Sleeping Dogs

[Gamerforlife]

I bought this yesterday for the 360 and I played it for several hours today. It's very hard to stop playing once you start. The game is better than I expected and I can see why JT enjoyed it. I tend to go into GTA style games not expecting any particular gameplay element to be particularly good. They seem to go that Jack of all trades master of none approach. Everything in Sleeping Dogs so far is pretty solid.

At first, I thought the combat was good but not as good as the Batman games that seem to have inspired it. After playing quite a bit more, getting some combat upgrades and just generally getting more comfortable with fighting, I think the combat sytem is on par with the Batman games. It may even be better. I would have played Sleeping Dogs a lot sooner if I knew it placed such a heavy emphasis on melee combat.

The driving parts are fun. Ramming cars is satisfying and makes chases and races fun, not to mention shooting cars off the road.

The on foot chases are fantastic. Running up walls, leaping over gaps and dodging innocent bystanders in your way is cinematic and makes you feel like Jackie Chan

The mini games for various things like hacking, planting bugs, etc. are all cool and fun

The story is awesome. This really feels like a well done Asian movie and having it be interactive is great. Everything from the visuals, the music, the Asian dialog with subtitles, and the very Kung Fu style combat has that Asian movie feel

The only part of the game I'm not loving is the gun play, which is about on par with every other mediocre shooter on the market. Take cover, pop up and shoot, heal up, rinse and repeat. Yawn. Like most mediocre shooters, taking damage is a given. Thus, you feel like there's no skill involved in winning gunfights since you gonna get hit no matter what you do. There's a bit of John Woo style slow mo like you see in Stranglehold and Max Payne, but so far it hasn't given me enough of an edge to make the shoot outs feel different from everything else out there. It's actually kind of patronizing when the game tells you to slow down time to hit your enemies, when you still end up taking damage whether you're slowing down time or not. Even with slo mo activated it still takes too long to down one guy, and once you come out of slow mo five other guys are plugging you with bullets before you can get back into cover. Any time you pop out of cover to hit someone with slo mo or not, you WILL GET HIT. Ugh, I hate shooters. They're always so sloppily designed. Thankfully, the game emphasis melee most of the time, and not guns. Melee combat is tightly controlled and skill oriented, and not the random mess that shoot outs are

There's an impressive level of polish in this game. The difficulty seems to scale up well. The game is very clever about how it teaches you stuff and every part of the game from the main story missions to the optional stuff manages to be fun and solid. Plus, the upgrade systems are great and you get XP at a fast enough rate from doing story missions, side missions, and finding collectibles that you feel like you're always getting a bit stronger. Oh, and did I mention you can replay missions? Awesome

[Dakinggamer87]

I bought this yesterday for the 360 and I played it for several hours today. It's very hard to stop playing once you start. The game is better than I expected and I can see why JT enjoyed it. I tend to go into GTA style games not expecting any particular gameplay element to be particularly good. They seem to go that Jack of all trades master of none approach. Everything in Sleeping Dogs so far is pretty solid.

At first, I thought the combat was good but not as good as the Batman games that seem to have inspired it. After playing quite a bit more, getting some combat upgrades and just generally getting more comfortable with fighting, I think the combat sytem is on par with the Batman games. It may even be better. I would have played Sleeping Dogs a lot sooner if I knew it placed such a heavy emphasis on melee combat.

The driving parts are fun. Ramming cars is satisfying and makes chases and races fun, not to mention shooting cars off the road.

The on foot chases are fantastic. Running up walls, leaping over gaps and dodging innocent bystanders in your way is cinematic and makes you feel like Jackie Chan

The mini games for various things like hacking, planting bugs, etc. are all cool and fun

The story is awesome. This really feels like a well done Asian movie and having it be interactive is great. Everything from the visuals, the music, the Asian dialog with subtitles, and the very Kung Fu style combat has that Asian movie feel

The only part of the game I'm not loving is the gun play, which is about on par with every other mediocre shooter on the market. Take cover, pop up and shoot, heal up, rinse and repeat. Yawn. Like most mediocre shooters, taking damage is a given. Thus, you feel like there's no skill involved in winning gunfights since you gonna get hit no matter what you do. There's a bit of John Woo style slow mo like you see in Stranglehold and Max Payne, but so far it hasn't given me enough of an edge to make the shoot outs feel different from everything else out there. It's actually kind of patronizing when the game tells you to slow down time to hit your enemies, when you still end up taking damage whether you're slowing down time or not. Even with slo mo activated it still takes too long to down one guy, and once you come out of slow mo five other guys are plugging you with bullets before you can get back into cover. Any time you pop out of cover to hit someone with slo mo or not, you WILL GET HIT. Ugh, I hate shooters. They're always so sloppily designed. Thankfully, the game emphasis melee most of the time, and not guns. Melee combat is tightly controlled and skill oriented, and not the random mess that shoot outs are

There's an impressive level of polish in this game. The difficulty seems to scale up well. The game is very clever about how it teaches you stuff and every part of the game from the main story missions to the optional stuff manages to be fun and solid. Plus, the upgrade systems are great and you get XP at a fast enough rate from doing story missions, side missions, and finding collectibles that you feel like you're always getting a bit stronger. Oh, and did I mention you can replay missions? Awesome

It is a sleeper hit that really surprised me. I was excited for it but I was definitely shocked at the level of polish this game presented.

[Pulsar_t]

The PC version looks even fancier. Definitely puts GTA and SR to shame.

Once I was finished with the main story there was not much to go on, but for a game that was essentially cancelled to be so entertaining I was pleasantly surprised as well.

[Gamerforlife]

The PC version looks even fancier. Definitely puts GTA and SR to shame.

Once I was finished with the main story there was not much to go on, but for a game that was essentially cancelled to be so entertaining I was pleasantly surprised as well.

Yeah, I'm glad it came out. The melee combat system alone makes the game worth it, but it does some other things surprisingly well too. I think the melee combat is what people will remember it for though.

As for the PC version looking fancier, I've heard its graphics are vastly superior to the console versions. I've always been a console guy though so I played it on 360, but the PC version seems to be one of the better PC ports out there, at least visually anyway. Funny, because I think the game looks great on console, so the PC version must be quite impressive indeed

[J T]

It is impressive that most of the different gameplay modes work so well. Fighting, driving, parkour, hacking, etc. They are all fun. It's rare for a game to be so varied and still nail all of the little variations.

Like Pulsar_t, I didn't find there was much worth doing after the main story was over though. This is different from a game like GTA: San Andreas where I was so distracted by little things that can be done in the world that I didn't really care much about the main quest.

I did do a lot of the sidequests, but after awhile they got to be too boring and redundant. Another drug bust where you beat up some thugs, hack a camera, and nail a deal with surveillance . Another inane favor that somebody on the street wants. Another heist of an armoured vehicle. Another street race. I had fun with each of these side quests the first time or two, but after awhile they just all seemed kind of the same and weren't worth doing, especially once I was maxed out on Face points and could wear whatever crazy clothes I wanted in public.

I also want to give a shout out to whoever put the soundtrack to this game together. My favorite record labels are Warp Records and Ninja Tune. The fact that Sleeping Dogs had a radio station entirely devoted to each just kind of blew my mind.

[Gamerforlife]

It is impressive that most of the different gameplay modes work so well. Fighting, driving, parkour, hacking, etc. They are all fun. It's rare for a game to be so varied and still nail all of the little variations.

Like Pulsar_t, I didn't find there was much worth doing after the main story was over though. This is different from a game like GTA: San Andreas where I was so distracted by little things that can be done in the world that I didn't really care much about the main quest.

I did do a lot of the sidequests, but after awhile they got to be too boring and redundant. Another drug bust where you beat up some thugs, hack a camera, and nail a deal with surveillance . Another inane favor that somebody on the street wants. Another heist of an armoured vehicle. Another street race. I had fun with each of these side quests the first time or two, but after awhile they just all seemed kind of the same and weren't worth doing, especially once I was maxed out on Face points and could wear whatever crazy clothes I wanted in public.

I also want to give a shout out to whoever put the soundtrack to this game together. My favorite record labels are Warp Records and Ninja Tune. The fact that Sleeping Dogs had a radio station entirely devoted to each just kind of blew my mind.

Yeah, they even had a dedicated metal station based on a real metal record label. I was impressed, and the tracks playing during the title screen are badass

[Gamerforlife]

Fun ways I've killed people in Sleeping Dogs:

1. Bashed a guy's head into a wall
2. Threw a guy overboard on a ship
3. Hung a guy by the cord of a chandelier
4. Dropped a gate on top of a guy's chest
5. Put a guy's face into a furnace
6. Threw a guy onto a box
7. Ran over a whole gang of criminals in a car
8. Got three consecutive head shots in bullet time (I don't like the gunplay that much, but it has its moments)
9. Electrocuted a guy with a generator
10. Leaped over a barrier and pounced on a guy, knocking him out instantly before he could fire his gun
11. Threw a guy into an aquarium, which made a nice loud splash as all the water came out
12. Bashed a guy's head with a refrigerator door
13. Shoved a guy's face into a urinal
14. shoved a guy's face into a toilet
15. Threw a guy over a rail onto the street below
16. Ran over a guy with a motorcyle
17. Set two guys on fire by shooting an explosive
18. Impaled a guy on a meat hook
19. Rammed a cop car off of the road
20. Blew up a car full of guys while shooting from the passenger seat
21. Took out a cop car's tires with my gun
22. Ran towards a guy and leapt at him with a knife from behind for a one hit kill
23. Grabbed a guy from behind and knocked him out with a grapple attack
24. Lifting a guy up and dropping him spine first onto an iron rail, then watching his limp body slide off into the nearby ocean

And that's just what I remember. Murder is so much fun

[01toubib]

hmp. I was at Target the other day and the game was on sale for $30. I thought with a price drop that quick that the game might be booty. It has a funny name to it too. Hard to take a name like "Sleeping Dogs" seriously. The pic below comes to mind. Not exactly, violence...



But... Since you guys pointed it out, and so far it sounds like it's pretty good. I might take the hit and try it out.

[Gamerforlife]

Oh man! I unlocked an outfit that is a very NOT subtle shout out to Tony Jaa. Awesome! As if the Bruce Lee outfits weren't cool enough. This game knows its target audience

[RyaNtheSlayA]

It comes free with my graphics card that arrives today (7950). Apparently it's one of the few games designed for AMD cards in mind. I'll be sure to try it.