Monday, April 8, 2013

Sleeping Dogs [Game][PC]

Amount Completed: Main storyline and most of the side missions (?)

Sleeping Dogs is definitely a welcome and worthy entrant to the arena of crime-city-sandbox games. GTA4 and Saints Row 3 each have their own positives. Sleeping Dogs brings a much richer hand-to-hand combat experience than the other two games and seemed to do a better job of giving reason to fetch or travel missions. While not perfect, the writing  and overall story were fitting. The missions supporting the police were an interesting aside the other two crime-heavy games lacked.

The game looks great and has a very fitting atmosphere. There is a lot to do and see. The characters have just enough depth to pass but in many cases deserved a bit more. The same could be argued for some of the plot points. A bit more time to play things out would have helped the overall experience.

Cheater racing invaded my gaming experience though. This is where the AI magically seems to always be ahead or able to surpass your own maximum speed for 90% of a race to keep you moving forward... and then at the end they drop off and you can pass them. I hate this. The (apparently DLC) Enduro motorcycle race required a good six minutes of near perfect driving to complete. While I finished it after a couple tries I was disappointed that the AI seemed to have such an easy edge.


Gut: Sleeping Dogs is awesome. It is well worth whatever price it is at now. I would have been happy to have paid full price for it at release.