Sleeping Dogs

Topple a Chinese crime syndicate from the inside

Release: August 13, 2012 (PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)

By Ian Coppock

Too numerous are the gun games that are all steak or all sizzle. They're either repetitive grind-heavy campaigns with a very skeletal narrative (Lost Planet 2), or a series of timed setpieces that look really cool but force the player to watch quietly (much of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3). Gamers looking for a more in-depth alternative turn to violent open-world games like Grand Theft Auto, a series that's stuffed with bad design choices but given a free pass because it's possible to destroy legions of hookers with a stolen rocket launcher. Sleeping Dogs is also an open-world shoot-em-up, but it contains one of the best narratives I've seen in recent video gaming. It's been said that this game is a Grand Theft Auto clone; nay. GTA wishes that it was a clone of this game.

The Story

Even having finished the game and most of the DLC, the meaning behind the title Sleeping Dogs eludes me. I choose to think that it alleges to dogs only being as dangerous as their state of alertness, or something, which is fitting because this game is all about infiltration.

Sleeping Dogs takes place in modern-day Hong Kong, and follows Wei Shen, a young Chinese-American police officer who spent his childhood in Hong Kong but his teen and early adult years in San Francisco. Because of his keen knowledge of the triads, China's largest crime syndicates, Shen is borrowed from the San Francisco police department and seconded to Hong Kong. His mission? Infiltrate the Sun On Yee triad and bring it down from the inside.

Wei Shen is the protagonist of Sleeping Dogs. He's an undercover cop, but the street gang he's thrown in with doesn't know that.
Do they?

Shortly after returning to Hong Kong, Wei is arrested and placed in the same jail cell as his childhood friend and Sun On Yee errand boy, Jackie Ma, who promises Shen a place in the organization upon their release. Shen's status as a cop is known only to a handful of other officers, including by-the-book handler Raymond Mak and ruthless superintendent Thomas Pendrew.

Upon release, Wei throws in with the Water Street Gang, a Sun On Yee group led by Winston Chu, another childhood acquaintance. From there, Wei must embark upon dangerous missions to prove his loyalty to the Sun On Yee.

Having already caught and killed another undercover cop, the Sun On Yee is immediately suspicious of newcomers. Wei  is forced to rely upon his wits as much as his skill with a gun to earn the trust of the syndicate.

As Wei shoots, steals and intimidates his way around Hong Kong, he becomes the victim of numerous inner conflicts. He's torn between his loyalty to the people he ran with as a child, who protected and befriended him in tough times, and his loyalty to the law. He also suffers guilt from the numerous robberies, assaults and murders he must commit in order to infiltrate the syndicate and serve the greater good. 

All of these conflicts made the game significantly more interesting to me than Grand Theft Auto, in which the protagonist is an uncomplicated thug who just wants to climb the ladder. Wei's ascent up a similar ladder is dogged by his inner demons and his mission as an undercover officer. At the same time, I found myself becoming attached to the gang as Wei got to know them better. Winston Chu became less an angry street thug and more an aspiring family man, who soon has Wei helping him prepare for his wedding and taking care of his mother. The syndicate at large treats its members as family, adherent to a code larger than street crimes. You can imagine how all of this is more interesting than a story about a bunch of greedy gang-bangers.

While the Sun On Yee is a criminal organization, it's bound by tenets of loyalty to one another and  to the well-being of the group. Members treat each other like brothers and sisters, and the organization is guided by ancient codes and laws, not just profit.

Matters in the Sun On Yee become complicated when a power struggle plagues the organization. Wei is forced to navigate an increasingly dangerous environment and build alliances with different Sun On Yee leaders, called Red Poles. His skills attract him the attention of the organization's top leadership, including the grandfatherly Uncle Po, the sadistic Henry "Big Smile" Lee, and shadowy Broken Nose Jiang.

I won't spoil the ending, but I will say that Sleeping Dogs was my favorite game of 2012 and perhaps the most underrated game I've ever played. Critics gave Sleeping Dogs positive reviews, but not the critical acclaim I feel it deserves. The storyline is so neatly woven, and Wei's ongoing character development is worthy of Bioshock-level narratives.

Sleeping Dogs has one of the best casts of characters I've ever seen in a game. Each character is well-written, their personalities are fleshed out, and they occupy diverse niches of Wei's life. They accent the conflict the character suffers.

The story of Sleeping Dogs is excellent for several reasons. It chronicles a harrowing and thrilling journey, but it also pays special attention to how that journey shapes its participants. Square Enix made sure that the narrative changed and touched each character, creating a rich and unpredictable story dynamic.

You also get the sense that Wei truly is alone in his mission. He can only interface so often with his police colleagues, creating a strong sense of isolation that keeps the story's tension high.

Everything revolves around Wei's duality as a police officer and as a gangster.

Happily enough, Square Enix compounded Sleeping Dogs' impressive story with some seriously smooth gameplay. Cover and gunfights are both fun and intuitively mapped. Cars handle smoothly and are augmented by an in-game GPS system that gives you hovering pointers and arrows in the actual game world as well as on a separate map, which is great if you're like me and have no sense of direction. The game also passively records various car records and stunts, like top speed, tricks and collisions. Of course, there's also street racing.

The best feature of Sleeping Dogs' gameplay is the hand-to-hand combat. As one might expect, martial arts factor heavily into a game based in Hong Kong. The combat is very similar to that of Batman: Arkham Asylum. Wei can switch effortlessly between various foes and unleash devastating combos and counterattacks.

The combat in Sleeping Dogs is beautifully done. The mapping, I mean, not necessarily the blood.

What else is awesome? The collectibles in this game actually serve a purpose other than just being there. I couldn't care less about collectibles that are just there for their own sake or for an achievement, but the ones in Sleeping Dogs? No. Wei Shen can find jade statues that he can trade in for new martial arts instruction, and, perhaps just as awesomely, piles of money that are just sitting around in the city. Now THOSE are collectibles I can obsess over!

The Artwork

The city of Hong Kong is a heavily detailed environment. Having been to busy Chinese cities myself, I can vouch for Square Enix's attention to everything from store layouts to mazes of bright neon signs. The character and combat animations are well-coordinated too.

There's a lot to gawk at in Sleeping Dog's rendition of Hong Kong.

The environments in this game do have a few glaring flaws, though. The biggest and most obvious is the traffic, which is extremely sparse. It would have been more convincing if the streets had been absolutely packed with cars, just like any large city but especially Chinese cities. I also feel like this complaint has gameplay merit, because I found myself waiting an absurdly long time for a car to pass by so I could hijack it. I often found it easier to simply sprint to my next destination rather than wait for a car to pass by.

Where the hell are all the cars? I know that absolutely packing them into the streets would take a lot of computing power, but surely they can put in at least a few more than this.

It's a good thing Sleeping Dogs has a lot of story and gameplay power, because it's one of the glitchiest games I've played in recent memory. The most common glitch was when Wei's clothing would suddenly freak out and revert to its basic pixels, making it look like he'd fallen into a dunking booth full of glitter. The map would sometimes turn into a giant cross of pixels, making me wonder if Square Enix was trying to hit me with subliminal messages about Jesus Christ? I don't know. None of these glitches made the game stop, but it's a lot harder for me to take Wei seriously when he's wearing what looks like a glittering rubix cube.

Step aside, assholes. The Glitter Gang has hit Hong Kong and we're going to mess some s*** up.

Should I get it?

Though the glitches can get annoying, Sleeping Dogs is definitely for any gamer searching for an in-depth, unusually fluid narrative. It's one of those rare games that has near-perfect gameplay in every sector, including gunfights, hand-to-hand combat and car chases. It also doesn't hurt to visit a setting not often seen in western video games, making for an unfamiliar but enticing set of artwork. Like I said, Sleeping Dogs was a true underdog, coming out of nowhere to become one of my favorite games. It comes highly recommended.

Next Monday's review is all about relaxing music, mysterious environments and colorful pickups. Check back then for a relatively unknown indie game that I rather enjoyed.