Thoughts on Sleeping Dogs?

[JamesV]

Picked it up tonight and liking it alot so far. The melee combat is pretty tight, very much like Batman but with less movement (you won't jump across the screen to hit someone). The vehicles are different, slower and less arcade-like than GTA, but overall feel pretty good.

The setting, attention to detail, and gorgeous visuals are what brings it all together though. This is Rockstar quality +; even the cutscenes are very high production.

I just wish you could turn off the view auto-centering. Literally fighting the camera to look around while driving or running.

 

[Markbnj]

Hard to say about the size. It's pretty big, but I think there are fewer landmarks. Like in GTA you know how there is always an airport somewhere or maybe an amusement park? Something that makes that area stand out? Not so in Sleeping Dogs. When you go from place to place it's not easy to tell that you are in the other part of the city sometimes. So from that standpoint I will say that GTA is probably bigger in that there are more points of interest even if the land area is similar.

As far as detailed...I don't know if you mean graphically or what. I'd say it's a draw because GTA has a few better touches to the environment. I mentioned landmarks as an example. Also more to do on the side as far as minigames etc. Bowling, Pool, Darts, getting drunk and chased by the cops. Speaking of cops...most of the time you can drive like a maniac and never have a cop try to pull you over. Unless it's part of a mission or you directly attack them I haven't seen a cop come after me. Literally you could run over someone with no consequences except cop level going down a bit. There also seems to be less use of guns in this game, focusing more on hand to hand combat. I kind of enjoy this better than running around with an AK. I feel as if I am in more control of the outcome without 20 people shooting me from all sides.

Having said all that, Sleeping Dogs is much better graphically and the characters are more fleshed out and much more interesting. The characters in GTA are very bland IMO. Typical tough guy. Typical slut girl, typical rich jerk boss guy, typical wuss brother or cousin. In Sleeping Dogs everyone is a little unique and doesn't fit into a mold out of a cheesy mob flick. They feel more like real people through the course of the game.

Yeah graphics are important, but I was really thinking in terms of how much of the environment is interactive. How many of the buildings can be entered, how many stores are there, can you use phones and computers, that kind of thing.

 

[Dankk]

Yeah graphics are important, but I was really thinking in terms of how much of the environment is interactive. How many of the buildings can be entered, how many stores are there, can you use phones and computers, that kind of thing.

I don't think any open-world city game has reached the level of interactivity that GTA4 has. Unlike the poster above me, I wouldn't call this game "Rockstar-quality"; Rockstar has their own personal flavor injected into their games, and that isn't present here.

That's not to say United Front's rendition of Hong Kong isn't interactive though, because it definitely is. You can buy tea and different kinds of food from street vendors. There's a large variety of clothing you can buy from clothing stores. You can go to massage parlors. You can even purchase cars from car lots, and retrieve any of your vehicles from parking garages scattered around the city which is convenient. Various side activities are located throughout the environment, like drug busts, fighting matches, horde modes, personal "favors" for NPCs, cockfighting, and a couple other things I'm probably forgetting.

On the other hand, you can't use payphones, you can't go to internet cafes to check your email and visit parody websites, and you certainly can't go to the bowling alley with your cousin. Just doesn't fit the mood of the game I guess.

Here's another thought: GTA4's interactive setting felt necessary because, IMO, the main storyline wasn't very engaging. When you don't feel like trudging along in the missions, the game has to provide something else to have meaningless fun with. On the other hand, Sleeping Dogs can get away with having a more static environment because the main missions are so intriguing. To validate my point, I have no desire to punch civilians in the face, fly off jumps in my sports car, and mow down people in a garbage truck while playing Sleeping Dogs. In GTA4 maybe I would, but in Sleeping Dogs I'm so focused on doing the missions and being a badass undercover cop that I don't care about causing chaos.

Does that make sense? I felt the same way about Saints Row 3; the campaign was so awesome in and of itself that I could forgive the less-than-interesting environment.

It in no way compares to the overall environment quality of GTA, also I find the overall setting a bit disconcerting. Maybe I just 'connect' better to GTA scenes in fake miami and US cities.

And I'll offer a different perspective by saying that games set in "familiar" settings are more boring to me than exotic environments. I'm not fan of GTA's all-American, Statue of Liberty, apple-pie hot dog setting, because it's close enough to me that I've already been there before. Playing a game based in a Chinese city on the other side of the world, contrastly, is far more fascinating.

 

[JamesV]

On the other hand, you can't use payphones, you can't go to internet cafes to check your email and visit parody websites, and you certainly can't go to the bowling alley with your cousin. Just doesn't fit the mood of the game I guess.

You actually used internet cafes and went bowling often in GTA4? I bowled once, and visited the cafe maybe 3 times. Fluff content imo. Payphones would be a bit redundant since you have a cell.

Here's another thought: GTA4's interactive setting felt necessary because, IMO, the main storyline wasn't very engaging. When you don't feel like trudging along in the missions, the game has to provide something else to have meaningless fun with. On the other hand, Sleeping Dogs can get away with having a more static environment because the main missions are so intriguing. To validate my point, I have no desire to punch civilians in the face, fly off jumps in my sports car, and mow down people in a garbage truck while playing Sleeping Dogs. In GTA4 maybe I would, but in Sleeping Dogs I'm so focused on doing the missions and being a badass undercover cop that I don't care about causing chaos.

I feel the same way, and that is why I said 'Rockstar quality+'. Never cared about any GTA avatar, and even with the great voice acting I never felt like the characters were real, nor ever felt part of the story - it's just a game.

I'm the kind of player that skips all cutscenes, and I haven't even tried to skip one yet in SD... it really draws you in, and the characters feel real. I feel like Wei (sp?) when I'm playing, and do things like drive carefully, which I'd never even consider in GTA.

 

[cmdrdredd]

The other thing is there are tons of brutal things to do in combat. Slam grates down on people's stomach, smash a guy in the face with a payphone, stick his head in an A/C fan, bash his head through a car window or slam the car door on it, drown him in a pond, impale him on meat hooks etc.

Makes fighting a lot of fun just trying to see how many ways you can interact with the scenery.

Like others have said GTA needed the extra fluff content like golfing and the like. Otherwise you would get tired of the game. I know I would.

There are a few interesting things to witness like driving in a taxi and having someone jump in and ask to go to the airport and Wei replys "do I look like a cab driver?" dude in the back "oh shit" *runs away*. I also love doing the "favor" missions where someone wants your help to resolve a problem. Some of them are comical like throwing drunk guys off an illegal gambling boat. Helping some poor sob that keeps losing in illegal street races and thinks the guy who won was cheating. He sends you to bash the winner's car with a crowbar and eventually there's a gang waiting for you to show up and try to beat you down for it.

There's more mission content than fluff. GTA is more fluff with less mission content.

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

Yeah, the hand-to-hand stuff is quite well done.

The environmental stuff though is cool, though they shouldn't all be 1 hit KOs (or kills). Tossing into a guy into a dumpster and bodyslamming him on a crate are about equal in terms of expected lethality. But it's also the same lethality as impaling him on a meat hook or a box full of swordfish swords, or tossing him into an electric box, or holding his face into an active steel fan, or a thousand other things.

 

[WiseUp216]

My favorite environmental kill so far has been throwing guys through the wall-sized fish tanks at the club. All the water rushing out is great.

 

[jacktesterson]

My favorite environmental kill so far has been throwing guys through the wall-sized fish tanks at the club. All the water rushing out is great.

your only a couple hours in

Lots to go.

I'm enjoying the game a lot so far...although some of the fight scenes get a little repetitive.

 

[iahk]

My favorite environmental kill so far has been throwing guys through the wall-sized fish tanks at the club. All the water rushing out is great.

And then picking up one of the fish as a weapon.....

 

[SpatiallyAware]

I still can't believe how many of you feel like this game is so perfect.... It's so blatantly obvious that it's an unfinished/untested game... and I guessed this before I knew the history behind the development issues.


I've had two major crashes.. Straight to desktop.. With no save. So now I've gotten into the habit of manually saving after every mission.

I've had at least two police chases where I got stuck in the environment in very unacceptable ways.. Car stuck in a pillar with textures acting up, that kind of thing. The two worst ones were part of missions, so I couldn't just hop into another car.

At least 3-4 major 'mission issues' that required reloading the game... Things like, I'm following some guys to a dock to take pictures of a drug deal. I have to jump on top of a boat, but there's a glitch where my character is stuck in 'slow walk' mode and I can't jump over railings or get on the boat. I finally was able to jump into the front of the boat, but now I can't jump out. Something like that has caused be to restart numerous missions, very very obnoxious.

I'm still just amazed that all vehicles violently shake when going fast. Did the people who develop this game not play it at all? I just can't fathom how they thought this was a good idea.

I'm still annoyed at how almost of the interior building texture/design is decrepit and old. I really hope this gets better further on, but I'm already a few hours in and have seen numerous cases where I walk up to a REALLY nice/new building/club/restaurant just to walk inside and it have rotten nasty walls etc etc.. Still annoyed at how certain signs (for computer repair, that kind of stuff.. not worried about the dragon juice ads) are duplicated over.. and over... and over... Still annoyed at how the computer random people often have identical movements even though they're side by side.

All of my issues are very frustrating and really breaks the atmosphere of the game. Like I said earlier, and I still strongly stand by it.. At $36 this game is barely acceptable. At >$50 it's a total ripoff.

I absolutely feel like a beta tester.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

I still can't believe how many of you feel like this game is so perfect.... It's so blatantly obvious that it's an unfinished/untested game... and I guessed this before I knew the history behind the development issues.


I've had two major crashes.. Straight to desktop.. With no save. So now I've gotten into the habit of manually saving after every mission.

I've had at least two police chases where I got stuck in the environment in very unacceptable ways.. Car stuck in a pillar with textures acting up, that kind of thing. The two worst ones were part of missions, so I couldn't just hop into another car.

At least 3-4 major 'mission issues' that required reloading the game... Things like, I'm following some guys to a dock to take pictures of a drug deal. I have to jump on top of a boat, but there's a glitch where my character is stuck in 'slow walk' mode and I can't jump over railings or get on the boat. I finally was able to jump into the front of the boat, but now I can't jump out. Something like that has caused be to restart numerous missions, very very obnoxious.

I'm still just amazed that all vehicles violently shake when going fast. Did the people who develop this game not play it at all? I just can't fathom how they thought this was a good idea.

I'm still annoyed at how almost of the interior building texture/design is decrepit and old. I really hope this gets better further on, but I'm already a few hours in and have seen numerous cases where I walk up to a REALLY nice/new building/club/restaurant just to walk inside and it have rotten nasty walls etc etc.. Still annoyed at how certain signs (for computer repair, that kind of stuff.. not worried about the dragon juice ads) are duplicated over.. and over... and over... Still annoyed at how the computer random people often have identical movements even though they're side by side.

All of my issues are very frustrating and really breaks the atmosphere of the game. Like I said earlier, and I still strongly stand by it.. At $36 this game is barely acceptable. At >$50 it's a total ripoff.

I absolutely feel like a beta tester.

Have you played video games in the last 5 years? You just described every recent game ever.

 

[Arkaign]

I deserve it. Just fired off an email to my friend cursing him and telling him to call his CC company. First and last time I try using one of these foreign sites for a cdkey. Definitely not worth it.

I always recommend using a disposable rechargable CC for things like that, which you can pick up for a minor fee. Sometimes I have to order some obscure part or piece of software that's only available on a shady looking website or overseas, and that's what I use. I put just enough $ on it to clear, and shred the card afterwards.

 

[Baked]

There are minor glitches that require you to reload the game, but it's nothing to rage about. The Hong Kong girls all have big boobs...

 

[jacktesterson]

Im about 10 hours in. I'm enjoying it.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Finished it earlier today. Not 100%, about 80% (I hate the races).

 

[rumpleforeskin]

Finished it earlier today. Not 100%, about 80% (I hate the races).

Finished today too, the game play was pretty mediocre and the shooting parts where just awkward using a 360 controller but I really enjoyed the story and characters so I am looking forward to a squeal for that reason.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I thought it laid a good platform for someone to build on. There were some bad things like lock picking, hacking, safe cracking that were either way too simple and boring or just annoying and repetitive. The radio repeats thw same song too often and has too little variety of artists per station, and as you mentioned the gunplay is not very great.

 

[Regs]

I'll wait for sale on this one.

 

[PowerYoga]

I've had two major crashes.. Straight to desktop.. With no save. So now I've gotten into the habit of manually saving after every mission.

Had 2 crashes and I'm about 15-16 hours into the game.

I've had at least two police chases where I got stuck in the environment in very unacceptable ways.. Car stuck in a pillar with textures acting up, that kind of thing. The two worst ones were part of missions, so I couldn't just hop into another car.

Learn to drive. Although I've rammed cars into so many things and have only gotten stuck once, and that's when I somehow managed to flip a boat on top of the dock so I couldn't "drive" off.

At least 3-4 major 'mission issues' that required reloading the game... Things like, I'm following some guys to a dock to take pictures of a drug deal. I have to jump on top of a boat, but there's a glitch where my character is stuck in 'slow walk' mode and I can't jump over railings or get on the boat. I finally was able to jump into the front of the boat, but now I can't jump out. Something like that has caused be to restart numerous missions, very very obnoxious.

Never happened before. All the "slow walk" bugs that happened to me happens when I'm trying to hop some weird ledges, and my character gets stuck on a ledge. Even then I can just walk off it, takes a second.

I'm still just amazed that all vehicles violently shake when going fast. Did the people who develop this game not play it at all? I just can't fathom how they thought this was a good idea.

I like it. And the shaking isn't even that bad, its a mild rumble... aren't you exaggerating just a tad bit?

I'm still annoyed at how almost of the interior building texture/design is decrepit and old. I really hope this gets better further on, but I'm already a few hours in and have seen numerous cases where I walk up to a REALLY nice/new building/club/restaurant just to walk inside and it have rotten nasty walls etc etc.. Still annoyed at how certain signs (for computer repair, that kind of stuff.. not worried about the dragon juice ads) are duplicated over.. and over... and over... Still annoyed at how the computer random people often have identical movements even though they're side by side.

Really? Have you played any games lately? You expect them to flesh out the whole entire city without reusing textures and character models? What world do you live in?

All of my issues are very frustrating and really breaks the atmosphere of the game. Like I said earlier, and I still strongly stand by it.. At $36 this game is barely acceptable. At >$50 it's a total ripoff.

I absolutely feel like a beta tester.

One word: nope.

 

[Dankk]

I still can't believe how many of you feel like this game is so perfect.... It's so blatantly obvious that it's an unfinished/untested game... and I guessed this before I knew the history behind the development issues.


I've had two major crashes.. Straight to desktop.. With no save. So now I've gotten into the habit of manually saving after every mission.

I've had at least two police chases where I got stuck in the environment in very unacceptable ways.. Car stuck in a pillar with textures acting up, that kind of thing. The two worst ones were part of missions, so I couldn't just hop into another car.

At least 3-4 major 'mission issues' that required reloading the game... Things like, I'm following some guys to a dock to take pictures of a drug deal. I have to jump on top of a boat, but there's a glitch where my character is stuck in 'slow walk' mode and I can't jump over railings or get on the boat. I finally was able to jump into the front of the boat, but now I can't jump out. Something like that has caused be to restart numerous missions, very very obnoxious.

I'm still just amazed that all vehicles violently shake when going fast. Did the people who develop this game not play it at all? I just can't fathom how they thought this was a good idea.

I'm still annoyed at how almost of the interior building texture/design is decrepit and old. I really hope this gets better further on, but I'm already a few hours in and have seen numerous cases where I walk up to a REALLY nice/new building/club/restaurant just to walk inside and it have rotten nasty walls etc etc.. Still annoyed at how certain signs (for computer repair, that kind of stuff.. not worried about the dragon juice ads) are duplicated over.. and over... and over... Still annoyed at how the computer random people often have identical movements even though they're side by side.

All of my issues are very frustrating and really breaks the atmosphere of the game. Like I said earlier, and I still strongly stand by it.. At $36 this game is barely acceptable. At >$50 it's a total ripoff.

I absolutely feel like a beta tester.

I haven't had a single one of those problems you described, and I have ~10 hours logged in the game.

Sorry to hear you've encountered glitches though. Everything's gone smoothly for me, the worst issues I've encountered are maybe a few quirks with the parkour system, and maybe some NPC pathing issues. Nothing seriously worth noting.

I can somewhat understand your complaint about everything looking the same though. However, if you get out of North Point and see the rest of the city, you'll see a pretty good amount of variety. As far as building interiors, most of them are nitty gritty yeah, however there are exceptions. In fact later in the game you'll move out of your crummy apartment and move into something much snazzier and cleaner.

 

[Tarvaln]

I think this may be a Love/Hate game. I love it. I think it is one of the more polished games to come out recently. It runs very well on my 5850 with HD textures and extreme environment.

If people are getting low FPS, I find that I get a better AVG/Max FPS with V-sync off and frame limit set to 60.

The only bug I have experienced is there is a part where you are told to action hijack a security truck. I'm not sure if you are "suppose" to be able to hijack these trucks after you do it the first time but, I can. All those trucks still have the shield like symbol on them. The minimap tells me where to drop them off but the garage won't open so I have to abandon the truck.

I do want to comment that I have read some stupid complaints about this game. Some post I have read are comparing parts of this game to other games that focus solely on those parts. Case in point: I read a post that said the fighting wasn't as good at Batman: Arkham City. No kidding, well I can't drive around and shoot people in Arkham City so that's a silly comparison. Some post say the driving isn't as good as NFS. Yea, when you figure how to action hijack a car in NFS or even open the door and get out of your vehicle, let me know. I haven't played Saints Row so I don't know how it stacks up. It's also difficult to compare it to GTA: IV. That game came out in 2008 so there should be major improvements. The only thing you can compare is the story line. I haven't finished Sleeping Dogs but I think it has a much better story than the one of Niko and Gilligan.. I mean Roman.

Sleeping Dogs is a great open world game. I really hope it does well. My only gripe, as with all games now a days, is I think it will be drowned in DLC's like Saints Row.

 

[PowerYoga]

I've never bothered with the trucks, did it twice and it was a waste of time. It earns you only 10-20k which is peanuts compared to stealing cars. Not to mention money isn't a factor in the game anyways, all you need are pork buns!

 

[Ferzerp]

Sleeping Dogs – Patch 1.5 Release Notes

Stability
• Improved CPU timing to reduce issues where the game plays too quickly
• Various fixes to improve stability and minimize crashes during gameplay
• Fixed an issue with the Bink video player which may improve stability during in-game videos such as the title screens

Controls & Camera
• New option added! Aim Soft Lock: Lets the player enable or disable aiming assistance from the game
• New option added! Mouse Free Look: Enables/disables camera auto-centering behind the player when using the mouse and on foot
• New option added! Mouse Raw Input: When enabled, input is sampled directly from the mouse which improves responsiveness and accuracy on supported mice
• New option added! Mouse Sensitivity: A modifier that determines how much speed is recorded from mouse movement
• Mouse camera logic has been reworked for improved precision (independent of the raw mouse input option)
• The Action Hijack binding is now independent of the Sprint/Parkour key value
• While driving players can now use the mouse to look up and down
• While driving the camera no longer immediately auto-centers when you stop moving the mouse
• The high-speed camera shake while driving has been reduced
• Mouse sensitivity no longer differs when Wei is and isn’t carrying a gun

UI
• Front End screens now support a button help bar that is fully interactive via mouse
• Users are now able to exit screens by pressing the Back button
• Corrected all issues when exiting a screen using the Backspace and Esc keys
• It’s now possible to switch sections by clicking on the corresponding icons or tab headers
• The mouse wheel will scroll through all relevant lists in the user interface
• Mouse hit regions have been fine-tuned throughout the front end to improve user experience

 

[cmdrdredd]

So they fix all these issues AFTER I already finished the game that should have been fixed before they released the game

 

[Markbnj]

A lot of those things read like features that definitely would have been planned for release, but didn't make it in.