Sleeping Dogs

I'm not going to lie, a big reason I bought this game was because it was set in Asia with Asian characters and I was sick of playing white American characters in videogames. That is why I gave it a chance despite most modern crime sandbox games are just filled with pointless garbage like yoga or golf or some other kind of other garbage.

Sleeping Dogs is a bit old having been published back in 2012 by Square Enix, but the game has fairly recently released, after some touch up by the developers at United Front Games,  a definitive edition bringing the entire game together with all its downloadable content into a single package. With the definitive edition the games is also now available on the PS4, Xbox One along with their older siblings and the PC, but its exclusive to windows. I got the game a while ago when they put out a game of the year edition on the PC so while this isn't a review of the new definitive edition its pretty much going to cover everything in it.

I found the narrative in Sleeping Dogs pretty interesting, granted it wasn't unique as its about a cop infiltrating a criminal organization and trying to maintain a balance and that has been done quite a few times over in all kinds of media. What made it a bit more interesting for me is that these were Triads and not your run of the mill mobsters. East Asian criminal organizations generally do tend to have some substantial age differences compared to their European or American counterparts with some of these Asian criminal organizations dating back to you know, a few centuries ago. To me that meant there is a lot more culture there, there are more well defined rules and some really rich source material to draw from. Just a quick example would be the fact that the criminal organization in the game, the 'Sun On Yee' are based on a real triad called the 'Sun Yee On' an organization with over fifty five thousand members and the mobsters in the game are actually based on real members of this triad with their names obviously changed. The story did lose a bit of its potential sting though as it didn't really mesh very well with the game's mechanics and world. I definitely enjoyed myself playing it and I enjoy the characters and how they developed as the game went on, but the ending left me feeling pretty unsatisfied at end despite a pretty strong experience up until that point.

 The world itself was also pretty well realized as the same quality that was shown when drawing from the real source material was put on display rendering the city of Hong Kong itself. The map definitely isn't accurate to the actual city of Hong Kong but the major sites are there and the overall feel of the city is pretty spot on. Having been to Hong Kong myself I enjoyed reliving the experience a bit through the game again. It looked the same it sounded the same all that was missing was for it to smell and taste the same. I was especially fond of the food stand hawkers in the game, because if there is one thing I am always ready for, it is to gobble down some Chinese buns. So, soft, so moist, so delicious. I'm not a fan of meaningless stuffing in games though which this game had like any other open world adventure game, but at least here I found it amusing to give most of them a try for a little while. Aside from the racing and dating aspects which were pretty standard despite them getting high profile actors like Emma Stone to do the voices the more amusing ones were the things that stuck more to Hong Kong culture like the karaoke, the cockfighting, the dojos and favors around town did serve to bring the world to life a bit more.

A nice colored box wouldn't be entertaining though if the controls were garbage and thankfully they aren't. The controls feel solid weather you are driving or you are fighting and its all done to meet a pretty high standard of quality. I personally found the melee fighting significantly better than the Grand Theft Auto series for example. There are a ton of weapons and environmental objects all of which sound and feel very viscerally satisfying to use and when it is possible you will find yourself wanting to use melee weapons as opposed to the guns that are available in the game. The parkour in the game also makes running around the game more fun than other open world games with the exception to the Assassin's Creed series as its the only one that shares the same kind of movement system just don't expect to be running up the sides of buildings in this game.

The downloadable content added some decent sections to the game, although I felt both of the expansions that added new quests lines were pretty short. I did enjoy that neither of them took themselves to seriously though. The zombie quest line to put down the spirit of a mobster who was ground into cat food was nice since it had some call backs to the game itself. The other one was my favorite though, you are called to a fighting competition on an Island off the coast of Hong Kong and you get to fight to the death against opponents in a sepia colored setting that was paying homage to an entire era of Hong Kong cinema. Aside from that the rest of the downloadable content was pretty meaningless like a bunch of skins and clothes and some of it actually hurt my experience like the packs that gave you police and criminal credibility which gave me a ton of content I shouldn't have had right at the start of the game.

I had a great time playing Sleeping Dogs and that is surprising since I expected it to be very similar to GTA 4 which was a disjointed mess. Thankfully, it turned out to be a pretty well put together experience that looked good, controlled well, and used source material that doesn't traditionally make it into major videogame titles. If you are a fan of good videogames then you should get this game, if you are a fan of open world games then you should definitely get this game. Just maybe not this version of it, so head on over to wherever you get games and pick up the definitive edition of it.