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The gunplay is solid, if nothing spectacular, with an effective cover system and opponent A.I that actually creates a challenge, but it’s the melee combat that’s the biggest achievement here. The combat scheme is intuitive and responsive, striking a nice balance between going on the offensive and blocking and counterattacking, and the gruesomely visceral context-sensitive finishing moves make for some brutal melee brawling. Players can string together combos, grapple enemies, counter attack whenever an attacking enemy flashes red and utilise environmental attacks like ploughing a hapless henchman’s head through a phonebox. This combat system will be instantly familiar to anyone who’s played Arkham City and, as with the aforementioned game, is satisfyingly meaty and strategic without requiring a steep learning curve to master. Going back to the combat, although many missions call for some extra firepower, a lot of the time you’ll be engaging with opponents hand to hand. Wei’s abilities can be modified by spending points using Sleeping Dog’s comprehensive skill tree, which is also tied into the game’s morality system Wei’s behaviour dictates which skill points you’ll be able spend, with positive behaviour netting you points for expanding your law enforcement abilities and vice versa. The city genuinely feels alive and offers players an almost overwhelming amount of activities to participate in from illegal street racing to martial arts training to side-quests for both the police and your criminal cohorts, players almost always have a smorgasboard of distractions to choose from. The almost claustrophobic design of the city makes for thrilling chases and the exotic flavour of the culture is a welcome addition that serves to give Sleeping Dogs its own unique aesthetic. One of the game’s biggest strengths is in its setting, with the neon soaked bustling streets and myriad dingy back alleys of Hong Kong making for a stark contrast when compared to the American cities and tropical paradises of other open world games. Rather, Sleeping Dogs refines the formula to great effect, giving players additional methods of hijacking vehicles in transit by launching Wei off of his bike onto the roof, streamlined mission selection where you can instantly set GPS coordinates for specific missions with a click of the left thumbstick, a combat system that leans heavily towards hand to hand attacks rather than an overreliance on gunplay and more. So, par for the course in that respect then Sleeping Dogs understands that the open world genre pioneered by Grand Theft Auto 3 now has a definitive structure that players are used to and to deviate too drastically from that design could spell disaster. If you’ve played Grand Theft Auto (Or, indeed, the original True Crime series on PS2 and XBOX) then you’ll know what to expect gameplay wise – Cars can be commandeered and used to traverse the city, civilians, both innocent and otherwise, can be attacked at will and the entire city of Hong Kong itself is a sandbox of activities ranging from the mundane to the insane. Progress is achieved by completing missions and side quests for various lieutenants as you rise through the ranks, a mission and narrative structure that’s starting to feel a little tired in these kind of open world crime games but one that’s mitigated somewhat by an interesting take on the generic undercover cop plot and the paradox of committing criminal acts in order to uphold the law. Sleeping Dogs lets you play as Wei Shen, an American-Chinese police officer who has returned to Hong Kong in order to go deep undercover and infiltrate the Triads in order to try and bring down their criminal organisation. Couple that with the fact that Sleeping Dogs in its original incarnation was an extremely solid game and you have a gaming experience that looks and plays superbly. Despite the limitations presented by being yet another remastered title rather than a true current gen experience, the simple truth of the matter is that, with most titles available for PS4 and XBOX One generally also being remasters, being designed for last generation hardware isn’t as much as a handicap as it may become in the future. Now Sleeping Dogs has made the leap to current generation consoles with a new coat of polish and all 24 DLC included with this definitive edition but does it still have what it takes to make an impression in this current gaming climate? Format: PlayStation 4 (Reviewed), Xbox One, PCīeginning life as an intended sequel in the open world True Crime series before being unceremoniously cancelled, S leeping Dogs was subsequently revived by Square Enix and crafted into a new intellectual property that, despite being criminally overlooked in some quarters, made for an action/adventure open world experience that could sit comfortably amongst peers such as Just Cause 2 and the Grand Theft Auto series.
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