| Platform | OVERALL |
|---|---|
| Xbox 360 | 8.90 |
| Overall | 8.90 |
|
If there is one major reason why Sleeping Dogs is works so well it is because of the main character, the badass Wei Shen. His journey as an undercover cop in Hong Kong is engaging, interesting even a bit emotional. You want to be this guy and honestly I find him to be more interesting than any protagonist the GTA games have ever had. There is a whole game of course and Sleeping Dogs does an excellent job of grabbing elements from various genres and injecting them into the tired and true GTA formula. You will find a melee system akin to Batman Arkham games. You will find shooting that has elements from cover shooters and Max Payne. There is even a little bit of burnout in the driving sections. All these elements work very well though I wouldn't say any of them are the best in their respective genre. The mix makes this a game stand out from all the other GTA clones, especially its use of melee which is probably the focus. Melee in Sleeping Dogs is like a poor man's Batman as it lacks the speed and depth of Arkham's combat system. In the context of this game though it handles the weight of a full 30 hour game admirably. You constantly find new moves and the fights keep you on your toes as it can be challenging. I found the melee combat to be the best action component to the title as the other two aspects are lacking. The gunplay while extremely solid in its controls and mechanics is totally hampered by a lack of difficulty. Once you jump over cover you enter a slow motion mode, get a head shot and you continue in slow mo. All you have to do is keep getting headshots on enemies that are practically not moving. It turns giant epic gun battles into the most simple version of shoot a mole. I fought like 20 guys at once and hardly had a scratch. Driving around Sleeping Dogs feels great (as you can tell, everything in thing in this game controls extremely well) but I never had a car chase as exciting as the stuff that occurs in GTA. I like that you can sort of attack with your car as that element reminded me a bit of burnout, I just think its never used that well. Most of the time when the police are chasing you it becomes only about bashing them with the car till they crash rather than actually trying to avoid police. About the most fearsome vehicle that gets thrown at you is a SWAT van which is a far cry from what you get in other GTA like games. The actual city exploration aspect of this game is probably the weakest link. Yeah there are some activities but the city never really feels alive like in GTA titles. You can't really "mess around" as you rarely have any guns outside of missions. Plus you are a cop you are not supposed to run around killing everyone. This games focus is the narrative first and foremost so all the ancillary activities are not as strong as I would have hoped. Story missions is where this game absolutely excels and propels it to being one of the best sandbox titles this gen. The missions are extremely varied and make use of all your skills. Each mission slowly builds up the story and tension as well as the scale of your battles. You start off doing crap jobs, getting into battles with small time thugs. As Wei Shen advances the missions become massive in scale with almost entire gang armies coming at you. The story has all the best elements of a undercover cop struggling between being a cop and actually caring about the gang he is infiltrating. Even the most simple of side missions have some connection to the story which is nice to see. The total package is very well presented with all sorts of stat tracking so you can directly compete with all your friends scores. If you try to do everything the game offers you will probably see about 35-40 hours of game in there. The music is a very interesting mix of foreign asian music with some american rap and even classical music; very good soundtrack. I did notice that there were various small bugs and glitches that occured one to many times not to take notice. I had an interesting battle with a thug that got absorbed into stairs. My triad experience meter got glitched to hell and didn't properly give me exp. The GPS constantly tries to send me in the wrong direction, wait this one is just like real life. I had a blast playing Sleeping Dogs, mainly for the strength of its main story campaign and its amazing hero Wei Shen. I've played quite a lot of sandox games and while none have reached GTA status some try to add a unique twist to it to fill their own niche. Sleeping Dogs takes melee combat to a different level than we have seen in games like this and does all other elements well enough to be a stand out title. |
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Posted by Dvader Mon, 06 May 2013 01:06:23
Mon, 06 May 2013 02:09:12
Yeah this game is definitely one of the better open world games of the past few years. I enjoyed it greatly.
Mon, 06 May 2013 11:51:47
I'm getting this, no doubt.
Mon, 06 May 2013 21:56:47
GG I thought this was going to be the game ported to Wii U..not Deus Ex.
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