- There's already a Zero Punctuation about this game, but I'd recommend it myself anyhow. I thought this game found the sweet spot between the serious grittiness of GTA and the over-the-top silliness of Saints Row. In the former, there's never any fun moments aside from those few times when you mess up and subvert the game's expectations. At no time does anyone enjoy what they're doing, and they'd never do anything they can't take completely seriously. Even when the game introduces a "fun" character like Roman, it seems to hate them. Saints Row suffers the opposite problem, in that nothing is ever serious. When every gun shoots octopi that make victim's heads explode, or your character gets superpowers when drinking energy drinks, or your gang somehow acquires its fourth attack helicopter, everything stops making sense. There pretty much ceases to be any kind of coherent world. People on the radio talk about how work was interrupted by the saints, and how the police want to clean up the streets, but then everyone cheers on the saints even as they kill random people and beat their enemies to death with a combination of attack helicopters and dildo bats.
Anyways, Sleeping Dogs finds this balance by acknowledging that it's a game while simultaneously telling a serious story. You can wear full SWAT gear into cutscenes where you talk to Triad bosses for a laugh, and the odd mission asks you to pursue and hijack a cake truck or something crazy like that, but it all manages to fit together. You might spend one mission with your old friend from school, a low-level flunky with big dreams, and it might culminate in a street fight, or running from the cops because of his woeful ineptitude. Another mission, given by the head of the Triads, might get you into a shootout in a drug lab. When those are done, you might bump into a civilian in need, who will ask you to take pictures of her with various monuments for her website. In other words, the silly and the serious ebbs and flows depending on who and what is involved at any given time, just like the real world. Somewhere, right now, a clown might be involved in a high speed chase with an ice cream truck. In another part of the world, very grim men gather in a dark room to plan heinous crimes. The world in sleeping dogs feels more real because there's more than black and white.
As far as gameplay is concerned, it's not too hard to figure out from the trailers. Melee combat is your primary method of conflict-resolution for most of the game. It functions like a kung-fu version of the Batman:Arkham series' combat. X to beat ass, B to grab, Y to counter an enemy attack. The driving handles pretty well, and allows for plenty of high-speed shootouts. The police are not too difficult to lose in pursuit, but if they get you into a shootout, you'll have your work cut out for you. There are very nice animations for the environmental attacks, and the on-foot movement is made better by the addition of some light parkour elements. You're not quite Altair, but you've got enough at your disposal to make the on-foot chases quite fun. Shooting works as you'd expect; there's pretty decent accuracy, a cover system, some acrobatic moves that trigger slow-motion, and when you're done with a weapon, you just chuck it and move on.
DLC: there's a lot, and most of it's cosmetic, so I'll lay it out for you:
- Additional Story Content: The Year of the Snake (expansion), Zodiac Tournament(side story), Nightmare in North Point (spin-off)
- Sandbox Additions: SWAT pack, Wheels of Fury
- Mission with Outfit Addition: Police Protection Pack, Triad Enforcer Pack, Drunken Fist Pack, Street Racer Pack
-Everything else is costumes and "cheats".
ark Descent
