Sleeping Dogs is set in Hong Kong and follows Wei Shen, an undercover detective working for the Hong Kong Police Department. Wei is on a mission to infiltrate the Sun On Yee, a branch of Hong Kong's famous Triad gang organization. Wei grew up with a number of the higher ranking members of the gang, and as such, has an easy in with the group. This in will make his police work both easier and more difficult at the same time as emotional ties get in the way of justice.
Wei's unique relationship with the gang leads to him quickly rising in the ranks of the Triad. Wei soon finds himself surrounded by his childhood friends, even if they are murders, drug lords, and human traffickers. The duality of Shen's existence weighs heavily on him, and he is forced to choose between his job, his friends, and justice many times throughout his career. In many cases, justice isn't achieved through the methods or organizations that one might think. Wei Shen works to keep his life in balance while still completing his assigned missions and protecting his friends in a world full of political maneuvering and betrayals.
 |
| He's gone Wei too far this time... |
Surprisingly, my first problem with the game is the setting. From what I know of Hong Kong, it is an extremely interesting and beautiful place. The game world in Sleeping Dogs does absolutely nothing to make the city feel unique other than both Chinese and English languages being present on signs and in overheard conversations. The majority of Hong Kong in the game feels bland and it's hard to tell one area from the next. It really seems as though Square could have put some more effort into their setting.
On first appearance, the game's map seems as though it is quite large. After playing for a while it quickly becomes evident that the majority of the map is filled with empty, unvisitable space however. The scale of the map is also much different than other recent Sandbox games, making what looks like a long trip take much less time than one would think. This could possibly be a remnant of the game's last-gen origins, though should not have been overlooked since the company was still planning to release on current-gen consoles.
 |
| As far as I can tell, all of real-life Hong Kong looks like this. |
Gameplay in Sleeping Dogs is slightly different than other Sandbox games. Sure there's the driving, racing, exploration, and mini-games, but Sleeping Dogs focuses more on Kung Fu when it comes to combat than the firearms seen in most other games. The game justifies this by stating that guns are extremely hard to come by in the city, though in later levels all enemies seem to have found plenty.
Hand-to-hand combat is relatively fun, and Sleeping Dogs offers a number of environmental props which can be used on grappled enemies for cinematic finishers. A few combos are initially available for use and Wei can unlock more through training at a local dojo. Combos are relatively easy to remember and work well in combat. Wei is also able to counter enemy attacks similar to the Arkham series's free-flow combat system. I did feel that enemies took way too much damage before falling, though this was more forgivable in melee combat than in firefights. I swear that in the world of Sleeping Dogs bullets do way less damage than punches.
 |
| Wei Shen in his Dancing With The Stars debut! |
Aaand now we get to the major problem with the game, the controls. First off, the driving controls are extremely bad. Yes, you can adapt to them and play the game just fine, but it's a pain. Lets just say when I hopped onto my first motorcycle I spent the majority of my time hitting everything around me due to the weird steering and acceleration. Cars handle similarly horribly, though a bit better than the bikes. On the bright side, the game's AI has just as much trouble controlling their vehicles, so races are pretty easy once every other AI racer ends up wrecking. I'm sorry, but in a game where the majority of your play-time is going to be spent driving, having decent controls is a must! I honestly started to wonder if United Front was offensively programming in a common Asian stereotype!
Things don't get much better when on foot. Sleeping Dogs features some "free running" (think Assassin's Creed, only, in this game your assassin is drunk). Wei can vault over obstacles, jump up onto overhangs, and use other parkour-like moves. The problem is, most things that look like Wei should be able to climb on, he can't. It appears as though only things that were specifically programmed to be climbable can be traversed, even if it may appear otherwise. This leads to some hilarious, if not incredibly frustrating, chase sequences where Wei just fails miserably at looking cool and completely biffs a jump.
 |
| Sorry, jumping over counters isn't exactly parkour... |
The graphics in Sleeping Dogs really shows that the game was supposed to be out in 2009. In some cases textures and character models look like they're from two gaming generations ago. The ugliness is somewhat forgivable, but the majority of the missions in the game until the very last few are actually pretty uninteresting. Add to this that none of the characters in the game are really that memorable, and you have a game that doesn't have too much going for it in the long-term.
 |
| "Go on, tell me I look like like I'm from Playstation 2 one more time, I dare you!" |
Sleeping Dogs offers around 25 hours of gameplay, though whether or not this is a good thing depends on your overall enjoyment of the somewhat broken game system. In addition to the police and Triad missions, Wei can help out friends in short mini-missions, hunt down collectables, take part in races, and of course, sing at a karaoke bar. I've already talked a bit about the races in the game, but I do want to mention the ridiculousness of your AI racers. It often seemed to me that, even if every other car wiped out, at least one car would magically speed up to finish the race in a predetermined time. As in, one car was programmed to ALWAYS finish after a certain amount of time no matter what. I'm not sure if it was my imagination, but in a number of races I would be in first place in a fast car only to have another (much slower) car move up from behind and zoom its way ahead of me for no apparent reason.
Similarly to races, when being chased by the police in the game it doesn't matter how fast your car is, the police will be RIGHT on your tail. Even when you drive a police car to its maximum speed and learn how fast they can go, if the AI is driving, they magically can go as fast as the fastest sports car. Luckily the police are lame and easy to outrun, no matter the current wanted level Wei has. Again, things don't get better when on foot as the police can ALWAYS run faster than you, leaving free running as the only real way to gain any distance, and we've already discussed how well that usually goes.
 |
| They may not look like much, but these men and women of the badge are actually super-human! |
After looking at other reviews for Sleeping Dogs, I'm left wondering if they played the same game that I played. I'm thinking that either the reviewers were paid off, or I'm just way harder on games than I thought I was. I got Sleeping Dogs for free during the Games with Gold promotion on Xbox Live, and I'm pretty happy with that price. In fact, I'd be ok with paying a used price for the game at this point, but I'd definitely advise against buying it at full price.
Amulets and Ale Rating:
Follow Amulets and Ale on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/AmuletsAndAle!
No comments:
Post a Comment