#Best sleeping dogs series#

The first time you are given freedom to handle a pistol, for example, is hours into the story mode (unless you wrestle the steel from a roaming cop). Weapons, like guns and melee items, almost act as power-ups. To control the distribution of these moves, statues typically appear in areas specific to your mission and are almost impossible to miss. You unlock these combos by collecting a set of statues and returning them the dojo that had them stolen over the years. Part of that is because Sleeping Dogs does a pretty good job of doling out new combos throughout the story. Soon you'll be facing off against dozens of thugs without breaking a sweat during regular missions or hidden underground boxing matches.ĭespite being fairly easy once mastered, hand-to-hand combat never got stale for me. Then there are a multitude of gruesome environmental kills (all of which seem super violent for a guy with a cop's conscience). And the fighting system has a few tricks up its sleeve: one combo breaks an enemy's leg, scaring (and thus stunning) adversaries in the area for a few seconds, opening the door to more strikes.

#Best sleeping dogs series#

Inspired by kung-fu movies in look and Rocksteady's Batman series in execution, the fighting system offers a good counterweight to other games in the genre that lean on weapons for all confrontations. 'The seriousness almost makes more absurd, especially when Shen is engaged in somber dialogue one minute, and burying someone's face in a furnace the next.'The focus in Sleeping Dogs is its hand-to-hand combat system.

Despite its been there, done that story, Sleeping Dogs manages to offer a few surprises throughout Shen's investigation. You play as Wei Shen, an undercover cop from San Francisco on loan to the Hong Kong Police to infiltrate the seedy, tattooed Triad underbelly. %Gallery-156085% Sleeping Dogs takes place in the 'based on reality' world of Hong Kong, inspired by the city but not recreated street by street.

From its narrative to gameplay features, Sleeping Dogs is an amalgamation of other people's good ideas. It's worlds apart from the developer's first game Modnation Racers, but Sleeping Dogs isn't completely unfamiliar. Sleeping Dogs has been through a heap of concept and name changes throughout its development, but the Vancouver-based firm United Front Games has finally unleashed its latest creation.