Now, here we go for my first game review, hopefully not the last.


In this review I will be talking about a game called 'Sleeping Dogs' , now. Before I get into this review, let me tell you about the history that passed around with this game. 

Originally this game was going to be a 'True Crime' game which would go by the title of 'True Crime: Hong Kong' and was to be developed by Activison, now. I have never played a True Crime game in my life, and going by what I've read, the games didn't sell too well. It was then dropped by Activision all together close to release date, which is when Square Enix picked it up and it was given the name 'Sleeping Dogs'.

Now, on with the review.

GRAPHICS:

The graphics in Sleeping Dogs I found to be quite beautiful, the map of Hong-Kong will load without any stops or any 'pop up's', the graphics just smoothly go along with the characters movement and I have yet to see any graphical bugs or whatnot. 

Here's an example of how beautiful these graphics can be, say you were riding your motorcycle around town and all of a sudden, it rains. Now, the way the rain just lies on the ground is just simply beautiful, and when it rains it even makes your driving a little more reckless (especially on the motorcycle, as mentioned.) 

Now, as I said I have yet to see any bugs with the graphics themselves, but I HAVE came across a map bug, in the game there is a option to hire a taxi cab, just like the Grand Theft Auto games where you would set a destination and you would ride to it. One time when I had hired the cab, the map bugged out. The cross-hair to select the map destination was huge and covered up most of the map instead of the normal, small cross-hair and was just a giant bugged out mess, the cross-hair just looked like white giant pixels on my screen, and some of the map was like that too. But, these bugs can be easily fixed by exiting the cab and getting back in, which can, to your annoyance your character will hi-jack the vehicle himself.

So for the graphics I give them a: 4.55/5 , due to the bugs on the map and sometimes things not even showing up on the map, but other than that. The graphics are amazing.

SOUND: 

Once again, there was no instances of sound glitches or errors.

The soundtrack in this game is also amazing, you can choose from a variety of music stations like from Chinese Club Music to Jazz to Heavy Metal, and even the traditional classic Chinese music.

But, with that being said sometimes the radio stations in the game can overplay a little, it seemed like the Jazz station only had one song on it every time I had went on it. 

I have very little to say about the sound or music, so with not much to say I guess I'll give it a 4/5.

ADDICTIVENESS: 

The game I say is quite addictive, it IS an open world game, which would make you want to go back and find all the secrets and such in the game. You will want to go back and keep playing to get those certain items. AND in addition to all that, if you messed up on one of the missions and you want to level up and upgrade some more, some of the missions are even re playable to do so, which makes me want to go back and play some more.

I give the addictiveness of this game a 5/5

STORY:

Now, the story of this game, where could I begin?

You play as a police officer named Wei Shen, who has gone undercover to gain information from a giant organisation called 'The Triads' now, there are some shocking moments in the story, which I won't spoil. But at one point in the game, Wei Shen actually starts to become attached to his new triad family, and when stuff really hits the fan, he, himself has to choose between going the high road and staying a police officer, or stay with his triad family. 

Now, the ending to this game I will not spoil, but it had me open-jawed, it was one of those 'I did not see that coming' type of endings, and I really think this game has been left open for a sequel, will Wei continue his life as the police officer he is? Or will he stay with his triad family as I have already said, it's all about loyalty. 

There are some story based DLC's that have been released, one being called 'The Zodiac Tournament' , which I have yet to play myself.. but I'm not here to review that.

BUT, the story of the campaign is quite short, I finished it in about few hours but..

Despite that, I'm going to give the story of the game a solid 5/5.

Depth:

Now this game, as suspected with an open world game is CHALKED full of additional side content, such as Karaoke, gambling, finding all the lock-boxes, collecting jade statues so you can learn new moves off of a Kung-Fu teacher, there's favors you can do for people, there are races and collection jobs.

Now the biggest out of all of those have to be the police side missions, where you are basically helping take the triad down even more by taking out the drug dealers and suppliers and all sorts of stuff where it's just extra added on fun.

The depth of the game has to be 5/5

Difficulty:

Now, there are sometimes when this game is really difficult, like when you're taking on multiple gun wielding enemies at once and you're just stuck with your own fists and you have to find a way to do such and such..

There are sometimes when the 'counter' button doesn't come out, which sometimes makes it impossible to stop moves, which can get really frustrating, even when you know you timed it correctly (as it is timer based, at that.)

But yeah, sometimes there are enemies with weapons surrounding you and you can't do anything but try and counter and disarm the guy, this game can be quite simple.

The difficulty, depending on what setting you're playing on. (I was playing on Normal) I would give it a 2/5


Now, that's it for Sleeping Dogs, now here is my OVERALL verdict of the game.

I'm going to give Sleeping Dogs a 8.9/10. Easily one of my favorite games of last year, I didn't know what to expect of it, was it going to be another GTA clone or what? But it really turned out to be hours of pure fun and I feel it may have even toppled Grand Theft Auto.

Thank you for reading, I hope this isn't my last review.

I will also be accepting review suggestions.. but it would be preferable for games on this site.


Thanks!

true crime games were amassing, so I was disapointed by this.
Id give graphics 3.
The buildings are generic, look in a window and its essentialy a cardboard backdrop, you can clearly see the angles.
I disliked the music, I essentialy ignored it.
Id give addictivness a 3. I completed campaign and havent touched since.
Story 3.
First quarter was boring. The ending was predictable.
The side quests were pretty bland.
I would give it 6.5.
Knowing what I do, i wouldnt have bought it. It tries to big, but falls flat on its face. True crime, saints row, gta, and the godfather are all better gang sandbox games, if the next isnt a true crime one, I wont buy it.
True crime allowed you hundreds of cars, guns, mellee weapons etc for purchase, great story, really fun street crime cases, you could go in random buildings, search people for contraband, got wages based on evidence collected, alternate endings, you could wound (shoot hand to disarm, leg to cripple etc) gun car chases were better (could target seperate things, tyre, fuel tank etc), got good cop or bad cop points based on casualties, criminal damage, if you plant evidence on perps etc.
You can even give people speeding tickets.
And you can fire warning shots or flash your badge.
Sleeping dogs lacks all of this. Its a dissapointment.

I appreciate your addition to this but.


If you read, I have NEVER played a True Crime game, for me this game was a first.

But THIS IS NOT a True Crime game either, it was originally INTENDED to be a True Crime game, I'm not even sure what game you were playing, good sir. The experience I had with Sleeping dogs was complete and absolute fun. 

The story I found to be amazing, it was not predictable, sure sometimes I found it hard to follow at points but the ending (as you said) was NOWHERE NEAR predictable.


But, I digress. This is YOUR opinion as this review was mine, but keep in mind this is NOT a True Crime game NOT developed by the ORIGINAL company that made True Crime.

Sleeping Dogs = Square Enix
True Crime = Activision.

But, thank you for your input.

ScottTehHunter : Good review! I enjoyed reading it.

I played this game for a short while after renting it on Redbox. It's a decent game. I really like some aspects about it. Some other aspects seemed a little "Tired" to me.

IDK I used to LOVE the GTA series but at some point I got kinda burnt out.

Speaking of GTA styled games, have you heard about Retro City Rampage? It's pretty fun retro parody of those kind of games. Check it out here and let me know what your thoughts are!

https://www.vizzed.com/boards/thread.php?id=52255