Sleeping Dogs

In many ways GTA has been dethroned by this game. Sleeping Dogs is a lot of fun, and seriously addictive. It may lack the complete freedom of GTA IV (no flying vehicles available), which I guess is still considered the benchmark for open world video games even 5 years on, but Sleeping Dogs is far, far more refined with superior graphics and details, as well as featuring a much more likable protagonist.

As I began to play I felt that the game was very similar to the True Crime games. I later learned that it was actually planned as True Crime: Hong Kong, before Activision cancelled it and passed it over to Square Enix who continued to develop it as a new title. So this really is the 'spiritual second sequel' to True Crime that we never got, and I have been accidentally referring to it as such. As far as I am concerned it is.

The game stars Wei Shen as an undercover cop raised in California who returns to Hong Kong to infiltrate the mob. It's full of clichés but is highly entertaining and never once boring. There are a variety of missions including gunfights, fist fights, foot chases, car chases, boat chases, espionage, as well as multiple side missions and upgrades. Highly addictive stuff indeed. And bloody too, very, very bloody. Believe me, the game justifies the age restriction without ever seeming forced.

I do have some complaints, like not being able to hail taxis and missing them every time you dash for them. Also there never any cars to hijack when you need them, meaning you'll have to run up the street hoping to block the way of a passing vehicle. The radio stations are not as humorous as GTA, but there are some nice tunes on there.

The game is liberal with trophies, and features loads of DLC on the PlayStation Network, including two new missions sets. I'm not done with this game yet!

Graphics A Sound A Gameplay A+ Lasting Appeal A+

Smooth graphics and beautiful style and beautiful texture and amazing story. I just wish you could jump because in this game i used the kick in the air as a jump button because there's no jump in this game. I hope this game have a sequel but sadly the game company got closed down, but who knows the game company might open back up or a new company will get it and probably redo it. I hope the world doesn't give up on this game because it's a beautiful game. The DLC's are 0K. Do you have love in game it looks like a 2020 game. This game was ahead of its time that and Batman Arkham city.

This game feels and plays like an over the top Chinese cop movie, aided by well done voice acting. The general atmosphere of the open world really strengthens the feeling of being immersed in an older pseudo fictional representation of modern Hong Kong.

The story: it plays in a really tight and controlled manner which allows for a great feeling of fitting into it all. There is no need to feel lost or bored in a vast city. The player can go out and do a lot of missions, and many side quests. This game defeats a lot of other open world games simply by those means alone.

The acting: The voice acting is top notch, and as previously stated - The voice acting really is at a high level. The actors and actresses really hit the nail on the head.

It isn't perfect: It has a few irritating issues with its control system when playing with a keyboard. Buttons tend to shift meaning while playing, making it possible to miss a few important counters while playing. It goes against muscle memory. Though that's figuratively the only true issue with its design.

(Excludes the dlcs Nightmare in North Point, Zodiac Tournament, and Year of the Snake, as I already reviewed each dlc on their separate IMDb page)

Being a huge fan of True Crime: Streets of LA, this video game was much anticipated to be one of my favorite games. Sadly, that's not what happened. The game is great; the combat is fun, and the story is intense, but some of these mechanics (for example, driving and camera panning) were too clunky for me, and the game itself felt completely different from True Crime. Whatever, it was still fun and visually beautiful, although I would say it's a bit forgettable. What I didn't forget was that pork bun vendor. "Why you don't have pork bun in your hand?"

Edit: I ended up coming back to play this video game once again for an array of reasons; for one, there's a few dlcs I've never got around to completing, second, it was 2014 since the last time I've played the main story and forgot almost everything, so I decided to start from the beginning, and third, I needed a break from Dragons Dogma, and this game seemed like a great game to play in between. Revisiting this game has been a great experience for the most part. This story of Wei taking on the Hong Kong triads by becoming a triad was a dynamic campaign, doing missions for the Sun On Lee, and also doing missions for detectives. While the story is fun, the landscape of vibrant Hong Kong is where this game grabs me. Some truly mesmerizing scenes, with plenty of fun, cool sites to explore. While I do think the driving was a little off, I was able to get used to it fairly quickly, and was able to navigate the highways and backroads with ease. The main campaign was lots of fun, although it seemed kinda short, and all the extra side missions and collectibles to find was filling, although repetitive.

There was a couple random dlcs I got that just added police missions, a random swat team mission, and a survival mission where you kick monks ass. All 3 were extremely forgettable, and probably could be avoided as they are just replayable missions that don't do or give you anything neat except either police or triad skill points .

In all, I'm really glad I decided to give this game another go, as I actually found myself more entertained than the first time I played it. The main game and all the dlcs took me a little over 40hours, but it really only felt like 15. Gonna bump my score from 3.5 Stars to 4 Stars.

My favourite game ever! A man who never eats pork bun is NEVER a whole man!