These are not the Sleeping Dogs you’re looking for.

Meh.

“Mico, do you want to write another review?”

Meh.

“Come on, please, do it for me.”

Meh.

“But I’m Morgan Smith Goodwin.”

And then I woke up and realized my life sucks and Morgan Smith Goodwin would never talk to me ever. But I’ll write this for her, because she is a woman, but not just a woman, she is a beautiful woman that tries to peddle Baconaters and she probably has a really pretty laugh…

Sorry. I was uh… filing these taxes.

So, you want to read something? I guess I can tell you about something that’s totally awesome, but that’s too much work… Uhhh.

SLEEPING DOGS!

Yeah, it’s a thing.

Sleeping Dogs started development as the originally named “True Crime: Hong Kong” but when the company developing it was sued or blown up during a drug raid because they were making the Meth-Crack-Cocaine-Marijuana they dropped the game… on the curb, and then Square Enix picked it up. Yeah, the same guys who brought you Final Fantasy are now (Or they did) bringing you a free-roam crime game.

But how’s the story?

Sleeping Dogs centres around Wei Shen, the angriest man south of the north pole. Wei Shen was just arrested because he was drugs, I mean he was involved in drugs, I mean he was involved in drug activity. I was distracted by these taxes and totally not a picture of Morgan Smith Goodwin. DON’T YOU LOOK AT HER! SHE IS MY WOMAN! While he’s in the slammer Wei meets up with Jackie, a friend from his childhood. I don’t know or care to know Jackie’s last name. Jackie tells Wei that the Sun On Yee (The gang that runs Hong Kong) is looking for some really angry dudes and that Wei would be perfect for the part. After getting out of jail the next day, Wei takes Jackie up on his offer. I guess they don’t really care about drug activity in Hong Kong, or the more likely explanation being that Wei is actually an undercover cop, the angriest undercover cop, tasked with taking down the Sun On Yee.

That’s the story in a Nutttt Sheeeeellll . Wei is actually a pretty cool character, he’s conflicted between the loyalty to his gang and his actual job which leads to some interesting conflicts later on in the story but I wish they had some kind of moral system where you could either pick an option that got you in good favour with the Triad or with the cops, but that’s wishful thinking. Maybe Sleeping Dogs 2 will have something like that, you know, if they make another one. Fingers crossed.

So the gameplay is set into trois different sections.

On foot action- aside from being angry, Wei Shen is also very agile, he can scale buildings and jump over people with relative ease, which is useful for chases. Aside from being angry, Wei is also angry and he gets into a lot of fights. The fights handle similar to Batman or Assassins Creed, with the whole punches and kicks mixed in with counters. But since Wei is fricking evil you’ll also be able to grab people and put them in, up against, or through something nearby… This makes me a little sad.

Driving action- aside from being agile Wei Shen is also very adept at the art of driving, for an Asian at least (whoa! Getting a little edgy in this corner.) The driving is a lot of fun because you can ram into things by pressing a button. But it feels pretty cartoony, as can be expected from a game where you can ram into things with the press of a button. And Driving is a pretty big part of this game, you could theoretically complete the game without driving a car (except when they want you to) but it would take you a long time and it would be really boring.

Shooting action – aside from being very adept at driving Wei Shen is also very angry and he knows how to use a gun. Shooting and looting only comes in less than half way through the game and is actually pretty minor even after that… but then at the end it’s a big part of the game. But it’s pretty fun, when you take cover you can jump over it and start shooting in midair which slows down time. So that’s pretty cool.

So flaws? I don’t know, Wei’s pretty angry at everything from gangsters to air molecules so that makes him violent and if you’re sensitive to Asian men having engines fall on top of them then you might want to stay away, if you’re also offended by people swearing in Chinese then you should steer clear of this one.

If you like Grand Theft Auto then I guess you would like this game, if you like actual dogs that are sleeping then you should go on the internet. Make sure you google “sleepy dogs” or “dogs asleep” otherwise you’re just going to get a whole bunch of cool screenshots.

On a scale from happiness to anger. Sleeping Dogs gets a very sleepy Corgi.

D’aaw