Sleeping Dogs PC Review

Sleeping dogs is a grand scale open world 3rd person action adventure game, you take the role of Wei Shen, an undercover cop who is trying to bury himself deep into the world of the Triads, a world of organised crime, killings, drug dealing and a whole lot more, faced with the personal struggle of trying to gain the trust of his fellow gang members, taking part in everything from robberies to murder to get closer to the leaders and unravel the criminal underworld, but in doing so he must do his best to abide by the law and provide intel to his co-workers at the police department.

It’s a really interesting gameplay mix and thanks to the games open world style, you are free to pick and choose missions as you please, much as you can in other open world games like Grand Theft Auto, pick up a police mission to go use surveillance to spy on drug deals and turn people in, or follow the gangs and aid them in a crime to work your way through the ranks.

Naturally each one could have its own set of consequences on the other group, triad or police, which is why the game scores you on two separate tiers, hurt pedestrians, damage property and steal cars and your cop score goes down, but similar things can boost your gang rating, so dependant on how you want the game to play out, it’s up to you to find the balance that suits you best.

The combat system in the game is superb, blending the open world free flowing story and cutscenes with a grand amount of high action, car and on foot chases mixing some light parkour and a combat system that is not unlike that of titles like Batman Arkham City, with a sturdy cover system and some seriously brutal environmental takedowns.

Dishing out the pain doesn’t go unrewarded either, build up starts for stringing together combos and your enemies will show signs of fear and start to back off and panic, making it even easier to take them down. But fighting and killing is illegal  should the police catch wind of your criminal actions you’ll find your self fending off the police, being chased down and more, evading them and countering their attempts to arrest you is vital to your mission as an undercover cop.

The game features a robust leveling system too, offering plenty of unlockable attacks, tricks and perks which help give the game an almost RPG like progression, making the game even deeper and more enjoyable throughout.