strangely enough the change in setting and melee combat actually made me a believer in this GTA clone.

You play as Wei Shen, an undercover cop infiltrating a Triad clan known as the Sun On Yee. The Sun On Yee is notorious for rooting out rats. You quickly learn that the previous undercover officer was brutally tortured and killed. Wei’s own legitimacy is questioned by the gang members but fortunately he proves himself worthy to them. As Wei begins to work his way up the ranks of the clan, it starts to dawn on him that he is in too deep. Wei starts to sympathize with some of his brothers especially with Jackie, a scrawny low level goon who sells fake watches. The rest of the plot involves Wei balancing his duty as an officer of the law and as a violent Triad member.

Sleeping Dogs gets the melee combat and the traversal right. The melee combat is visceral and satisfying. It is a simple combination of punches, counters and throws, but challenging where mindless button mashing will quickly get you killed. To break down the monotony of combat, there are environmental takedowns. Wei can grab foes and throw them into hazards including phone booths, ventilation fans and exposed electric circuits. I found the combat to be reminiscent of a cross between the Batman Arkham games and the heat actions from the Yakuza series. The second element that Sleeping Dogs excels at is the parkour system. By timing the A button at the right moment, Wei can vault over walls, glide over benches and make epic leaps over buildings. The parkour system helps make chases fun and is reminiscent of Hong Kong action films.

The glaring weakness of Sleeping Dogs is the gun combat. The gun combat in it of itself is fine; there is a slow down mechanic that triggers when you parkour and aim at the same time. The problem is that guns make melee combat obsolete. Even with your melee skills maxed out, guns are superior in every way. The game tries to mediate this issue by explaining that guns in Hong Kong are very rare. But then the game proceeds to break its own rules in the second half of the game where it seems as if every single baddie is armed to the teeth. It is possible to engage these foes with your fists, but it is much easier to head to the nearest form of cover and use your guns instead. It also doesn’t help that some of the costume DLC for Sleeping Dogs is purposefully built to make Wei an unstoppable gun-toting killing machine

The narrative of Sleeping Dogs is a very predictable crime story but still an enjoyable experience due to the Hong Kong setting. There are some strong memorable characters like the aforementioned Jackie and Mrs. Chu, the mother of a Triad leader who has a rather gruesome way of serving justice. The side characters however, especially the love interests, are heavily underdeveloped. The game has a habit of introducing you to a character, having you spend two side quests with them and then completely abandoning them as if they have never existed. The only side character and love interest that has a decent closing arc is Ilyana, but that is only after you decide to complete all of the Police missions. The side quests feel pretty run of the mill and I recommend only completing them until you have maxed out your experience.

While I’m not a native Hong Konger, I am familiar with the language. The good news is that Sleeping Dogs is a decent portrayal of Hong Kong. The environment is evocative of the real Hong Kong, with the car driving wheel being on the right side and cars driving on the left side of the road. The bad news is that the Cantonese is all over the place. Characters often mix English and Cantonese together in their conversations which doesn’t make any sense especially in Hong Kong. The only type of Chinese people that speak this way are non-native Chinese like American Born Chinese because they don’t have the sufficient vocabulary to say a full sentence in Cantonese. It’s very strange because characters like Mrs. Chu and others speak in perfect Cantonese, so I suspect it is a vocal casting issue. My other big qualm about the dialog is that almost everyone speaks with an American accent even though Hong Kong was formerly a British colony.

My takeaway from Sleeping Dogs is that it is a GTA clone done right. The game feels fresh and exciting with the setting being in Hong Kong. The melee combat and traversal are fun enough by themselves and sets it apart from just being another GTA clone. The problem I have with Sleeping Dogs is that guns completely trivialize melee combat. The game also has an issue of introducing side characters only to immediately abandon them soon after. Sleeping Dogs is almost too evocative of a Hong Kong action film. It’s good dumb fun as long as you don’t think too much about it.

Unarguably, this is the number 1 most favourite & most thrilling gangster-type game I ever played. I think this statement could be true to many gamers who played this game.

The main story in this game was fascinating and one of a kind. And there were interesting side missions with different characters & with the different stories in it. They were also goooood. 😎👍 Also the game mechanics... Damn, next level. (As a 2012 game, it was... 😎🔥) Not to mention about the fighting in this game, love the kung fu like style. (I don't know what the style is actually. But I love it. 😂🔥) Not gonna lie, but It was the best thing in this game... To me at least. And there were slow motion shooting too, N0ice. 🔥 Actually there were many kind of interesting action based things in this game. And they were all superb in every way. Gaphics were also very good too. As a 2012 game, it had a real solid quality graphics.

Actually, I received full package of gaming enjoyment from this game. And also, It was really a mind blowing experience to me really. As a gamer, I thinks everyone must play this game & witness the mighty of this masterpiece. ✨

This is probably a waaay better crime sandbox type game than GTA V (which is the only other one I played) in my opinion just cause of all the little details that make the actual sandbox more fun to mess around in. People actually recoil from getting shot rather than just straight ragdolling and there's a proper combat system so the game just feels more responsive in the second-to-second gameplay. Also even if this game wasn't good I'd still at least like it for setting a crime sandbox in a place that isn't in LA or New York for once (which its predecessors in the True Crime series had already done).

I like the story and how it's able to draw you to the whole atmosphere of Hong Kong's criminal underworld. I know that a lot of people (e.g., me) hate in games where half the side content is copypasted a trillion million times or whatever but here I think it kind of works in just establishing Wei Shen's life as a triad/cop whatever. Though I have a couple of issues with the story. The first is (spoiler alert for like the second-last mission in the game) they just kill off my main fucking man Jackie in a way that just feels cruel and cheap. Like I wasn't even really shocked when it happened, I was more annoyed than anything. And then right after that mission is done, Wei Shen just pulls up to the main villain's restaurant and fucking kills him in a way that feels like could have been done at literally any point. This is a weirdly specific problem both GTA V and Red Dead Redemption 2 had, what I like to call the "Alright, that's it" phenomenon. Maybe there's some difficulty with writing mission-based stories separated from each other by the rest of the open-world game that leads to stuff like this happening, I don't know. But it does kind of make the whole internal political manoeuvring within the Sun On Yee that made up a few of the later story missions just seem kind of baffling. I don't see why it was necessary to go through all that business of electing Two-Chin Tsao as chairman as a proxy for Jiang in order to discretely get past Big Smile Lee when we clearly could have just murderised the fucker from step one with no real consequence. Anyway besides all that, very good game play it

At the end of the day (Yes, I am starting with this.), Sleeping Dogs is a GTA clone. But, the game is more engaging, better executed and much more polished compared to any of the installments of GTA. It adds small improvements to GTA's gameplay mechanics; and though trivial, these help make the overall experience more satisfying. Almost every aspect of the game is better than its GTA counterpart. At approximately 24 hours of total playtime, its scale is significantly smaller than all the GTA titles. But, in my opinion, it's far better to have a diverse, rich and compact world in place of the bland city Rockstar releases every few years (except for Vice City). Given how underrepresented all communities except Caucasians are in the gaming sphere, the premise of the game world is also exotic and adds a feeling of novelty to the game. The best thing about the game: playing as Jackie Chan (Actually, the guy is different; but the similarities are uncanny.) I do have a few gripes about SD: the relationship system is laughably shallow and pointless, the ending is highly improbable, it's way too easy, and Wei Shen's frequent revival of broken bones and cuts ruined the whole sense of immersion for me (especially towards the end). All in all, the story, the characters, and the ideal length assures that you will remain interested in the game till the very end. Now, I want to download DmC: Devil May Cry. But, Wish Net continues to suck donkey-cocks.

Actual Score: 4/5

Sleeping Dogs has many things i like. It has a unique setting. There's a freely explorable open world. The story is actually interesting. And the production value is excellent.

It's also one of the few games that literally had me banging my head on the wall because it is so incredibly frustrating. Right from the start you are put into fights where you are wildly outnumbered. The only way to deal with this is by blocking carefully while waiting for an opening.

And blocking simply does not work well. Some of the time it works, most of the time you're left frustrated because no matter how hard you mash the button, the game screws you over. I played this at the same time as Shadows of Mordor and the difference is insane. In SoM, blocking/countering actually fucking works.

On top of this, it has the worst health management in the history of gaming. You regenerate up to half your health normally. To get fully healed, you have to consume food/drinks. So before every fight you have to find a food stand and buy food, otherwise you're going to die.

Oh yeah, and increasing you maximum health requires you to find objects that aren't shown on the map. You have to drive around (with clumsy controls) in the hopes of finding them. It's like they don't even want you to enjoy the game.

Sleeping Dogs is a very enjoyable GTA-style game set in a well detailed Hong Kong. The story is engaging and has great pacing, with an interesting supporting cast and several funny moments there is a lot to love about the story in Sleeping Dogs. The main attraction of the game is the great kung-fu style hand-to-hand combat of which there is thankfully plenty, the gun play is average and the driving is pretty good. The graphics though now a little outdated still looks quite nice particularly at night, there is some great animation work in the combat but facial animations are a little weak. Overall an easy recommendation if you like open-world style games.

Story

In Sleeping Dogs you play was Wei Shen an undercover officer with the Hong Kong police who is infiltrating the Sun On Yee triad. The supporting cast is interesting, if a little two dimensional. The overall plot is well developed and gripping although it does leave some mysteries especially in regards to the secondary characters and their motives. The main attraction of the story is the unique and often unexplored setting, Hong Kong. The definitive edition includes the DLC, of which I only played some. The highlight of the DLCs was the Enter the Dragon spoof called the Zodiac Tournament which was funny and quite camp. The other main DLCs are the Year of the Snake and Nightmare in North Point, which I did not play much of.

Gameplay

The gameplay of Sleeping Dogs is incredibly fun. The highlight here is definitely the kung-fu style melee system, despite its simplicity the feeling of the hits and the slow-motion moments are great. The other important part of the melee system is the environmental kills, which are canned moves that instantly kill enemies, it's a very important part of the melee system though it does get a little repetitive seeing the same animations throughout the game.

The other part of combat is the gunplay, which is not really present in the first quarter of the game though really comes into play later on. The gunplay is probably the weakest part of Sleeping Dogs and the guns all feel quite similar and quite inaccurate, with the only redeeming feature being the bullet time slow-mo which is activated when jumping over cover and other key moments in the combat.

The driving mechanics are sound. Cars feel quite heavy to drive which is good for larger vehicles like vans or sedans though unfortunately even high end sports cars have a weak turning circle at high and low speed. Despite this the races in the game (of which there are many) are for the most part very enjoyable and using the handbrake to do a sharp turn is fun. You can also ram other vehicles by using a button and direction, which feels quite odd at first though the effects are very enjoyable because the impact feels very strong. The motorbikes were the most enjoyable and what I would recommend you use mostly.

There is also several minigames such as karaoke, which plays as you might expect. There is mahjong poker which I played a bit of, unfortunately it is almost 100% luck but it's fun enough for a little minigame. There is also cockfighting though I didn't do any of that.

Presentation

The graphics are pretty good as well. Considering the game is not really new it does look quite nice especially if it is raining because the reflections of the puddles on the road is really nice. The characters look standard and facial animations are average. The animations during the hand-to-hand combat is very good, though when using a melee weapon they become noticeably stiffer. Hong Kong is beautiful at night with the bright neon signs and layout, it also provides several diverse suburbs from the high-end CBD to the coastal slums and factories.

The music is one of the best parts of the overall presentation with GTA-esque radio stations, my favourites were the Chinese club/rap music, the classical station and the electronic station though the other stations also have a great variety of tracks and there should be something here for everyone. The only downside to the radio stations was that there is not really that many tracks per station, probably only ~6 so get used to hearing the same music regularly, it would've been nice to have custom radio stations with our own music. There is also music during certain moments outside of the radio stations and for the most part these are good background pieces.