While this set-up sounds like vintage Ringo Lam or John Woo, United Front has taken the effort to make Sleeping Dogs a rather compelling yarn. What his newfound underworld buddies don’t know is that Wei is an undercover cop and he’s been brought back to Hong Kong to bring down the Triad gangs from the inside. He quickly meets up with his childhood pal, who happens to be in deep with the local Triad gangs and it’s not long before Wei is moving up the criminal organisation’s ranks. Sleeping Dogs follows Wei Shen, an American-raised Asian bruiser who returns to his native Hong Kong following a stint Stateside. It also doesn’t hurt that Sleeping Dogs has a pretty layered and interesting story at its heart, which, when you consider how many clichéd tropes the plot has, is pretty impressive. In short, United Front’s aim to make players feel as though they’re starring in their own Hong Kong action film is incredibly well realised. Shoving a thug’s face into a wall fan or kicking them down an open elevator shaft never gets old. Combat is particularly satisfying beyond using martial arts combos to hammer foes, players can use items in their environment to execute pretty grisly finishers. The story missions follow a basic GTA template – chases, gunfights, beatdowns and the like – but they’re all very well executed and Sleeping Dogs doesn’t run out of ideas before the end credits (even if a large portion of those ideas have been pilfered). There’s also a reputation system that’s based on how the player interacts with NPCs. They can even drop into a massage parlour for some R&R if they fancy.Įverything the player does feeds into a leveling system in which they can unlock new moves and abilities. Players can also bust up drug rings by driving rival gangs off their turf, hacking nearby cameras and having the local police arrest dealers when they arrive. Alongside story missions, the city is filled with activities, ranging from fight clubs, to gambling dens, to street races, to cock fights, to training at the local dojo. The game’s open world city of Hong Kong isn’t an exact replica of the real thing, but it captures the neon-encrusted majesty and sleaze of the place beautifully. United Front has done a bang up job of making all this action easy to pick up and heaps of fun to play. In Sleeping Dogs, players will engage in rooftop free-running, car chases, brutal hand-to-hand combat and visceral gun battles that involve both pop-and-cover mechanics and the odd spurt of bullet-time. The reason for this is, in part, down to the game’s mechanics and controls, which are sublime to use and well-mapped to boot. It doesn’t break much new ground in terms of its structure and gameplay, but Sleeping Dogs is easily one of the best – and underrated – open world games of the last generation. If you can’t wait to check out GTA 5 on a current gen machine, Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition will scratch that itch and then some. If you’ve never played Sleeping Dogs, United Front’s homage to both the Grand Theft Auto franchise and Hong Kong cinema’s early 90s bullet-festival heyday, close the browser now and pick up a copy. United Front Games ultimately closed down in 2016.Available on PS4 (reviewed), Xbox One and PC There was also an online-only spinoff called Triad Wars, but that was also canceled mid-production. Unfortunately, the planned sequel was scrapped. United Front Games did start work on a sequel, which was supposed to take place in China's Pearl River Delta. Sadly, there was never a full sequel to Sleeping Dogs. There's also Year of the Snake, which has Shen fighting a group of cultists. Another expansion, Zodiac Tournament, is about an illegal fighting tournament in the style of Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon. Shen uses his considerable skills to fight an army of Chinese vampires called jiangshi. The Nightmare in North Point expansion is horror-tinged, with a focus on Chinese folklore. Once you finish the primary story, there's still the additional missions and content in the expansions. That adventure will see the player preventing crimes, committing crimes, racing around the city, participating in martial arts-themed fight clubs, and even doing a little dating. The main story of Sleeping Dogs, detailing Wei Shen's journey through the Hong Kong underworld, will take most players around 15 to 20 hours to complete. Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition is the only version available on Steam there is a store page for the original on the Steam Store, but you can't purchase that version. Sleeping Dogs for Xbox 360: Xbox 360 Marketplace.Sleeping Dogs for PlayStation 3: PlayStation Store.Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition for Mac: Mac App Store.Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition for Xbox One: Microsoft Store.Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition for PlayStation 4: PlayStation Store.Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition for PC: Steam.
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