my sleeping dogs review so far (xbox360 version)

[fallingskyline]

why do i write this?
because the game is pretty fun and i'd like to say some nice and not so nice things about it.
let's start with some little stats on where i am so far, i've played 11 hours so far and got up to 43 % of pure story progression and 29 % over all.
what is it?
a open world eastern with lots of fighting and driving though the city. the game is set in hong-kong and is more of a slim version of shenmue than it is a gta. it's actually a mix of both, and that must be said a pretty nice one.
do not expect to be blown away by the graphics! sleeping dogs is kinda late on this generation of consoles, and you see it. gta definatly looks better. but i for myself couldn't care less about the graphics, which to be fair looks pretty nice, i like it, but it is not great. fact is, gameplay > graphics. sleeping dogs' gameplay is fun, it works like a charme most of the time, even i'm not able to use the learned moves in game, but more on this later. most of the time you either drive or walk/fight.
walking, running, fihgting:
controls are obvious, if you are used to most newer games. you walk with the left stick, look around on the right stick, run with (a) and so on. feels good, sometimes a bit sloppy and choppy, but that's pretty rare.
fight system is nice, nothing new and propably seen better but it does its job good. you punch, hit enemies, grab them and konter their moves. 90 % just kontering and punching down enemies is the easiest way to pass a fihgt.
driving is just fine, brought to you by some people of blackbox who also worked on nfs. on how the driving feels imagine a arcade nfs mw mix with gta.
what do you do?
i won't say anything about the story which i don't wanna spoiler besided the fact, that you play as a undercover cop who has a vendetta with the local triads. mission setting is business as usual, drive to a, beat up / kill b and so on, repetative but thats not so bad, since the missions are fun.
what can you do besides storyline?
sing karaoke, which is the worst, qte ever, left stick up and down on the songbar and press a every now and than. you can bet on cock fights, good to make money. you can buy stuff, like cloths, cars, food and some other useless crap you just need to collect everything. you can go to fights and beat up 6 waves of bad guys to win some money. or and thats the most fun you just go nuts in the streets run over peds with a car and so on.

on the end of the day, you get a game, thats fun, where you can lose yourself in a bit and just have a good time. it's not great but it deserves a try. i'd give it 8,5 of 10

[Ladd279]

yea i caught the end of the game commercial and thought it said watch dogs( which im waiting for haha) so me and my friend headed down to gamestop to get it, and to my dissapointment this was out instead. My buddy ended up buying ill just borrow it when he gets down with it. It actually does look like a pretty good game

[InsideManager]

Do you have to do missions to unlock the city or is it the type of game you can pickup and immediately run wild creating mayhem?

[Legba]

Yeah, when I first saw a trailer for it, it immediately reminded me of Shenmue (one of my favorite games)! So I bought it yesterday, but I have yet to play it. Your review makes me feel like I've made a good choice in buying it lol.

[Seanne1986]

I bought it for PC and I think the graphics are quite good actually with my high settings. Currently playing with an xbox controller as keyboard/mouse just feels weird for these kinda games for me.
As I bought it for pc, I really hope some great mods come out since the developers are all for mods for this title. And it will be really interesting to see what the community will come up with.

There are a few things I'd like to see them add to the game as a patch or dlc. And that is more side quests, challenges, be able to store weapons and not loose them once you start a new mission that doesn't require a weapon, a multiplayer mod or dlc would be awesome indeed.

Gotta say though that the funniest mechanic in this game, has to be the ability to hold A while driving a vehicle. While doing this you either stand up on your bike or open the door on your car to make yourself ready to jump and hijack the vehicle infront of you. Now the funny part in this is just to mess around with the pedestrians by open up your door while smashing it in their faces like a real douche. Funny as fuck!. And I can see alot of "funny moments" videos later on doing just this.

Currently I've played 12h and completed 56% of the game, and I'm really enjoying this game so far. I think it has alot of potential (mostly the pc version because of mods).

I don't belive in score rating as it makes no sense at all when rating a game. But I rate it as a very good freeroaming game, that anyone should try out if they are into thoes sorta games.


Do you have to do missions to unlock the city or is it the type of game you can pickup and immediately run wild creating mayhem?
No the entire city is unlocked. But there are tiny small areas that needs to be unlocked by doing missions like a mansion ontop of a hill etc.

[oKwiider]

i cant help but wonder what true crime wouldve been like...

[replicant]

People should remember that this is not a new series per se. The series started as "True Crime" on PS2/Xbox with a LA release and a NYC release.
A few years back they were doing True Crime: Hong Kong, but after too much money and not enough game Activision cancelled it.
A few months later Square Enix picked it up and redid the game into what you see now, but they forgot to get rights to the name.
So, now you have Sleeping Dogs instead of True Crime: Hong Kong. They were always kinda a poor man's GTA.

The main thing about Sleeping Dogs that SE changed that annoys me is the city statistics. In True Crime: LA and NYC you had GPS
accurate depictions of the city. That was a very awesome feature in a very subpar game.

[Seanne1986]

People should remember that this is not a new series per se. The series started as "True Crime" on PS2/Xbox with a LA release and a NYC release.
A few years back they were doing True Crime: Hong Kong, but after too much money and not enough game Activision cancelled it.
A few months later Square Enix picked it up and redid the game into what you see now, but they forgot to get rights to the name.
So, now you have Sleeping Dogs instead of True Crime: Hong Kong. They were always kinda a poor man's GTA.

The main thing about Sleeping Dogs that SE changed that annoys me is the city statistics. In True Crime: LA and NYC you had GPS
accurate depictions of the city. That was a very awesome feature in a very subpar game.

Yupp.

Still have True Crime NY City on ps2 that I've barely touched.. Maybe I should plug in my ps2 and give it a try.

[Permy]

I want to get gamefly again just so I can get this

[Legba]

People should remember that this is not a new series per se. The series started as "True Crime" on PS2/Xbox with a LA release and a NYC release.
A few years back they were doing True Crime: Hong Kong, but after too much money and not enough game Activision cancelled it.
A few months later Square Enix picked it up and redid the game into what you see now, but they forgot to get rights to the name.
So, now you have Sleeping Dogs instead of True Crime: Hong Kong. They were always kinda a poor man's GTA.

The main thing about Sleeping Dogs that SE changed that annoys me is the city statistics. In True Crime: LA and NYC you had GPS
accurate depictions of the city. That was a very awesome feature in a very subpar game.

THIS GAME IS PRETTY TIGHT, more like Shenmue meets me San Andreas really. You can steal cars but there's barely any gunplay in the game. It's more of a beat em up than a shoot em up.
And if you read up on it you'll find it IS an original game, made by a completely different team than True Crime. Activision merely wanted to tack on the "True Crime" name to help drive its estimated poor sales. After likely realizing that not many folks want another True Crime game in the world, they dropped it.

The whole undercover cop plot is cliche & tired, but I'm having much more fun with this game than I did with GTA V (I don't care for that game). The True Crime games were a bit too cheezy imo. I remember borrowing them from friends in high school and yelling at them about it later lol!

This game does NOT feel like a True Crime game. I would advise not to let that bit of failed marketing history prevent you from giving it a try.

*Random unrelated thought: Does anyone remember Dynamite Cop?

[fallingskyline]

This game does NOT feel like a True Crime game. I would advise not to let that bit of failed marketing history prevent you from giving it a try.

that's why they left the TRUE CRIME label go, to prevent it being misunderstood for tc hk which it definatily is not.

and yes, this game is fun as hell

[replicant]

THIS GAME IS PRETTY TIGHT, more like Shenmue meets me San Andreas really. You can steal cars but there's barely any gunplay in the game. It's more of a beat em up than a shoot em up.
And if you read up on it you'll find it IS an original game, made by a completely different team than True Crime. Activision merely wanted to tack on the "True Crime" name to help drive its estimated poor sales. After likely realizing that not many folks want another True Crime game in the world, they dropped it.
The whole undercover cop plot is cliche & tired, but I'm having much more fun with this game than I did with GTA V (I don't care for that game). The True Crime games were a bit too cheezy imo. I remember borrowing them from friends in high school and yelling at them about it later lol!
This game does NOT feel like a True Crime game. I would advise not to let that bit of failed marketing history prevent you from giving it a try.
*Random unrelated thought: Does anyone remember Dynamite Cop?

I've followed this game for a couple years now and I am well aware of what it is.
Nothing you've stated here invalidates anything I posted on the title.
Activision took TCHK from Luxoflux and gave it to UFG to make the *new* GTA-killer.
It cost too much money and they dropped it. SE picked it up, had it polished a bit more,
and released it with a different name since the didn't purchase rights to the TC title.
I never said it was a bad game and to the point it is a fun game. It's not as good as
Shenmue to me or as good as GTA:SA, but I find it more enjoyable than recent GTA or
Mafia for example. It is a very formulaic game just like GTA, TC, MAfia, etc, but for the
moment it has a shinier wrapper.

[Permy]

getting this tomorrow
can't wait

[joyee]

I am desperate to get it...Where from i can got it....???

[madsser]

I am desperate to get it...Where from i can got it....???

Yup, that's a spammer