Hello everybody! I hope you're all having a nice Labour Day weekend. To make sure that you all enjoy it, I bring to you my Game Pick of the Month for August, Square Enix's Sleeping Dogs!
Now the easiest way for me to explain what Sleeping Dogs is, is simply to say that it is like Grand Theft Auto, but in Hong Kong, since the mechanics of the sandbox world are very similar. You can highjack cars, run people over, shoot people, get in police chases, beat the crap out of people on the street, etc. It basically has what your standard sand box game has. So why exactly did I enjoy it so much to make it my pick of the month? I love this game so much, because of its phenomenal story line. I'll get into that in more detail later, but first let me tell you more about the game itself.
The main mechanic in Sleeping Dogs that is used for combat is fist fighting, basically beating people to a pulp. This is done in a style that is very similar to the combat system in Batman: Arkham City where you throw punches and time counters for very well choreographed brawls where you remain the only one standing. As you advance through the game you gain the ability to learn knew moves which you can use to destroy your opponents, but in all honesty all that you really need to do is get that hang of when to hit the counter button. Add to this that there are environmental one hit K.O. moves you can do, and combat gets pretty easy when you have got the hang of it. While this may sound like a bunch of negative comments, the variety of enemies you face do make it so that the combat does feel fresh and challenging most of the time, while sometime being a little stale and same-ish.
Now like any open world game, there are a lot of extras for you to do. Honestly, there are probably too many extras when I think about it. You can buy a billion (not an accurate number) pieces of clothing, some of which create sets which give you various bonuses, or buy roast duck from a street vendor in case you felt like you were hungry. Sometimes with how much there is to do you can feel a little overwhelmed, and if you're like me you eventually just block out all the extras because you come to that realization that you can never get everything done unless you want to put a years worth of work into this game. The side mission and racing extras are fun, but for me they got muddled in with all the other 'too-much' extras and I ended up just ignoring most of them after a few hours of gameplay.
So now that we have the core of the game out of the way, lets get to what makes Sleeping Dogs shine, the story line. You play Wei Shen, and undercover cop in Hong Kong trying to infiltrate and take down to Sun On Ye triad. While some more critical people will point out a lot of flaws with the story, mainly due to how the game plays since it in itself is an open world game, I believe it's all fantastic. I mean sure, you are an undercover cop, that while not on mission is hijacking sports cars and running people over, but while you are on mission you can do your best to try and act like an actual cop. You get triad and cop points as you do missions, which are based off of different things that are done while you are playing. The cop points will always start off full,but you will start to lose them as you do things like destroy public property (crashing a car) or killing people (running them over with a car), while with the triad points you gain them as you do things that make you look good in the eyes of the triad...primarily killing rival gangsters (which actually doesn't subtract cop points..). I honestly want to talk to you so much about the story and why it is so good, but I don't want to give away any of the spoilers that made me love this game.
In the end I would highly recommend this game to anyone who is looking for a game with a great story to it. If you like sandbox games, this one isn't too bad and there are some fun things you can do in it. All in all, I can say it was well worth the money I paid for it.
Sleeping Dogs is available for Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC.
To get Sleeping Dogs for PC you can go here:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/202170/
-Adam
Now the easiest way for me to explain what Sleeping Dogs is, is simply to say that it is like Grand Theft Auto, but in Hong Kong, since the mechanics of the sandbox world are very similar. You can highjack cars, run people over, shoot people, get in police chases, beat the crap out of people on the street, etc. It basically has what your standard sand box game has. So why exactly did I enjoy it so much to make it my pick of the month? I love this game so much, because of its phenomenal story line. I'll get into that in more detail later, but first let me tell you more about the game itself.
The main mechanic in Sleeping Dogs that is used for combat is fist fighting, basically beating people to a pulp. This is done in a style that is very similar to the combat system in Batman: Arkham City where you throw punches and time counters for very well choreographed brawls where you remain the only one standing. As you advance through the game you gain the ability to learn knew moves which you can use to destroy your opponents, but in all honesty all that you really need to do is get that hang of when to hit the counter button. Add to this that there are environmental one hit K.O. moves you can do, and combat gets pretty easy when you have got the hang of it. While this may sound like a bunch of negative comments, the variety of enemies you face do make it so that the combat does feel fresh and challenging most of the time, while sometime being a little stale and same-ish.
Now like any open world game, there are a lot of extras for you to do. Honestly, there are probably too many extras when I think about it. You can buy a billion (not an accurate number) pieces of clothing, some of which create sets which give you various bonuses, or buy roast duck from a street vendor in case you felt like you were hungry. Sometimes with how much there is to do you can feel a little overwhelmed, and if you're like me you eventually just block out all the extras because you come to that realization that you can never get everything done unless you want to put a years worth of work into this game. The side mission and racing extras are fun, but for me they got muddled in with all the other 'too-much' extras and I ended up just ignoring most of them after a few hours of gameplay.
So now that we have the core of the game out of the way, lets get to what makes Sleeping Dogs shine, the story line. You play Wei Shen, and undercover cop in Hong Kong trying to infiltrate and take down to Sun On Ye triad. While some more critical people will point out a lot of flaws with the story, mainly due to how the game plays since it in itself is an open world game, I believe it's all fantastic. I mean sure, you are an undercover cop, that while not on mission is hijacking sports cars and running people over, but while you are on mission you can do your best to try and act like an actual cop. You get triad and cop points as you do missions, which are based off of different things that are done while you are playing. The cop points will always start off full,but you will start to lose them as you do things like destroy public property (crashing a car) or killing people (running them over with a car), while with the triad points you gain them as you do things that make you look good in the eyes of the triad...primarily killing rival gangsters (which actually doesn't subtract cop points..). I honestly want to talk to you so much about the story and why it is so good, but I don't want to give away any of the spoilers that made me love this game.
In the end I would highly recommend this game to anyone who is looking for a game with a great story to it. If you like sandbox games, this one isn't too bad and there are some fun things you can do in it. All in all, I can say it was well worth the money I paid for it.
Sleeping Dogs is available for Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC.
To get Sleeping Dogs for PC you can go here:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/202170/
-Adam