Sleeping Dogs is one of those titles that you either love or hate, it is the successor in all but name to the True Crime series. You play as Detective Wei Shen, an undercover operative with the Hong Kong Police Department, who has been in the states most of his life. You must infiltrate the Sun on Yee, a notorious Triad gang, based upon the real gang Sun Yee On, and take down its command structure. As you progress throughout the game, you end up with torn loyalty, as an enthralling story captivates you into playing more and more.
The game play is a mixture of fighting hand to hand with an innovative fighting system based on MMA (Mixed Martial Arts), driving (of which former NFS Underground era developers worked on) and gun play situations. The cover system is decent and ties in to both gun play and the fighting mode, and bullet time can be unlocked and used to full advantage, to rack up multiple headshots with relative ease.
The controls are rather good, fighting is almost flawless, with just a few issues revolving around the counter attacks. Shooting however seems to attract cops when in the middle of a drug bust. They wont respond to the criminals firing, but if you fire a shot they will come running. Always a bit of a pain but let the two sides fight most of it, when the criminals are all dead, you loose the wanted level.
The gameplay is immersive and entertaining, with realistic citizens and atmosphere, market traders will shout at you to buy stuff as you walk past, many of whom you can interact to buy clothing, boosts, top up your health or even deck out your safehouses. There is plenty of side missions once the main storyline is over with that will keep you going for hours.
The music is a mixture of Techno-Asian and real music from a variety of genres. The sounds of the city make it feel alive, vehicles all have their own distinctive sound, the sports cars sound like sports cars. Gun sounds are good (especially the pistols) and makes them feel much more powerful.
Whilst there has never been an option for multiplayer in the True Crime series, it would have been nice to have included at least some modes, as in Max Payne 3 and the gang based multiplayer, or cops vs triads, or at least some sort of free roam with player created characters.
Overall, this game is highly recommended for anyone who likes a real gritty single player shoot ‘em up and beat ‘em up.
Story: 9/10
Sound: 8/10
Graphics: 8/10
Multiplayer: N/A
Challenge: 7/10
Gameplay: 9.5/10
Replay Value: 6/10
Overall: 7/10
Developer: United Front Games
Publisher: Square Enix (Namco Bandai Games in Australia)
Written by Steve