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Do you want to play a game in which there are GTA like vehicle chases, Rocsteady’s Batman like fluent combat style, Mafia 2 or Godfather like missions and map system, uniqueness storyline, enhanced graphics compared to the reality? Then Sleeping Dogs will be a right choice for you. The this game is the reincarnation of True Crime series. The 2012 open world action adventure Sleeping Dogs has given me such an adrenaline rush that I have completed the game in one sitting; the second such occurrence after Max Payne 3 earlier this year. Sleeping Dogs is a result of combined effort of United Front Games and Square Enix London Studios. The game has published solely by Square Enix for PC, PS3 and Xbox 360, and was released on August 14, 2012.

Storyline

Wei Sheng is a police officer whose speciality is to go undercover to fight the crime. He helped US Police many times earlier, and he is doing it again. The game opens with a scene in which Wei participates in a drug deal in Hong Kong. But the deal goes off and Wei’s partner got caught. Wei fakes his arrest to meet one of his old buddy Jackie Mah to get blended into infamous Winston’s triad and try to catch the drug racket. Wei also has a personal score settle – his sister Mimi’s death. Soon they get involved in gang war with Dogeyes, another triad gang. Will Wei Sheng succeed this time? To find out, you have to play the game and face the Hong Kong underworld.

Character Casting

Wei Shen: Will Yun Lee
Pendrew: Tom Wilkinson
Raymond Mak: Byron Mann
Jackie Mah: Edison Chen),
“Red Pole” Winston Chu: Parry Shen
Uncle Po: James Hong
Amanda Cartwright: Emma Stone
Conroy Wu: Robin Shou
Vivienne Lu: Lucy Liu
Harry “Big Smile” Lee: Tzi Ma
Inspector Jane Teng: Kelly Hu
Peggy Li: Lindsay Price
Sonny: Chin Han
Sandra: Steph Song

Comparison between Minimum and Recommended Configuration

Feature and Gameplay

• The game uses HKShip as game engine that enables reality like fluidity, lighting, depth and gives the graphical contents high-definition cinematic edge.
• Sleeping Dogs features open world environment which let the players explore the world and let them have freedom to do anything they wish.
• Players will see the world of the game over Wei’s shoulder, as the game features a third person over the shoulder perspective.
• The combat system of Sleeping Dogs follows the Rocksteady’s Batman series; consists of attack, block and counter attack, aka free flow combat.
• The game has a sophisticated targeting system that allows the players to choose which opponent to strike first.
• If Wei can launch a certain number of attacks without taking hits then he will go in rage and that time his enemy cannot dodge his hits even they blocked it.
• A very effective cover system is introduced into the game. Wei can target specific enemies while firing blindly, move cover to cover as such as in Splinter Cell.
• The unarmed combat successfully integrated with very cool martial arts mostly based on Dragon and Tiger style along with Judo.
• Other than the fighting, Wei Sheng can run free, jump over obstacles, climb, tackle, dash and so on.
• There is an amazing gameplay element introduced into the game. While running towards an enemy, players can grab him by pressing F button and ram him to a nearby wall, table or stand.
• Wei is also able to grab his enemy and perform hit attacks or slam or kill him using certain environmental objects like AC fan, boxes, chimney, shutter which are marked by red light while grabbing. He can also pickup fallen objects and use it on enemies.
• Wei is also able to snatch enemies’ weapons, dodge grabbing and so on.
• Car hijacking or hiring elements are also included in the game.
• Wei is able to purchase foods from different food stands to replenish his health during or after missions, if necessary. New clothes can also be bought from stores. There are also several unlockable costumes similar to Just Cause 2 costumes.
• Wei is able to go to massage parlor, go for dates, join different clubs, and participate on street activities such as cockfighting, poker etc even in the midst of a mission.
• Although the vehicle missions are largely same as GTA series but Sleeping Dogs introduced a single button feature to ram opponent vehicles out of street by pressing L Shift (it can be customized).
• During vehicle missions, Wei can jump onto another car from a moving vehicle, shoot at enemy car while driving.
• The game features two types of mission – cop missions and triad missions. Cop missions focus on finding evidence, revealing rackets, using tricks to arrest mobsters without arising suspicion of triad, while Triad missions focus on participating in various gang missions to earn trust of the triad.
• There are also face missions in which Wei has to do favors to individuals to gain information, raise popularity among triads, earn money, and make FrontPage headlines.
• There is an awesome upgrading system in the game. Upon completing triad missions players are able to upgrade Wei’s martial art skills such as flying dragon kick, ninja tackle where cop missions will give upgrades on Wei’s weapons system, hand gun abilities, shoot accuracy etc.

Opinion

First thing I want to tell about Sleeping Dogs is that I have played this game nonstop in a single sitting, after Max Payne 3 earlier this year. What I like about this game is the style of storytelling. Although the game is very big, but the way the story progresses the players will never get bored. The thrill will last from the beginning to the end. The opening scene is fantastic. I am amazed by the graphical detail of the game. It looks so real, that it seems I am playing a HD movie. I have not seen such work after Rocksteady’s Batman: Arkham City.

The characters’ 3D graphic models are so fluid that I can do anything I wish to do with them. There are a lot of things to be explored with lot of side missions. Each time you complete the game you will find that there were still lot of things to do in the game.

Despite all these good things, I have found camera control a little bit slower than I expected. Other than that I can bet that the graphics of Sleeping Dogs will be one of the top rated works in 2012.

Now let’s talk about the game-play elements of the game. Although the combat system largely matched with Batman Arkham series but there are some cooler staffs involved in the game; such as environmental killing. Another thing I have liked during counters with large number of enemies is the dash, grab and slam options. The tackle movements is so fluid, you can compare those with reality.

Another nifty thing I liked is when police comes to arrest Wei. While they are arresting Wei, just press Space when prompted and Wei will perform a reverse handcuff trick on the police. That was really awesome.

During vehicle chasing, I liked the feature of targeting a specific vehicle to deal with. Another thing that amazed me is when Wei needs to get a vehicle, not only he can hijack a car but can hire a car too. There are lots of taxies in the streets. Just stop one of them and press and hold Right Click button a little longer at the door. Instead of hijacking the car Wei will hire them. The most fantastic thing is that these elements function without using any cut scenes. Yes, these all will happen as in-game actions.

The sound tracks of the game is so cool that there is nothing else to be compared. The composer worked nicely to keep traditional Japanese music blend with Japanese rock and sound tracks. Even the voice modulation of the characters are pretty cool. Every character has different depth in voices, style of conversation, and expression. The game should be considered technically perfect. The perfection of technical work doesn’t compromise the game-play. In my opinion, if you wish to play high quality action game, go get Sleeping Dogs.

Pros & Cons

Good Staffs

• Technically sound game.
• Amazing graphical contents.
• Gameplay is fantastic.
• Storyline is complex but full of thrills.
• The action sequences are really cool.

Bad Staffs

The camera control is little bit off the mark. Other than that everything is just super fine.

Development and Release

As I have previously pointed out, the developers of Sleeping Dogs are United Front Games with Square Enix London Studios. The publisher of the game is Square Enix. But, Namco Bandai Games was in charge of publishing the game in Australia. At first the game was being developed under the name True Crime: Hong Kong. After August 2, 2011, when Square Enix got publishing rights of the game the present title was confirmed. The game is directed by Lee Singleton and produced by Dan Sochan, Stephen Van Der Mescht and Jeff O’Connell. The game levels are designed Mike Scupa. The plot of the game story is written by Jacob Krarup. The music and sound tracks are composed by Jeff Tymoschuk. The game is developed for several platforms – Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.The game was released in USA on August 14, in Australia on August 16, in EU on August 17, and scheduled to be released in Japan on September 27.

Sources: Wikipedia, Sleeping Dogs

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