LogFAQs > #922103378

#27: Sleeping Dogs

Apropos of the title, I feel like this was a sleeper hit.

It's a smaller scale GTA that takes place in Hong Kong, has fluid martial arts combat (on top of the guns), and simply doesn't get anything wrong. It ended up greater than the sum of its parts.

It has a bunch of silly physics-based things you would expect from a modern open world game with cars, climbing around, drop kicks, and so on. The moment I realized that I could put my enemies into a grappling hold, run with them towards a car, shove them into the trunk and drive away was when I knew this game had the depth, love and care needed to be great. When a cop tries to handcuff you, you can do a counter and handcuff them. Eating food fronm stands gives you buffs. It's just cool.

The story is executed competently and never gets too weird. It's been a while, but IIRC you're the hong kong equivalent of an undercover cop or FBI agent infiltrating some gangs that also have some of your childhood best friends as members, and you're constantly weighing your loyalties. One of the rival gangs might have murdered your martial arts master. I think. Could be wrong about the details, but you should understand the general tone from that.

It does have a bunch of stores, NPCs, side activities, minigames (cockfighting, karaoke, uh other stuff), quests, etc you can do, store vehicles in your garage, etc. If you get the definitive edition you get a bunch of free cars, and the valet constantly pines for the day that he could be so rich. The outfits you can wear are pretty hilarious. I like the sense of humor.

There is a leveling system, with 'coplike' behavior rewarded with blue experience points and 'gang' behavior rewarded with red experience points. Which is whatever, but it doesn't restrict you too much. They mostly unlock combat abilities, and the combat is just rad.

Sleeping Dogs is my version of a happy medium between action and rpg. That is, sitting somewhere around the 80-90% action end, with good voice acting and believable characters. This is in contrast to text-dump sims like Shenmue or Yakuza, which have a huge amount of content but forget they are supposed to be fun, and not just on a meta level of absurdity.

The pacing is just good. Driving, shooting, chase, and martial arts scenes interweave without a hitch. Leaderboards in random categories can keep you playing longer than you otherwise might. This gets 2 certified thumbs up
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You did indeed stab me in the back. However, you are only level one, whilst I am level 50. That means I should remain uninjured.