Sleeping Dogs Preview - E3 2012

Sleeping Dogs (summer release) is new facelift for the True Crime series of games that were released several years ago for the Xbox and PS2. For those that may not remember the format, it was a sandbox action game similar to Grand Theft Auto. Now that Square Enix has the IP and United Front Games have taken the reins, we have a familiar format, but brought up to date with features common in our sandbox action games. While sandbox games are nothing new over the recent years, the question is whether Sleeping Dogs looks promising enough to differentiate itself from the crowd. I had an opportunity to experience the melee side of the game in a short mission to track down a rival gang member.

The setting for Sleeping Dogs is Honk Kong. You play Wei Shen, an undercover cop trying to take the triads down from the inside. As with all narratives of this nature, there is always conflict present between the job of being a cop, and the way in which a character inevitably begins to sympathise with the gang he infiltrates. The classic China Town market I began in was replete with bright lights, restaurants, stalls, and claustrophobic streets. After a short cutscene which delivered the incentive for me to track down an individual, I took to the streets.

There were a number of characters and objects to interact with, such as vending machines and individuals that could provide temporary boosts to stats like attack. Then, after a brief period of investigation around the tight plaza, I found the man in question, and after a short scene, I gave chase. This is when Sleeping Dogs introduced how the player interacts with their running animations. The player weaves and dodges the populace, which became particularly cool looking when at the last moment I strafed to the side of an NPC, to then vault up the side of a building using the character’s free-running ability. The brief chase was fast and exciting, and conveyed a real sense of urgency and fun.

When this short jaunt was over, the enemy called on some cronies and the combat kicked off. You have your basic attack combos that have directional abilities to keep enemies all around you at bay. And there was also the ability to counter opponents with weapons and appendages that displayed a flashy contextual takedown animation. There’s also contextual scene interaction that’s especially brutal. A favourite had to be grabbing an opponent while fighting on a rooftop, and slamming them face first into an extraction fan, taking the side of their face off. Another fun part was being able to grab your opponent and drag them around the environment like an unruly child, only to fling them off a building.

The demo was short and sweet, and ended with a boss battle with emphasis on tactics and use of the counter button so as not to get cut to ribbons by a knife. It was extremely fun and flashy, and left me wanting more of the game.

What was also particularly engaging was the cathartic mayhem that comes with sandbox and free roam games. Taking a break from the story I decided to rein down chaos on the general public. I dragon kicked a woman in the face, stole her bag full of shopping, and proceeded to beat the sweat of several people in the area. It appeared I was a little too enthused with the chaotic fun as a number of staff wondered if my reckless actions would “break” the game. Suffice to say, it didn’t and the only thing broken was my tenuous grip on reality.

Unfortunately, the game was not playable either with weapons or vehicles. Those elements of the game were left to Square Enix’s theatre demo. In this demo, we were treated to a brief scene, which for the purposes of censorship, I cannot repeat verbatim. The gist was that a rival gang wanted a cut of your profit, so in response to this, our protagonist decides, rather than engage in diplomatic conversation, to simply kill the other gang’s members. We started with a shootout in a nightclub, where there was cover based shooting, as well as the ability to slow down time.

The shootout was very reminiscent of Stranglehold, in the way in which we sled over tables and objects to finish off enemies. There were different varieties of weapon on display, ranging from handguns, to machine guns. After the brief firefight inside the club, we soon engaged in vehicular based shooting. This, while being similar to many other games, had the added element of enemy vehicles defying gravity to vault into the sky when targeting their wheels. It was a fairly simple affair, and the demo culminated in a quick street chase with further displays of free-running, and the death of the main enemy we were chasing.

So, is it any good? Well, what I did experience of the single player was extremely fun. However, one has to wonder how exactly Sleeping Dogs attempts to differentiate itself from the crowd. At the moment, while certainly entertaining, I wonder whether it has picked elements from popular games, and played it safe by including them in Sleeping Dogs. Is it then perhaps, better to let sleeping dogs lie? Only time will tell.