Sleeping Dogs

Sleeping Dogs is an open-world RPG that throws you into the seedy underbelly of Hong Kong as a small-time detective who is trying to infiltrate a massive criminal organization.

In 2012, the team over at Square Enix released Sleeping Dogs, and it quickly became one of the most popular games in the genre. This open-world RPG puts you in the middle of a huge war between the Triads, the police, and a variety of other organizations that are trying to take control of the streets of Hong Kong. Even though Sleeping Dogs is often overshadowed by Grand Theft Auto V and other AAA titles, it is still an excellent game that is going to be a great addition to your library if you are a fan of gritty RPGs.

This game follows an undercover cop named Wei Shen, and your goal is to infiltrate and take down various arms of the infamous Triad. You start the game as a relatively poor and underappreciated police officer who is looking for new ways to climb the ranks of the force. Your breakthrough arrives when a high-ranking official asks you to shed your badge and become a gang member. As the game progresses, you are going to follow an extremely complex storyline that involves many different characters and organizations. By the end of the primary storyline, you are going to realize that there is a major conspiracy taking place throughout Hong Kong.

In Sleeping Dogs, you can either search the town freely, follow the primary campaign, or carry out cop missions. This digital remake of Hong Kong is extremely expansive, and you can easily lose yourself for hours looking at all of the sites, heading into shops, making purchases, and interacting with the countless citizens that you are going to come into contact with. You can even purchase various apartments throughout the city and then outfit those homes with any items that you acquire.

In the primary campaign, you will be given orders by various members of the Triad. Those missions are extremely varied, and only a few seem to have overlapping themes. The missions include objectives such as kidnapping rival gang members, assassinating troublesome officials, and carrying out heists. During each mission, you are going to receive or lose points depending on all of the actions that you carry out. If you harm citizens or commit any other crimes, then you will be awarded Triad points and deducted police officer points.

To earn police officer points, you must complete cop missions. The cop missions are essentially side quests that help you build your reputation as a police officer while earning extra money and items. Even though many of the police officer missions are action-packed, they tend to be extremely repetitive. You are usually sent to arrest certain individuals or collect information that can be used to build cases against various criminals. That being said, there are some entertaining tasks as well, and that includes objectives such as saving hostages and thwarting terrorists.

Sleeping Dogs also includes side quests that earn you face points, and those points allow you to upgrade an entirely different skill tree. You earn face points by interacting with different citizens of Hong Kong who have tasks for you. Those side quests are very unique, and they include everything from street races to filming action movies for friends. With your face points, you can earn money and unlock new vehicles and other items.

With the Triad points, you will primarily upgrade all of your melee skills, and that tree is very important because many of the missions throughout the main storyline don’t involve any weapons. As you build your police points, you can unlock different logistical skills that will make your life easier. That includes skills such as being able to quickly steal vehicles or take weapons from the trunks of police cars. While you can still beat the game by only focusing on one skill tree, gaining all three types of points will make the missions much easier.

The mechanics in Sleeping Dogs are very complex, but they aren’t too difficult to master. During the first few missions, you will primarily be using your melee skills as well as working on various movements. Just like many other open-world games, your character is seemingly pulled toward nearby objects that can be interacted with. When you approach a concrete planter or park bench, the game automatically locks on the object. You can then vault over the object or even hide behind it for cover.

As for the melee itself, the combat is incredibly fluid, and you must perfect both your offensive and defensive skills if you want to come out on top. In most of the fights, you will be going up against multiple opponents at once, and you need to carefully consider your movements so that you don't get completely surrounded. As you upgrade the Triad skill tree, you are going to unlock new maneuvers as well as upgrade your overall combat stats.

Unfortunately, the firearm mechanics aren’t as polished as the melee mechanics, and it often feels as if the game is doing all of the work for you. The primary tactic that you will use with firearms is hiding behind cover until you can pop out for a clean shot. There are also some helpful upgrades that you can unlock with the police skill tree to take out multiple opponents at once or even slow down time.

This is an excellent game that has an incredible amount of content, but it does suffer from many of the problems that can be found in other open-world RPGs. The missions often become very repetitive, and that extra work will turn many players off. There is also no fast travel system other than a valet skill that you can unlock, and that makes traveling during the initial stages of the game very tedious.

Luckily, even with those drawbacks, this is still a world-class game with excellent mechanics and a beautiful world. The developers went to great lengths to ensure that this game would stand out from every other title in the genre, and they accomplished that goal.