At what point in time did we stop thinking about games like this as "Grand Theft Auto Clones"? It's something I've been thinking about after finishing Sleeping Dogs. I remember in the ensuing years after Grand Theft Auto 3 came out, the phrase "GTA Clone" was everywhere, applied to virtually any game that emulated the kind of open world crime game that GTA was. Some of the most notable victims of this label would be the True Crime games, the Mafia series, or perhaps most known, Saints Row. But when I think back to those games, I don't remember them being particularly bad. In terms of world design they may have been drawing obvious inspiration from Grand Theft Auto, and they certainly won't be remembered as classics, but it didn't mean they were terrible.

The reason I bring this up is because Sleeping Dogs doesn't really do anything especially innovative or new with the sub-genre of the open world crime game. While it does add its own unique, and beautifully realized setting, and other new systems and touches, this is still just an evolution of the GTA formula from years ago. Again, I stress that I don't mean this as a bad thing, or to take away from anything Sleeping Dogs achieves. Yet, no one really thinks about these games as "clones" anymore. Had this game came out 5 years before it did, I could easily see it being saddled with that label, remembered as "one of the better GTA clones." Somewhere along the line, though, we stopped thinking of these games like that, and the term became a relic of generations-past so quietly that I didn't notice.

Any fan of Giant Bomb for any length of time will recognize this game. Though I don't exactly have the discipline to finish many of the open world crime games - I probably haven't finished a Grand Theft Auto since 3 - I've wanted to dive into Sleeping Dogs for a long time, so when a Humble Bundle came along with it included several months back, I snatched it up. I was especially looking for a nice, well-constructed 10-15 hour romp after playing so many RPGs. Front Mission 4, Xenoblade, Valkyria Chronicles 2; all of these games are, if nothing else, pretty lengthy. I needed to decompress. So when scrolling down my Steam library, it caught my eye yet again. A really good, well-constructed 10-15 hour romp is exactly what I got.

Differentiation in this genre can be hard, but Sleeping Dogs stands out in several ways.

When Activision canned what was then-known as an upcoming True Crime game, they did so with the rationale that the game simply was, in their view, not going to be competitive in what was already an immensely competitive genre. In retrospect this seems completely nuts, to me. We'll never be able to completely know exactly what special sauce Square Enix added to the mix when they rescued the game from the dumpster, but Sleeping Dogs has one of the most well-realized depictions of an Asian setting I can think of, and certainly the most beautiful depiction of Hong Kong in video games.

One of the biggest criticisms I feel like Grand Theft Auto has come under is that in style those games don't have the flair for doing different settings the way they did in the generations previous. Each one felt like it had something different, whether it was in time, or place, or tone. Where GTA III was an amazing step in its own right, Vice City was a coke-addled 80s Miami fever dream, San Andreas was a boyz-in-the-hood trip of 90s gangsta rap, and GTA IV was a sobering, serious tone that reeled everything back in, GTA V was... present day California, more or less. I never got the chance to play much of it (and I'm probably one of the very few, at this point, since it sold eight hundred bajillion copies) but the setting and tone of the story never really stood out much in the way the past games had. Ultimately, the setting is perhaps the largest part of what makes an open world game feel interesting, as the mechanics shared between them feel so same-y. Sleeping Dogs' Hong Kong feels amazing and fresh in the same way I felt about Vice City, this world that no one was doing this well, this perfect recreation of this place and time, I felt immersed in a way that I hadn't expected this stupid-looking game to be.

Part of what helps that, of course, is the characters and voice acting; the VA genuinely being some of the best I've ever had the pleasure of listening to in a video game. It's hard to describe exactly what this game does differently. Perhaps its the collection of various accents, the way there are so many different distinct voices for all of the characters instead of several repeat actors, a problem that plagues Bethesda games more than any other. Perhaps its the surprisingly well used celebrity talent that lifts it up a notch. Regardless, Sleeping Dogs' characters just feel so much more real than most games I've played, and how much I enjoyed listening to them was a pleasant surprise.

The hand-to-hand combat, too, makes Sleeping Dogs stand out among its peers. Double nice for me is that, since I've never played the Arkham games at all, the whole thing was more or less new to me. Still though, I can't help but feel like the credit that goes to that series for practically inventing that style of countering into chain attacks feel overblown. I digress. Fighting groups of gangsters, learning new moves at the martial arts school, it feels good in a way that no other open world game of this type has managed.

There were plenty other little touches throughout the game that I enjoyed. The direction markers in-world that display where you need to be going made car travel the least confusing of any games I've played from this genre, and the way they're marked with different colors depending on the type of objective you're going to is one of those "You really didn't have to do that, but it's nice that you did" things. The tutorial on gun combat is also a neat setpiece - and coincidentally probably the only time I actually thoroughly enjoyed the gunplay - doubling as a CSI-like crime scene reenactment. It's those stylistic touches they didn't have to do that I'll end up remembering.

So what was wrong with Activision, eh?

I cared more about the overall story, and the characters therein, than I thought I would.

What I enjoyed most of all throughout the story, and sadly what it doesn't really make good on in the end, is how so many of the characters are initially painted as sympathetic, internally conflicted figures. Wei, chief among them, has a kinship with the people he has gone undercover to infiltrate, making him far and away the best person for the job, but also the most likely to grow dangerously attached. He does, of course, and this can be seen from a mile away, but even though that can be immediately guessed, his story along the way is touching.

Sent undercover to bring down the Triad organization known as the Sun On Yee, by boss cop Pendrew and Wei's handler Raymond, things predictably spiral out of control as Triad bosses come and go, people are slaughtered, the chairman of the Sun On Yee is killed, and outright war erupts. For most of the game, though, it's not some sort of balls-to-the-wall war through the streets. (Which is good, because when the game does reach that point, it suffers tremendously, but more on that later.) Wei mostly spends his time making contacts, weaseling his way up the ladder, and protecting Jackie, a childhood friend. On the side, you'll deal with Inspector Teng, a female cop who doesn't appreciate you rampaging through her city, and your bosses, who repeatedly berate you for disobeying orders and caring too much about your newfound Triad connections.

I don't care for just giving long-winded plot summaries, and it's a game you should really experience for yourself, so I'll just say that the popular image of this game as being purely stupid-fun lulled me into a false sense of what this game's tone really was, in a way I really enjoyed. After a scene in which Jackie kills someone who was about to hurt Wei, Jackie spends most of the car ride back freaking out, unable to get a grip after what just happened. He deliriously rambles about the look in the man's eyes, the feeling in the pit of his stomach, how he never expected things to escalate as far as they did. Wei responds by telling him, in a way that you suspect is trying to convince himself as much as Jackie, the feelings go away with time if you just stop thinking about it. Later, in the next mission you do with Jackie, he's still fucked up about it, and only wants to do less dangerous, low-key missions. He starts talking about what he wants his future to be, and soon realizes he wants out as quickly as he got in. Perhaps to some, this character evolution is rote, but they still had impact for me.

It's frustrating that the plot doesn't maintain that level of quality, because the characters that are good are so good, and it's because I ended up caring so much about the story that I was so upset when the last couple hours fuck things up so hard. Everything is about building up to a Sun On Yee election, and then shit goes sideways, Jackie is killed, you're outed as a cop, and suddenly everything you've spent hours building up to, everything you've been interacting with these characters about, stops mattering. It's just a bunch of fight scenes, you find out Pendrew screwed you from behind the scenes by outing your cover and killing Uncle Po himself, and the game kind of abruptly ends with Pendrew going to jail and Jiang leaving you in peace. Then credits. I cannot overstate how abrupt and unsatisfying the ending of the game really is. It's basically just a bunch of incredibly short cutscenes awkwardly stitched together. It feels so detached from the rest of the narrative.

What is arguably most disappointing, though, is how all moral greyness is robbed from Pendrew's character and he's turned into a cartoonishly selfish villain and literal murderer. Why? Pendrew starts the game as a character who bends rules and even though he is a dick from time to time, his motivations are largely sympathetic and his overall goal is hard to argue with. When he bickers with Raymond about Wei being the right person for the job, he's not wrong. When he lectures Wei about getting too attached, he's not wrong. But then the story removes any of this and morphs him into a sociopath. There's no longer any conflict about is he good or bad, is he right or wrong. Perhaps what is most egregious about this, though, is that it was totally unnecessary. The story could've had a perfectly satisfying conclusion without dealing with Pendrew in any way whatsoever. Very little about the game is concerned with dealing with Pendrew, so for the ending to suddenly swerve into that was just shitty. At least these are better complaints to level against Sleeping Dogs than talking about "ludonarrative dissonance."

Sleeping Dogs doesn't really break any new ground, but is still far above average.

I know a lot of people like to champion this game as being one of the best open world games of the last generation, but part of me feels like that's a hard argument to make. The actual contents of Sleeping Dogs' mission design can be fairly repetitive, and are largely standard for the genre. Tailing missions. Racing missions. Shoot-out-the-window-while-my-homie-drives missions. These missions are what they are, they are executed well enough, there's nothing offensive about them, but what makes Sleeping Dogs special is not any of these things.

What makes Sleeping Dogs special is that it can include a lot of the standard mechanics of open world games, but wrap them in a gorgeous and unique setting, while lifting some of the best trappings of other games and including them for flavor. Stunt-position hijacking is, while not unique, a great addition to a game of this type. Environmental special attacks have been in a plethora of other games, but are delightfully brutal and make each encounter feel less same-y. Parkour is nice, but Assassin's Creed has this in spades. The way you can sort of strafe from side to side in a vehicle like you're playing with bumper cars is a silly contrivance, but is incredibly fun and minimizes the frustration that car chases in other games typically have. It can be easy to nitpick Sleeping Dogs, but if last year's Game of the Year Awards from various publications proved anything, it's that a game can be considered one of the best of all time by doing little more than finding the right concoction of expected mechanics with only a little bit new added to the pot. There's nothing wrong with that. Games are supposed to be fun, and Sleeping Dogs is loads of fun.

But where Shadow of Mordor adds a stand-out system on top of its bog-standard mechanical formulas, Sleeping Dogs is merely doing things you are probably already familiar with, and just doing them really well. This is why I can't really consider this game anything other than solidly above average. And that's okay! The story may falter, and some mission types (including, sadly, the relationship missions) are utterly forgettable, but the act of playing Sleeping Dogs is never a hassle. The music is good, the fighting is satisfying, the characters are deceptively interesting, and Hong Kong has never been more fun. Sometimes that's all you need. That, and a little bit of corny music.

Gallery

Too bad the sequel to this game is just this game + an online mode.

I think the reason very few major releases are called clones anymore is that we've seen some real actual clones coming about and derivative gameplay is no longer enough to earn the title. Or maybe it's that there are far fewer novel approaches to game design in major releases so everything's a clone of something by that standard. I dunno. I liked Sleeping Dogs way better than I ever liked any GTA.

I really liked Sleeping Dogs. I really like Wei Shen. I like Wei Shen's sifu.

I'd argue stuff about GTA5 but this is Sleepy Dogs time!

Now that I think of it, Sleeping Dogs did have a lot of small pieces out of other games with the combat and the environmental kills and different minigames. It was the only game that I collected experience points for my face, though.

WHY IS THERE NOT A PORK BUN IN YOUR HAND?!

Sleepy Dogs is actually one of the best open world games ever made if you ask me. No it isn't as good as say GTAV, certainly not Red Dead (which is the best), or maybe not Saints 3..... but you know what? It has a great cast, setting, combat system, and a damn down pat execution. I like this game enough I have actually beaten it start to finish twice. I can't say the same about GOTY GTAIV.

The fact that it does not have a real sequel yet is seriously depressing and I hope to god that mmo thing is just a straight forward cash grab not a legit Sleeping Dogs 2. Cause god knows I would love an new crime drama with Wei Shen at the helm.... and I could always do with another pork bun.

I wish the driving in this had been better. Always just felt stiff and unresponsive to me, which is bad, since that's a pretty large part of an open-world game like this.

@rorie: In all fairness more recent open world games do handle the driving better. GTAV for example. That said for the time it came out it's driving was pretty solid for the most part, at least it felt no worse to me than GTAIV or Saints 2. Sleepy Doge is actually one of the few open world games where I think motorcycles are actually good.

@rorie said:

I felt this way about most of the game's core systems, honestly. It was a pretty small part of the game, but the shooting was super rough, and even the melee combat felt awkward despite being the thing people always praise.

You seem troubled. Would a little tea help?

Best character in the game.

@karkarov: In general I enjoyed the driving for what it was, but my biggest complaint was that cars never really felt all that different from one another in terms of how they handled. Different vehicles are basically just "Do you want to go faster? Yes/no." And the turning on most of them is super touchy, in my experience. Driving around Hong Kong still felt like a lot of fun, though, due to the the nature of a lot of the timed challenges. I beat @brodehouse's high-speed driving record in addition to his clean driving record, so he pretty much sucks.

@doctordonkey: Beautiful.

@rorie: But the "ramming" mechanic and hand break turns were fantastically stupid.

I loved Sleepy Dogs, and the hand-to-hand was excellent coming from someone who has never played a Batman game. It puts the hand-to-hand in GTA:V to shame still, and the reduced emphasis on guns made them feel really powerful when they did show up (as they should be). I didn't get too far in with the story, even though I actually really liked it, because I enjoyed just driving around and doing dumb shit too much. (Not to mention the swathes of hilarious bugs - like the time I rolled a double decker (which are basically impossible to flip), got out and stood on it, then it self righted itself and launched me into the sky).

@marokai:

This is probably my favorite open world game. With GTAIV being my least favorite.

I never understood what people were talking about when they complained about the driving, it felt very arcadey, just how I like it.

If the driving had been as awesome as the drive-and-shoot mechanic, it would be pretty sweet. But yeah, I enjoyed the heck out of Sleeping Dogs.

I rather enjoyed Sleeping Dogs. I wish more open world games would feature different parts of the world more often. Or would try sci-fi or something. Like Blade Runner's LA. That would be freaking awesome!

I dunno man, Sleeping Dogs is really something. It is the best open world crime simulator I've played since Vice City. Good blog :D

I'm working through the Platinum trophy for the Definitive Edition on PS4 at the moment. And the more I play it again, the more I realise this is probably one of my favourite games of all time.

Excellent read!