In Sleeping Dogs, there are many ways to dispatch enemies, and much of the fun involves dynamically figuring out what landscape assets you can use - and when you should use them. Especially in some of the showpiece fights, where you have a seemingly endless parade of bad guys to punch, kick, throw off buildings, slam into telephone boxes, or electric junction boxes, or even air conditioning units. It's an effective way of keeping the fighting interesting, and the deeper you get into the game, the more canny you have to be with your bag of tricks. Wei starts out as a fairly capable brawler, and learns new skills as he levels up. Instead you constantly find yourself fighting groups of people – something that's frankly a lot more challenging than shooting people in the head. Guns and ammo don't figure particularly strongly in the game, and it's so much the better for it. Firstly, it plays like an odd cross between Shenmue, Final Fight, and GTA V. I found myself enjoying the game's overall storyline and repartee more than I did Grand Theft Auto V.īeing an open world game, there are obvious parallels to Rockstar's series, but there are more than enough original aspects imbued into the game to make it stand on its own two feet. The supporting cast is similarly effective, and there are some really interesting characters to meet and talk to. His sarcasm-laced, tough guy rhetoric, and bone-dry delivery works perfectly here, and adds humor in the right places.

The voice acting is excellent, particularly the protagonist Wei Shen, who's played perfectly by True Blood's Kazuo Ryuichi.

I'm learning all sorts of top-drawer Cantonese swears too, which is the icing on the cake. What I'm particularly enjoying is the dialog, whose half-Cantonese, half gangster banter is really entertaining to listen to. It's playing out like a 90's Hong Kong cop movie, and it's ticking all the right boxes. Yes, it's a little contrived, but to me Sleeping Dogs is spot-on. I wanted to make all that clear so you'd know exactly why I'm thoroughly enjoying Sleeping Dogs' clichéd story of a Chinese-American cop going undercover to infiltrate the Hong Kong Triad. The latter pair are up there amongst my all-time favorite movies, while newer flicks like Internal Affairs and Firestorm have ensured my love affair with this genre has endured to the present day. I grew up on the Jackie Chan Supercop series, and of John Woo classics such as The Killer and Hard Boiled. Part of my affinity with the game is the fact that I just love Hong Kong action movies – especially ones involving cops. That's me with Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition. You're just enjoying it anyway, and perhaps even having a blast. Maybe its storyline is predictable, or there are plot holes, but it doesn't matter. Have you ever played a game that's perhaps a little flawed, but you just don't care.

Sleeping dogs definitive edition review