I was in the mood to play Sleeping Dogs recently, since I most likely won’t be visiting Hong Kong again any time soon. Here’s hoping the CCP self implodes in the near future.

You play as Wei Shen, an undercover cop attempting to infiltrate the triad. You complete missions to progress the story, with optional stuff to do on the side. Pretty standard open world/GTA affair, for better or worse.

The story is quite good, with some pretty big names voicing the characters: Tom Wilkinson, Lucy Liu, Emma Stone, and Edison Chen to name a few.

There are also multiple romance options for Wei, though the B-movie-esque dialogue was laughable, like with Emma Stone’s character:

“Do you know English? Do you know how to get to this place?”

“Yes. I can give you a ride there on my bike”

“You’re literally some guy who I just met, but ok”

“Are we dating now?”

All of the love interests disappear after a single date, like you literally won’t see or be able to contact them for the rest of the game. Bizarre. They unlock some very useful markers on the map though, so get your playa on.

There’s a variety of cars and bikes, but unfortunately the driving mechanics kind of suck. This is thanks to the bad camera, as well as the controls which aren’t as precise as they could be. The most annoying thing is making a simple left or right turn. Even if you’re driving a sedan, it would feel like you’re controlling a bus. I also jacked a few taxis unintentionally when I just wanted a ride, so the responsiveness was hit and miss there.

Having said all of that, I had SO MUCH fun with Sleeping Dogs. The best thing about it is the combat/counter system, which is quite similar to the Batman Arkham series, but with a kung-fu twist. Initially there’s not much variety, but you’ll eventually be able to unlock more devastating moves. Occasionally you will also get to use guns for certain missions, but mostly you’ll be relying on punches and kicks. Beating up people (goons or innocent bystanders) never ceased to amuse me, especially the tackle-punch combo and the leg/knee breaker.

There’s also environment kills, which are brutal and very creative:

There are four main locations in the game - North Point, Aberdeen, Central and Kennedy Town. Though the explorable map doesn’t feel very big, each area all have an unique look to them. It does feel empty at times though, because there should be A LOT more cars and pedestrians in HK, but I guess it wouldn’t be as fun to play had they make it too realistic in that regard.

The radio stations were good, but I felt like I was never in vehicles for very long, so I could rarely get through a whole song before having to get out of the car again. It was dope to hear Dilla and Jadakiss when cruising, though my favourite station was probably Softly.

I spent just under 30 hours on Sleeping Dogs and did pretty much everything besides the races. Hunting collectibles was a lot of fun and not at all tiresome for me. Besides that, there wasn’t much else to do post-game unfortunately. It would have been really cool had there been a sequel to further refine the gameplay and continue the story. For now though, this is an underrated gem that I’m glad I’ve finally played.

#FreeHongKong