However, that running time is increased by around four hours thanks to the Definitive Edition including all of Sleeping Dogs’ downloadable content. The game isn’t always successful in how it sets up its mission though and in trying to get away from the Grand Theft Auto formula of drive-somewhere-and-kill-someone, there’s one too many on-foot chases through back alleys and some dull detective missions where you’re trying to triangulate mobile phones or tail suspects. It also helps make a gunfight that much more of an event when it does break out. Not only is this more realistic (apparently guns are relatively rare in Hong Kong, with Triads preferring a meat cleaver to a machinegun), but it’s also more authentic to Hong Kong cinema. It’s also interesting how gunplay is less common than hand-to-hand fighting. But at times the Hong Kong setting can only do so much to stave off the déjà vu.Īnd yet it’s inarguable that each of these individual gameplay elements are superior to Grand Theft Auto, and at least equal to Saints Row. Many of the team worked at Need For Speed developer Black Box and Max Payne 3 maker Rockstar Vancouver, for example. In most cases there’s still a direct relationship between these other games and Sleeping Dogs developer United Front Games. The combat works well and almost all the other action elements bear similarly close comparison to existing games, from the Max Payne style gunplay, to the Need For Speed-esque races, and on-foot chase sequences reminiscent of Assassin’s Creed. Few will really care about that though and the use of environmental objects for finishing moves, such as slamming Triad faces into rotating fans or shunting them off railings, is used even more than in Arkham. This means a focus on fairly generic street fighting, rather than specific martial arts – although there are identifiable karate and other moves in there. It’s not exactly the same system in Sleeping Dogs – Shen’s acrobatics are more realistically constrained than the Dark Knight’s – but the counter-based fundamentals and large crowds of thugs are very similar. It’s now largely forgotten that Eidos Interactive co-published Arkham Asylum, and so when Square Enix bought Eidos they also got the expertise of the London studio that had worked with Rocksteady on the Batman games. The open world environment (not an exact copy of Hong Kong by any means, but it gets the landmarks and ambiance right) and mission styles are clearly from Grand Theft Auto, but the combat is just as obviously borrowed from the Batman: Arkham games. That same pragmatic approach runs through the whole game and though it’s easy to dismiss it as a patchwork of other people’s ideas the truth is they’ve been stitched together with greater skill than almost any other comparable title. Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition (PS4) – Michael, is that you?ĭepending on how you look at it it’s either playing it safe or making sure that the story doesn’t interfere with player freedom. He’s drafted in as an undercover officer infiltrating a Triad group called Sun On, which the game uses as an excuse to let you take part in missions as both a detective and a pseudo-gangster. It’s a shame that protagonist Wei Shen is essentially an American, seconded to the Hong Kong police, but at least he’s a somewhat likeable lead. Both deal only in broad strokes (most characters are obvious archetypes and in Sleeping Dogs everybody knows martial arts), but then Hong Kong cinema isn’t known for its subtle character studies either. In fact if you consider only the story elements of Grand Theft Auto, and not the satire, then the approach to storytelling is very similar in both games. For those disappointed in the direction Saints Row has been taking lately Sleeping Dogs is a much more direct alternative to Rockstar’s games. Sleeping Dogs’ Triad-orientated storyline isn’t especially original or surprising but by playing things straight it manages to conjure the atmosphere of Hong Kong cinema remarkably well.
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