Sleeping Dogs

Greetings from Lithuania.

"Sleeping Dogs" (2012) is a game that can not be not mentioned in one sentence with GTA. Is it was good as GTA5 lets say? No. Given the reportedly 250 million $ budget of GTA5, "Sleeping Dogs" simply couldn't be better. That said if you do not compare it with GTA series, "Sleeping Dogs" is a pure fun game.

I liked many things in it - story, fighting, driving, voice acting, city. City itself is a big enough but not to big - i liked it because you don't need to drive like 10 minutes from point A to point B. Fighting is a fun thing, i liked the whole kung fu" and that stuff. Shooting mechanics were also solid, but i didn't get it what was wrong with weapons - one moment you have a gun, next time after you get in a car load a game - you don't. But what "Sleeping Dogs" in my opinion did much, much better then GTA is driving mechanics. Driving is much more fun then it was even in GTA 5 - and i loved GTA 5 totally. Although there isn't big car variety, its enough get make for some fun driving. I liked the collectibles in game simply because they add to the game health, money. But there isn't really what to do with the money itself in this game unfortunately - you can buy clothes, cars and some decorations for your room o flat.

Overall, i finished "Sleeping Dogs" and had much more fun then i thought i would. This is a very fun game with some good if not the most original story, cool open world and some dragon kicks moments that never got old. Fun game in all directions.

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+

I was really skeptical about this game because it looked just like another GTA clone. You can definitely feel that formula, but it's improved. I read reviews about this game through other websites and got a general idea of what I was getting into.

The story is top notch as well as the voice acting. Controls are really responsive. I think the focus on the fighting engine is the best part. I try to find reasons to fight people in the game. I'm not a big racing fan, but the vehicle controls are smooth and realistic feeling. The authenticity is what I love. I enjoy the Chinese culture and have many Chinese friends so playing the game felt familiar.

The main issue I have with the game is the camera control. While driving, fighting, or just generally traversing the the game there are times when the camera gets all wonky. Other than that I can't think of any reason not to at least play the game. Good job Square-Enix for picking up this game instead of letting it die.

This is my favourite game ever, the atmosphere if the game is great and the characters too ! This game is far too underrated to my eyes !

(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.