The car driving is tight, and you can ram to the sides. Police chases are hard to outrun and require ramming to throw them off, but it’s easy. I played through with keys until the final levels, where I got a wired PC xbox controller. The wired Xbox controller is what I would recommend for playing Sleeping Dogs. You can also jump between cars while they’re moving.
You will like Sleeping Dogs if you liked Saints row 4 and GTA 4. It’s has a serious crime fighting storyline, but keeps it light and twisty. It’s every Hong Kong movie you’ve ever seen or not seen rolled into a single game.
The fighting mechanic in Sleeping Dogs requires special mention for being unbelievably fun. I played Sleeping dogs before trying Batman Arkham Asylum. Sleeping Dogs has a 10x better fighting mechanic. It feels solid, quick, and not luck based. You’re in control of the action and it’s hong kong/Bruce Lee/Jackie Chan flavored.
Music and sound in Sleeping Dogs is just right. Punches hit and sound solid, fire is pew pew perfect and cars make engine noises. Everything sounds solid and well done. The voice acting gets special mention for being above and beyond the call of duty. The voice acting just nails it and takes the story up into the clouds, you will BE officer Wei Shen for 20 hours. The radio stations are fun like GTA used to be and the songs will stick in your mind long after you put the controller down.
Final scores to round out the Sleeping Dogs review:
- Graphics 9.5/10, genre equal (GTA iv wins the 10/10).
- Sound: 10/10, bu ya c-cup, you’ll know when you hear it.
- Story 10/10, genre breaking.
- Controls 9.5/10, use a controller for the 10/10 experience, but the keys are 9/10. 11/10 for the fighting mechanics, best ever.
- Immersion 10/10, the story is gripping and solid throughout. Twisty and turny.
Steam tells me I have 40 hours on Sleeping Dogs and it’s my second most played game ever (company of heroes has 150 hours). Every minute was fun, forget the terrible cover art, just buy it. The game gets so much right it’s unreal.
Sleeping Dogs gets an overall score of 10/10 and is the easy winner of the Nerdr Steam PC game of 2012 trophy. If you are not convinced at this point in the review I have no idea what will convince you more.
How about the free Sleeping Dogs Demo on Steam?
The fact that Sleeping dogs is $5. $5 for the Nerdr game of the year winner. Real winner, because I don’t get paid to write these reviews and I pay real money for my games. There’s no PR team on my nuts here, real talk: buy Sleeping Dogs now.
