GotG Round 1: Grand Theft Auto V vs. Sleeping Dogs

GAT V

Sleeping Dogs is great, but it's no GTA V.

Sleeping dogs because Vinny.

GTA V is the best open world game ever made.

And it has Trevor.

Oh ya done done it.

Exactly. I have to give SD props for having Batman like combat while still using a combo system (which aint a broken system).

The driving and shooting are not good though.

Sleepy Dawgz

GTA V. There's just too much to it. Every thing that both games do Sleeping Dogs does a bit better (except the driving, which is trash in SD) but then GTA just continues lining up things to do and leaves SD behind in the dust. The scope of the game is much bigger and maintains a good level of quality throughout.

GTA5 only because I haven't played Sleeping Dogs.

SORRY VINNY!

I honestly had more fun playing Sleeping Dogs than GTA. Being able to be in an open-world game that wasn't the US was really cool, and Wei Shen was a great character.

I'm admitting that I haven't played GTAV, but I'm also admitting that I voted for Sleeping Dogs anyways because SLEEPING DOGS!!! I'm confident GTAV will win anyways, I just wanted to show that amazing game some more love.

C'mon Sleeping Dogs! GTAV may be more impressive, but Sleeping Dogs is just so much more fun. I never want to do everything in open-world games, and Sleeping Dogs kept dragging me back in time and time again.

If GTA V loses I'll.... I'll well... I'll do nothing but... DAMMIT YOU GUYS. *storms off*

I had more fun playing Sleeping Dogs than I had playing GTAV. Go Sleeping Dogs!

Voting Sleeping Dogs and not even feeling a little bit bad about it. Sleeping Dogs is some of the most pure fun I've ever had playing a game this generation. GTA V is dull in comparison.

Wei Shen, motherfuckers.

Sleeping Dogs is more fun to play, has a more interesting setting and characters, and fun side acitivities. GTAV simply isn't as fun, has characters that are more caricature, limp satire in place of smart humor, and a map that's too large that doesn't offer enough worthwhile things to do.

This is... surprisingly close in the early goings. To me, it's a no contest. I enjoyed Sleeping Dogs, it is a fun, well put-together game. GTA V made me stop playing and transcribe the series of generated, non-mission based events in a GTA-travelog because I couldn't believe what was going on. After playing it to 100% completion, I did see a lot of fraying at the seams in some of the systems, but it is still one of my top games of the year and likely the generation.

@entus said:

Yeah pretty much, this is why Sleeping Dogs is even considered.

Man, if Sleeping Dogs can pull this off, I may cry literal tears of joy.

C'MON SLEEPY DAWGS!!!!

Sleeping Dogs has heart and earned it for so many people coming out of nowhere. It's is also such a great rendition of Hong Kong crime and action movies of the last 20 years. That and I love Wei Shen so much.

Also: wet pavement.

Sleeping Dogs is better playing game with an interesting story. GTA V is a great game that squander's it's story. It still has a great open world but I had more fun with Sleeping Dogs.

GTA IV rehash vs. Interesting and crazy game.

Sleeping Dogs is more fun to play, I really liked the combat system and being able to jump from car to car like Pursuit Force was great but GTA V is more a refinement of the genre. It's like the seasoned veteran at the party showing other games how its done.

Take Batman's combat, Just Cause's hijacking (from Pursuit Force), standard third-person cover-based shooting, and a Honk Kong undercover cop story, sprinkled with some bullet time and self-awareness, and you've got Sleeping Dogs.

I bet GTA V wins this one if only because more people played it and never even touched Sleepy Dogs.

GTA V is no Sleeping Dogs.

When I sit back and ask myself which game I want to play start to finish/or could play sleeping dogs by a mile. Also the wedding :(

I think GTAV is going to win just by numbers, there are more fans of the GTA series total than of Sleeping Dogs, a new IP.

My vote is for Sleeping Dogs.

Both are really good openworld games. Sleepy Dogs has really good melee combat, that is the one thing that trumps Grand Theft Auto 5, GTA's writing, characters and missions were more enjoyably for me. Also Sleeping Dogs' Hong Kong didnt feel that interesting to me, while San Andreas had the variety to keep me entertained when just driving around. But again both are really really good games.

WEI SHEN MOTHER FUCKER

I haven't played GTA5, so I voted Sleeping Dogs to cancel out your vote.

I am astonished at how many voted for Sleeping Dogs. For me, it's not even a competition. Sleeping Dogs doesn't belong on a Game of the Generation list. If anything we should pit GTA V against Red Dead Redemption and GTA IV.

Thank you

Not to start a war or anything, but please enlighten me how in the seven hells Sleeping Dogs is playing better? Flat and odd feeling driving physics? Crummy shooting with little rapport and lottery-style standard deviation, with a fun but non-sensical bullet time mechanic?

Sleeping Dogs has a very restrictive feeling open world, that's barely more than just streets. Its redeeming quality is the fresh setting coming with fresh story opportunities and fresh feeling characters, as well as the excellent melee combat with its context sensitive environmental takedowns - which are more of a novelty than actual depth.

Qualitative, pretty much every aspect of Sleeping Dogs doesn't stand a snowballs chance in hell to compete and win against GTA V. Sleeping Dogs is the kiddy pool to GTA V's Pacific Ocean. Of course enjoyment of GTA V hinges much more on one's mastery of its many many mechanics, which each have a whole lot more of depth to them - which does go some way to explain this rather surprisingly close poll result.

Wow, this is super close. I don't feel right about voting because I haven't played GTA V (might be why it's so close, actually, since V has only just come out and not everyone will have gotten around to it yet). Sleeping Dogs has an amazing legacy with this site and with Vinny specifically though, so I wouldn't be surprised if it became a community favorite/dark horse like Bastion. I mean, that is if it manages to win.

I'm going to go out on a limb and assume GTA V did not up its hand-to-hand combat game, nor has it tried particularly hard to vastly improve anything else about its open world elements. The two games seem equally matched from where I'm standing (but, again, can't know for sure without playing both).

I've played every GTA game and gotten 100% completion in every one since GTAIII. I think Sleeping Dogs is the best open world urban crime game on the market.

Sleepy Dags has my vote. I had more fun in its world, the story was better than GTA V, and it was so refreshing to leave North America for once.

Just the level of detail in GTA V's world alone makes it infinitely more interesting than any other open world game. There's more handcrafted detail in one block of Los Santos than in the entirety of Sleeping Dogs' Hong Kong. GTA V has better driving, shooting, graphics, physics, animation, dialogue, voice acting, mission diversity, replay value... just about every aspect is better in GTA V except hand-to-hand combat, which has never been a focus of GTA and is SD's primary combat mechanic. GTA V is in a league of its own. Only Red Dead Redemption really poses any serious competition, and that's another Rockstar game.

I'm rooting for a Sleepy Dawgz upset.

I like Sleeping Dogs but taken as a whole, I feel that GTA V is the better all-around game. Sleeping Dogs is a crazy mishmash of ideas from different games and it's nice to get these different elements in a single game like this (even if each of those elements are not as implemented well here as in their respective games). I also prefer the more arcadey handling to vehicles in this game. That said, the gun combat is poor and the story and characters in general feel pretty shallow and are not very interesting (though Wei Shen is great). In contrast, I just feel that gta has a much more interesting set of characters and story (though yes the story here could also use some work in fleshing out more of the characters/spending less time on FIB shit) with combat that works better overall (the negatives of gun combat outweigh the positives of melee combat in Sleeping Dogs for me) and a much more impressive and detailed world (even if they don't do quite as much with it as I would have liked). Side activities are kinda equal for me for both games though I enjoyed the characters and world much more in GTA V so I was much more willing to seek out those activities. I also gotta give credit to gta for introducing things like the 3 playable characters and more detailed heist missions that really helped keep things interesting. Sleeping Dogs does a decent job of combining a variety of elements from different games but it also seems a bit safe. For a discussion about game of the generation, I feel like you gotta do more than that and while I don't believe that GTA V should be game of the generation either, it's still more impressive and thus it deserves to go further in this bracket.

@seppli: You get so defensive any time someone says something negative about GTAV. Not everyone loves it like you do. Just accept it and move on instead of trying to start arguments.

In any other open world urban crime game the mechanic of a vehicle chase is the same. Drive really fast away from the enemy if it's a getaway; drive really fast in the direction of the target if it's a pursuit. In Sleeping Dogs they actually made an evolution of that formula. If you're getting chased you can ram your pursuers or shoot out their tires to flip them or you can hit a huge ramp to escape a wanted level. If you're chasing someone down then you can shoot out their tires, ram them or action hijack them. Basically what I'm saying is took what is filler missions in any other open world game and turned them into a fun game.

The hand to hand combat in GTA is shit and has always been shit. That's why they almost always give you a gun (and their shooting isn't good either). Even in the first combat mission with Lamar when he gives you a gun you get over 100 bullets. You never stop shooting people for the entire rest of the game. Sleeping Dogs at least balances out it's combat sequences by having more hand to hand combat and less gun combat. There may be a fun but non-sensical bullet time feature but GTAV has that too!

From a technical standpoint I'd say that Sleeping Dogs looks better and has a better sound design. From an artistic standpoint it has better characters, a better plot, a better soundtrack and better voice acting. There is a lot more of GTAV but it's not a better game.

Sleeping dogs by a mile. The mechanics and gameplay are far superior to GTA V. Yes, GTA V has a massive world but it's also a boring world with last-gen gameplay.

To be honest, I wouldn't have finished Sleeping Dogs if it wasn't for Taxi Quicktravel. Everytime the game forced me to drive places, I felt like vomiting in my mouth. All of it feels so wrong, from driving on the *wrong* side of the street, to how wierd and flat the vehicles handle, to the silly ramming and take-over manouvers. The only redeeming quality of driving in Sleeping Dogs is how gunfights from inside the cars handle, though the excessive bullet time cheapens it quite a bit.

GTA V. The only good thing about Sleepy Dogs is the melee combat, everything else is gross.

@seppli: You consider driving on the left side of the street in a game SET IN HONG KONG a negative? It's pointless listening to you.

I do all the things you describe without any crutches in GTA V. In Sleeping Dogs cops cheat, they don't actually navigate the gameworld if you don't look at them, they just teleport all the time. The most effecitve way to beat a wanted level is to slow down and ram them off the street, which feels super cheap and wrong. Outdriving them is nigh impossible, due to them cheating - unless you have a much faster car.

GTA V's hand-to-hand combat is fine for what it is, not a vocal point of the game. And despite all Sleeping Dogs has going for it in that department, it still feels better to me to clobber a guy in the face in GTA V, Euphoria engine driven animations be thanked.

Erm, are you saying Sleeping Dogs looks better than GTA V on consoles? I played both games on PS3 and compared with GTA V it looks like muddy dogpoop. If you want to compare Sleeping Dogs on PC with GTA V, wait for the inevitable next gen and PC versions of it. I also disagree with everything else you say in that paragraph. That's literally insanity to me. There's just no comparing the production values between the two. We will never agree, because I can't even fathom your opinion.

Oh well. Different strokes for different blokes. I have a hard time living with it, because wrongness so blatant makes my mind ache, but hey - you're entitled to having an opinion, even if I don't even recognize the basis for any of it. It's just not there.

Truely, you do not understand me. I equate driving on the wrong side of the street to how wrong the driving feels to me. It's not a bad thing per se.

GTA V is the better game in every aspect. My head tells me to vote for GTA V...

I voted for Sleeping Dogs.

I voted for sleeping dogs because that's the one I played!