Introduction

People tend to think of the Metal Gear Solid franchise first when discussing movie-like games because that series is notorious for cutscene overload. MGS certainly offers the movie-viewing experience, but what about games that let the player feel like they're playing through a movie? Sleeping Dogs scratches that itch perfectly, and then some. Sleeping Dogs is a GTA clone set in Hong Kong, developed by United Front Games and published by Square Enix for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC and it's basically a Hong Kong action flick in video game form. Originally, UFG developed this game as an installment of the True Crime series, True Crime: Hong Kong, for Activision, but they weren't very happy with it for some reason and pulled the plug on UFG's hard work. Luckily, someone from Square Enix's European branch discovered UFG's work on the game and convinced the higher ups to buy the game from Activision. Under Square, UFG was allowed to polish their game, now titled Sleeping Dogs, to a mirror sheen, and it shows. In early 2014, UFG released an updated version for PS4, Xbox One and PC, the Definitive Edition, that has pretty much all of the DLC, touched up character models and new lighting that looks kinda nice. This LP will be of the PC Definitive Edition.

Sleeping Dogs follows Wei Shen, an undercover cop who's sent on a mission to infiltrate and dismantle one of Hong Kong's biggest gangs from the inside, the Sun On Yee. This game features a well-written story, a fantastic cast and ties it all together with outstanding gameplay. It's a very interpersonal and gritty crime drama that explores the question of what it means to live a dual identity. Its gameplay is also very unique for the genre; most GTA-esque games put a big focus on gunplay, but Sleeping Dogs decides to focus more on melee combat. UFG put a lot of work into making the melee feel good, and it shows; the hand-to-hand combat feels so visceral and smooth that fighting almost never feels like a chore. It's also super brutal; expect to hear bones crunching and mooks screaming in pain often. While melee combat is the main gameplay focus, the game does include some guns to play around with. They're a little harder to come by, but UFG has a unique system in place that allows for some really intense gunplay.



I'm joined by my buddy Jobbo_Fett, who's only played a few hours of this game because he had a lot of trouble trying to get it to run properly on his PC. As such, he's going in mostly blind, which leads me to my next point:

NO SPOILERS

This game's plot is done really well and has some amazing twists so I'd appreciate it if the game could show its hand when the time comes.

I'm going to try to shoot for two updates a week, but no promises. Also, I have a Twitter you can follow if you want to get alerted to updates through there.

With that out of the Wei, I think it's time we got this show on the road.




Bonus