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[IbizaPocholo]

Sleeping Dogs is an open world and martial arts action-adventure video game developed by United Front Games and published by Square Enix's European subsidiary. It was originally released for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Windows in 2012. Set in contemporary Hong Kong, the single player story follows martial artist and undercover police officer Wei Shen who infiltrates the Sun On Yee Triad organization. Gameplay focuses on Wei Shen's martial arts moves, fighting, shooting and parkour abilities, and on gadgets that can be used for combat and exploration. Players must complete missions to unlock content and continue the story, but they may instead freely roam the game's open world environment and engage in both legal and criminal activities. The latter may incite a police response, the intensity of which is controlled by a "heat" system. Actions such as fighting, driving and racing grant Shen statistical rewards and earn the player achievements.

Sleeping Dogs' difficult and prolonged development began in 2008. The game was announced in 2009 as part of the True Crime series but was canceled by Activision Blizzard in 2011, as a result of the project's delays and budget issues. Six months later, Square Enix purchased the publishing rights and renamed the game Sleeping Dogs, without the True Crime license, but considered a spiritual successor. During development, United Front staff visited Hong Kong to conduct field research for the visual environments and sound.

Upon its release in 2012, the game received positive reviews for its combat, voice acting, experience system and depiction of the city; but its camera and some animations were criticized. Within one year, the game had sold over 1.5 million copies. New outfits, missions and add-ons, as well as three expansion packs, were released as downloadable content in the six months following the game's debut. A remastered version, subtitled Definitive Edition, was released in October 2014 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. It features improved gameplay, setting and audio-visual quality based on community feedback. The macOS version of Definitive Edition was released on March 31, 2016 by Feral Interactive.[1] The game's success spawned a spin-off multiplayer game titled Triad Wars, which was canceled in 2015. In 2017, a live action film adaptation was also announced, with Donnie Yen set to star as Shen.

 

[Rest]

Sleeping Dogs was fun as fuck. I wish they'd kept the True Crime name so that people would have known what it was.

 

[isoRhythm]

Amazing game, replayed this year and got the plat.

This car might be the best bat mobile in a game ever

 

[Punished Miku]

Far superior to GTA.

 

[ProgenitorCastle]

I don't even play that kind of game most of the time and I can yet acknowledge it as a great game of it's kind. Surprised it doesn't have a more passionate audience as what I played from it was amazing

 

[Mr Branding]

This and Gta4 are my absolute favourite open world crime games

 

[Max Payne’s Baretta]

Sleeping dogs was a solid game that I hope to see a sequel to one day.

 

[The Pleasure]

This game was a habitual flirt.

 

[Panajev2001a]

The definitive edition is on a massive sale on Xbox Marketplace, less than £4 (U.K. store).

 

[Ammogeddon]

My mate was involved in sourcing the music for the radio stations. The licensing for that alone cost them an absolute fortune. They wanted a Michael Jackson track but the cost was ridiculous apparently.

 

[Mung]

Excellent game

 

[Eimran]

It was an amazing game that I enjoyed to the fullest. At this point rockstar has its head so far in their own ass I'd rather see a sequel to this game than GTA.

 

[Business]

Played the shit out the demo which is rare and always a good sign. Completed the game later and loved it, super refreshing setting. Bring on the sequel already.

 

[Kadve]

Played the game recently. Pretty good but its clear that the devs were a bit out of their depths with open world. Think it would have been better as a linear game base around the combat system and story.

 

[Nankatsu]

A blast of a game. It really needs a sequel.

 

[adamosmaki]

you know what Sleeping dogs had over GTA? It was actually fun

 

[DAHGAMING]

Great game, realy didnt expect it but busted it in a day or 2, couldnt pull myself away. Would love a sequal someday.

 

[Rest]

you know what Sleeping dogs had over GTA? It was actually fun

GTA IV was such a drag. I don't know how they iterated and improved over and over from 2, III, Vice City to San Andreas and then made such an uninteresting, boring game like IV.

 

[just_like_that]

the combat was terrible but at least the story and characters were interesting

 

[BlackM1st]

It was awesome. Absolute classic.

 

[IbizaPocholo]

Way back in 2002, developer Luxoflux released True Crime: Streets of LA; an open-world adventure that sought to replicate the magic of Grand Theft Auto 3. The game was met with a middling commercial and critical reception, but it was enough for the publisher to fund a sequel. Hence, True Crime: New York was released to a similar reception two years later - and unsurprisingly failed to turn in a profit.

A third entry was conceived shortly after - this time at United Front Games, but following a disappointing first show - the at-the-time named True Crime: Hong Kong was canned. Thankfully, the publisher would pick this game up, and allowed United Front Games to finish what they started.

 

[BennyBlanco]

One of my favorite games ever. Reinstalled on Steam not too long ago and realized all my saves were gone because there’s no cloud saves. Then just started it over and damn it’s still so good.

 

[NanaMiku]

I actually like Sleeping Gods than GTA5

 

[CoolZombie]

The definitive edition is on a massive sale on Xbox Marketplace, less than £4 (U.K. store).

Has FPS boost too….

 

[CaptainSlayAHo]

I don't even play that kind of game most of the time and I can yet acknowledge it as a great game of it's kind. Surprised it doesn't have a more passionate audience as what I played from it was amazing

It actually has a pretty passionate audience from people who have played it, but unfortunately that number isn't particularly large..... Game could have used some better advertising for sure

 

[Kabelly]

I bought the game on Steam since it was cheap as heck and it's been pretty fun.

 

[MafiaMurderBag]

It actually has a pretty passionate audience from people who have played it, but unfortunately that number isn't particularly large..... Game could have used some better advertising for sure

I remember leading to the launch, I was aware of it but no one I knew has heard of it.

It wasn't marketed very strongly & it came out in August which is usually a sleeper month for game releases as by then, most people were conditioned to believe games worth being excited for would all come out in the fall.

 

[Robot Carnival]

I used to live in Hong Kong for over 10 years and I remember playing the game a little, and feel that the game is maybe 30 to 40% accurate of the Hong Kong I know. I can assure you that they took A LOT of liberty with stuff in there, but overall it's still pretty fun to play.

 

[smart_brazileiro]

Played the shit outta the PS3 version. Way better then any GTA. Helps that I am a sucker for oldschool Golden Harvest style movies and martial arts. The music was also so good. Some of the tracks are still in my Playlist. From Xikou with love, Bonobo, Hudson Mohawk....

 

[DragoonWalker]

It was a unique game for the genre at the time (and in some ways, still is). Great story that weaved into kickass missions and made you wanna know what happened next, beautiful (if inaccurate) world, just enough side activities not too sidetrack you too hard, and fun kung fu combat that made use of the environment. Like how the guns were limited, didn't like how sticky the driving was. Strong identity, something lacking in open worlds today.

Better question is: Open World crime games, what happened?

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

The game was freaking rad and deserved a shot at a proper sequel.

If not for the game, I never would have discovered that I "was never a whooole man."

 

[Laptop1991]

I enjoyed Sleeping Dogs more than GTA 4 not as much as SA though, it was a fun game with enjoyable exploration and missions although i always miss a user track radio thats not in the new Gta def editions. some good songs on it though.

 

[Skifi28]

The setting was great, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Unfortunately the individual mechanics of the game were mediocre. It was a decent effort that could have evolved into something truly great, but instead of a sequel the went for a multiplayer clone nobody asked for.

 

[nush]

I used to live in Hong Kong for over 10 years and I remember playing the game a little, and feel that the game is maybe 30 to 40% accurate of the Hong Kong I know. I can assure you that they took A LOT of liberty with stuff in there, but overall it's still pretty fun to play.

I was hoping a sequel would have expanded the map to Kowloon and added the MTR.

 

[CitizenZ]

The only open world city game I have enjoyed from start to finish, WTF is this clown talking about?

 

[mitch1971]

I'd give in 9 pork buns out of 10.

 

[JerryinSoCal]

I always loved this game, yeah the combat needed to feel a little snappier and when you ran down the street it always felt like there was a parachute trying to pull you back but everything else was awesome. Great voice acting, story, setting, the gunplay and weapons were good, loved the environmental hazards that could be used in combat.

I wish they'd do a new Sleeping Dogs but partner with Sega to make it a Yakuza cross over, keep the Sleeping Dogs style but add Kazuma Kiryu and the cities from the Yakuza games built out to match the Sleeping Dogs look. They always have the Triad as some part of the story in Yakuza anyway so they could make it work, they could even make it a co-op game if they wanted. Even if they didn't do that though I'd love a sequel, especially on modern hardware a game like this could be even more amazing.

 

[BusierDonkey]

I've started Sleeping Dogs three times and I keep forgetting I did. It looks really good but for some reason every time I start it something else immediately comes up and I forget I started it then play something else.

 

[SuperBabyMethod]

A great game that is far superior to the vastly overrated GTA V and RDR2.

 

[K' Dash]

Funny, I thought the game did really good back in the day when I played it, everybody was talking about it.

 

[ZehDon]

I'll always sing the praises of Sleeping Dogs. A terrific game, well worth playing. I preferred its story, characters, and world far more than GTAV.

 

[cash_longfellow]

Far superior to GTA.

100%..I’ll take the heat with you.

 

[BadBurger]

I loved this game. It was the first game I played completely through on my old Xbox One S. Also agree with others that it was superior to GTA when it comes to story/single player mode.

 

[Hayabusa83]

Great game! Felt it was really polished as well on the 360. Replaying it on the Xbox Series X at 60 FPS at 1080P is pretty sweet.

 

[DAHGAMING]

This and Gta4 are my absolute favourite open world crime games

Im with you there, both amazing, dark stories in a gritty down to earth world. Need to replay sleeping dogs soon.