Sleeping Dogs almost didn’t see the light of day. But I’m glad that it did. It’s reminiscent to Hong Kong action cinema flair and United Front Games translated those memorable hard-boiled moments into the video game world. There’s a lot of rampant corruption to be found in the Triad underworld of Sleeping Dogs but the underlying message of honor, loyalty, and respect molds an engrossing narrative from start to finish.
Sleeping Dogs
Developer: United Front Games
Price: $59.99
Platform: Xbox 360 [reviewed], Playstation 3, PC
A retail copy of Sleeping Dogs was supplied by Square Enix for review
Undercover cop Wei Shen treads a line between his badge and the code of honor. This line becomes increasingly blurred and the shifting narrative plays out in a way that leaves no stone unturned by the end. The notable star-studded Hollywood cast plays out nicely in this atmosphere. It’s hard to picture anyone but Tom Wilkinson to portray a well-spoken Englishman. Sure, the story drags in the first couple of hours but as you climb the ranks of the criminal organization, the latter part of the game is fairly captivating as the characters become a lot more personable. There’s also scattered tongue-in-cheek references throughout that gives homage to its Asian cinema inspirations.
Storyline missions incorporate a variety of gameplay elements with combat, gun play, and investigation all weaved together. You start out with the usual racketeering and extortion that lends to beating up a bunch of dudes with kung fu mastery. Melee combat is generally competent with occasional hitches with lag time. Fighting groups of thugs became slightly repetitive at times, but the variety of executable moves and environmental obstacles broke up the monotony. The gun play is fairly generic with pop in and out of cover mechanics. However, aiming in while performing a vault results in a John Woo slow-motion style bullet time sequence that’s fun to mess around with, especially when you’re gunning down relentless waves of thugs.
The undercover cop elements are primarily played out in a separate side story where you solve cases by building up evidence that ultimately lead to the arrest of a known criminal in drug trafficking, illegal street racing, and murder. The investigative process pulls from various mini game scenarios to plant a bug, pick a lock, trace a call, etc. You’ll find yourself solving a code or syncing a frequency that serves as filler time in between the action oriented missions. It’s not enthralling but it serves to build the role that Wei Shen ultimately has to fulfill amidst conflicting loyalties.
There’s a ton of open world exploration to be found as well. The vibrant city of Hong Kong comes to life in Sleeping Dogs more so than any other game. The map is large and free to explore to your liking and that’s ultimately where I found my mileage in this game. While it’s not quite as on-to-par with Grand Theft Auto, there’s a plentiful amount of side missions and romance threads you can undertake that reward you with better upgrades, customization, and all that pizzazz. Did I mention karaoke? Let’s not. Or imagine going up to a glowing red shrine in order to improve your health bar? You’ll laugh hysterically at the thought of it.
The driving segments are nicely matched with the set piece moments in Sleeping Dogs, enabling Wei Shen to hijack the pursuers’ car or ram a police vehicle off the road. Vehicle gunplay starts from tense slow-mo moments and ends in cars going out in a fiery blaze of glory. All the while, Sleeping Dogs keeps track of your actions during the missions and tallies up a score that in turn ranks you in a global leaderboard in the aptly named Social Hub to compensate as the multiplayer portion of the game. Aside from bragging rights, there’s not much else to do there.
The Final Word
Sleeping Dogs is a bonafide open world adventure and digging into the underworld of Hong Kong will yield great rewards. Aside from the occasional bugs and glitches, the overall package is hard to resist especially if you’re looking for a cinematic adventure from start to completion.
– MonsterVine Rating: 4.5 out of 5 – Great
