Killswitchmad's Sleeping Dogs Review

Developer: United Front Games
Publisher: Square Enix
Release Date: 17/08/2012
Best Price: £34.99 - In-store @ Argos

The holiday season is nearing once again and as always it brings with it a slew of triple A titles the first of which is Sleeping Dogs from United Front, A title that's had a long and somewhat troublesome history. What started off in 2008 as an original IP became the third in the True Crime series before being publicly dumped by Activision and subsequently picked up by Square Enix. Has this troubled development had an impact on the game or does it keep it's triple A rating?

The short answer is yes and no, The game itself is an all engrossing experience spanning three districts of Hong Kong with an extensive motorway network connecting each area. It's without a doubt one of the most vibrant, graphicly rich and lively open world settings I've ever seen, There's always something to see or do and the crowded streets and back alleys give the game a life that GTA IV can only dream of.

It's this theme of creating things that GTA IV could only dream of doing that stands Sleeping Dogs out from the crowd, As undercover agent Wei Shen your tasked with bringing down a triad that's fueding from within, It's a storyline that John Woo would be proud of, offering the player a brilliantly written and engrossing plot that never lets up. It's a far cry from Nico Bellic and his constant moaning (Even when he is loaded!).



The gameplay itself is totally unoriginal, It borrows heavily from many titles, Batman Arkham City, Stranglehold, The Wheelman, GTA, Need for Speed, Gears of War...the list goes on...However unlike GTA all of Sleeping Dogs mechanics work as well if not better than the games it openly pays homage to. Again it's here that it shows how bad some of GTA IV's mechanics are,

The hand to hand combat is a fluid affair of gracefull yet brutal counters, environmental kills and kung fu combos, It happily sits on par with Arkham City and spits all over GTA's shoddy "Lock-on, Punch" system. The shooting mechanic is the same thing, borrowing heavily from Gears and Stranglehold you'll be popping from cover like Marcus Fenix then sliding over it in slow mo like "Tequila" Yuen all while popping heads,



The driving again is a similar thing, arcadey handling and excellent races borrow heavily from the Need for Speed Underground titles, It's a far cry from GTA IV's horrid heavy cars. A special mention for the bikes too as I've never had so much fun speeding along the motorway at top speed while trying to weave between the traffic. Even the in-car shooting mechanic trounces all over GTA IV's clunky innaccurate system, when you pull out your gun the game goes into slow-mo while driving and allows you to easily aim at tires that will instantly flip the car chasing you, It's a really satisfying system and allows the AI to chuck loads of cars and bikes at you in one chase.



It's this wonderful blend of differing mechanics that make Sleeping Dogs what it is. It's a "Best of" album for games all wrapped up in a wonderful storyline.

There are some issues however which show the games troubled development, The "Action Hijacking" while fun is not even neccesary as it's hardly used. There were a few times when I encountered cut-scenes that didn't work properly or crashed the console. It's also criminal that multiplayer isn't included as online races and a Saints Row 3 style "Whored" mode would have been nothing short of brilliant.

My biggest gripe though was that of length, for an open world title it's very short, Clocking in at about 7-8 hours for the main storyline. United Front realised this though and instead of offering more races or fight clubs they saw it fit to chuck in a huge chunk of collectibles which is frankly a little lazy. The only other downside is that it's just not quite as good as GTA, It makes GTA's mechanics look medievil but it just misses that charm and character that goes into a Rockstar title.

8.5/10

All in all a brilliant game marred by it's own troubled development, Rockstar need to sit up and take notice though as this is the closest anyone has come to toppling the mighty GTA and given time and a sequel it's very possible.

A Fair review, i did enjoy it and thought the story in particular was very good and well paced, after 23 hours though i finished it so i must have done a lot of side quests etc, however these never felt like other elements they felt like the story sections and it all balanced out beautifully.

Great review Tom, enjoyed reading this

great review pal and i almost completely agree with the majority of your points. The only thing I don't really agree with was the length of the main story but that might be because I tried to do as many side missions, races etc. in between missions to try and spread it out after playing too many games where I had finished the story but still had 80% of things to do

I had no problems with cut screens but did notice a few glitchy bits here and there, random usain bolt style sprinting across the screen.

I was going to do a review myself but can't do any better than this one so I won't But in my opinion this has been my best game of the year so far and I'd recommend it to anyone, especially at £32.

Wi11yEckerslike wrote:great review pal and i almost completely agree with the majority of your points. The only thing I don't really agree with was the length of the main story but that might be because I tried to do as many side missions, races etc. in between missions to try and spread it out after playing too many games where I had finished the story but still had 80% of things to do

I had no problems with cut screens but did notice a few glitchy bits here and there, random usain bolt style sprinting across the screen.

I was going to do a review myself but can't do any better than this one so I won't But in my opinion this has been my best game of the year so far and I'd recommend it to anyone, especially at £32.

I totally agree mate, 2012 has been a pretty shoddy year for gmes so far and this really stood out as a gem of this year

The length thing is really just to point out the main missions, As most open world games tend to hit a 20+ hours length for just the main plotline, The side missions etc do offer up a fair bit more play time but there should have been more of them along with the police cases (4 was far too little) The game is also ripe for alot more racing and I hope they add more in the DLC.

I'll be reviewing Darksiders II next and so far I've been unable to wrench it from the disc tray

i am also loving Darksiders 2 and that is going to be a massivley long game. took a break from it at minute as id just finished, sleeping dogs and transformers woc, so multiplayer for a week thenback on to the parkour ing Death Dealing maniac!

Reaper FWG wrote:i am also loving Darksiders 2 and that is going to be a massivley long game. took a break from it at minute as id just finished, sleeping dogs and transformers woc, so multiplayer for a week thenback on to the parkour ing Death Dealing maniac!

Do I have you on my FL bud? Cause I could do with grabbing that cheevo for gifting a weapon

yes mate im on your FL, i also need said Cheevo so we will sort it later if you like.

ill gift you some rubbishy mace lol and you can gift me some shit boots or somett !

Sounds good bud