STATS:

Started: First week of January

Finished: 1/24/2018

platinum?: no

DLC: Included but not played

= = =

So I have been wanting to play this game for a good long while but always seemed to have been too busy or involved in other things. I downloaded the PS3 version couple years ago when it was a PS Plus free game. When I got a PS4 and saw there was a "Definitive" edition I figured I would get it at some point. During a Gamestop used game sale I picked it up for a decent price. And once again it sat on my selves. So I was happy when "Wheel Choice" picked it out I was happy to finally give it a shot.

I never played any of the "True Crime" games back in the PS2 days. I never really got into them because to me they looked like cheap versions of GTA. I dont know if I will ever get back to try them out or if I will just look up some kind of lets play.

REVIEW: (spoiler warnings)

So the good things: I did like the story even though there were some parts that I knew were going to happen like your boss being crooked and some point exposing you to the mob or when your childhood friend is murdered by the crazy wanna be mob boss.

The voice acting is good with the mix of English and Chinese. The location of the story was very interesting and I have to admit that I didn't get use to driving on the other side of the road, then again I never really play these kind of games to do proper road rules.

The combat is good. Some of the fist fights can get a tiny bit annoying when fighting the big guys or the blockers. Many times I wished there was more fight moves to break the blocks easier or something but I will get into it in a bit about that.

Now some complaints:

1) Needed a have a fast travel: Yes I know you could take a cab to go to any store or story location but with no way to call a cab to your location I found myself desperately trying to run after a cab. You can call a person to drop off a car for you but it is still annoying to drive across a map.

2) Multiple ways to get your cop level up but seems like only story missions help get your triad level up. I wish there was some ways to get that level up like the police and face. I mean you do illegal things like street racing but when you win you get little bit of money and other levels. Im close to getting the trophy for maxing out the levels but trying to get any points on pass missions for me is a bit annoying to bet my old score with clothes that give an extra 15% score and get hardly anything.

3) Buggy. There was so many times during races or story scenes when the game hitched up or just something would just mess up and would have to restart at a check point. I know open world games have their jank but there were a couple times doing the races where my car would somehow get stuck on a wall or something and cause me to lose or in some group fights my character would pretty much be stunned locked by getting grabbed from behind by a large guy and breaking lose from the grab just to be hit by someone else and regrabbed. That was very annoying and at times caused me to just give up for the night.

4) A very walled off open world. There were areas that should have been able to climb over a rock or small wall to use as a short cut but this game has the very nasty habit of using invisible walls. There were several cases where if I was given a normal jump button there would have been some decent short cuts to get some of the cases or other collectibles but the game wanted you to get a boat or swim around a island to get some box on the beach.

And finally on my complaint section is the radio. Games like GTA and Saints Row have some great radio/music. I mean there were times on past GTA games where I would just listen to the crazy commercials or DJ banter between songs. Sleeping Dogs has some good tracks from Flying Lotus and Daptone Records but a lot of the stations were just meh to listen to. And with commercials in chinese and nothing really being funny or interesting being talked about on the stations I just tuned out when driving the cars. I know the game was going for a more "real" kind of world but they could have done a little something to give the radio stations some life to them!

FINAL THOUGHTS:

This was a okay game. It had its moments and at times the story did get brutal. I may come back to it sometime in the future to try to get plat or to play the DLC stuff. If you can get it cheap used or something it's worth checking out. Maybe have a mp3 player handy for your own soundtrack and maybe figure out if you want to go after 100% or just play for the story.

THE NEXT GAME: UNCHARTED (Uncharted collection)

I am doing a backlog initiative this year as well and the GB Community voted that I play Sleeping Dogs too! You have a lot of similar thoughts/complaints as me. I should be finishing it in the next day or two and will have a review up next week.

Overall, I think it is a decent enough open-world game with some cool concepts/systems (decent fighting system, ramming with cars, fun hacking mini-games), but there's also too many things that felt...well, half-assed (though that may just be due to budget constraints).

@big_denim: Yeah it's a good game and who knows if maybe they were able to do a second game they could have fixed the problems and had a great new series.

I have to agree that the hacking game (the number one) is great and simple, the one that got on my nerves was the "bug planting" mini game. I am glad that those were very far and in between.