Sleeping Dogs (video game)
Sleeping Dogs is a 2012 action-adventure game developed by United Front Games and published by Square Enix. The game was released for PlayStation 3, Windows, and Xbox 360 in August 2012. Set in contemporary Hong Kong, the story follows Wei Shen, a Hong Kong-American police officer and martial artist who goes undercover and infiltrates the Sun On Yee Triad organization. Gameplay focuses on Shen's martial arts moves, fighting, shooting and parkour abilities, and on gadgets that can be used for combat and exploration. The player 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 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 retitled the game Sleeping Dogs. While it does not use the True Crime license, it is considered to be a spiritual successor. During development, United Front staff visited Hong Kong to conduct field research for the visual environments and sound. Square Enix London Studios worked with United Front for the development.
Sleeping Dogs received positive reviews from critics for its combat, protagonist, voice acting, experience system and depiction of the city, but its camera and some animations were criticized. The game had sold over 1.5 million units by September 2012. 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 for Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One in October 2014. It features improved gameplay, setting, and audio-visual quality based on community feedback. The macOS version of Definitive Edition was released in March 2016, by Feral Interactive. The game spawned a spin-off multiplayer game titled Triad Wars, which was canceled in 2015.
Gameplay
Sleeping Dogs is an action-adventure game set in an open world environment and played from a third-person perspective. The player controls Wei Shen, a Hong Kong-American police officer who goes undercover and ventures out on a raid to infiltrate the Sun On Yee Triad organization. The initial missions of the game are a linear tutorial for controlling the character. After these missions, the player is allowed to explore the game's world and take part in side missions and other activities. Shen navigates the world by running, jumping, climbing over obstacles, swimming, and driving cars, boats and motorcycles. The heads-up display interface features a mini-map that indicates targets, key locations and Shen's current position. The mini-map incorporates two meters: one shows Shen's health and the other his face. When the face meter fills, upgrades are unlocked such as health regeneration, improved combat abilities and reduced equipment costs. The HUD also displays the weapon carried and its ammunition count.The game features the option to choose from Triad, Face and Police XPs. Triad XP is obtained through melee combat and violent actions such as "environmental kills". Triad XP awarded is directly proportional to the complexity of attacking moves, and gaining Triad XP unlocks improvements to Shen's melee combat skills such as increased damage, improved weapon durability, and unblockable attacks. Face XP, obtained in civilian side missions, fills Shen's face meter and unlocks cosmetic items such as clothes and vehicles. By reaching a higher Face level, the player can freely buy vehicles or clothing. When it is full, Shen gains health regeneration, increased attack damage and other benefits. Police XP is gained by minimizing civilian casualties and property damage in missions and by completing police side missions, and gaining Police XP unlocks improvements to Shen's firearm combat skills and abilities such as disarming opponents, hot-wiring cars, and retrieving weapon stashes from the trunks of police cars. The clothes, accessories, and vehicles purchased by Shen affect non-player characters' reactions toward him, and some outfit combinations also affect statistics such as XP gain, damage inflicted, and police heat. The player may collect jade zodiac statuettes and return them to a dojo to unlock different martial arts combos.
File:Sleeping Dogs - Environmental Kill.jpg|thumb|left|Shen performs an environmental kill against an enemy. The health meter, mini-map and status buffs are shown on the heads-up display.
Unlike most similar open-world games, Sleeping Dogs emphasizes melee combat over gunplay. Sleeping Dogs melee combat has been compared to that of Batman: Arkham Asylum: it allows the player to fight opponents coming from any direction with attack, grapple and counter moves and can be performed with or without weapons. These three basic commands are chained together with the character's movement to execute attacks. The player's face meter fills up faster when enemies are defeated with different moves in rapid succession or with environmental attacks, which are performed by dragging enemies to certain objects, which Shen uses to eliminate opponents. Melee weapons such as knives, tire irons, and frying pans are available, but they break with extended use. Gun combat in Sleeping Dogs combines a cover system with gun fu elements: if the player vaults from cover in a gunfight or manually disarms a gun-wielding enemy, time briefly slows down, and the effect can be prolonged further by chaining together successive headshots. Firearms are scarce in the game and the player can normally carry only one gun at a time: although it is possible to tuck away and draw individual pistols for later use, other weapons cannot be holstered, and all must be discarded after running out of ammunition.
The player can perform "action hijacks" while driving vehicles. These cause Shen to leap from his vehicle to steal another in motion. In combat, Shen loses health as he takes damage. This can be mitigated by taking cover where available. If the health bar is depleted, the character will respawn at a hospital or a clinic. Health can also be restored by ordering food or drinks from various stalls and vending machines, which also provides a variety of buffs to Shen, such as health regeneration or improved damage.
If the player directs Shen to commit crimes, police response is indicated by a "heat" meter on the HUD. The meter displays the current wanted level; if it reaches 5, the police will aggressively pursue Shen. The meter recedes when Shen is hidden from the cops' line of sight. Police officers continue to search for Shen even if he leaves the wanted vicinity, and they will resume the chase if he is sighted. If Shen is arrested or killed by officers during missions, the player can restart from the last checkpoint.
Some areas in the world remain inaccessible until milestones in the story are achieved. Although the player must complete missions to unlock content and continue the story, they may wander the game's open world and participate in activities such as visiting a karaoke bar, carjacking, street racing and joining a fight club. There are several potential girlfriends for Shen: successfully dating them awards collectibles and bonus content. The completion of side missions rewards the player with new missions, vehicles, and outfits, among other things. As the game progresses, the player acquires various safe houses to save progress in, but at certain times is required to go there to progress further. Like other houses, the player can survey unlocked areas, change outfits, and a parking garage is accessible in which they can use unlocked vehicles.
The game has no multiplayer component, but online leaderboards are available for players to compare scores. Many activities that are not central to the story grant Stat Awards in three tiers: bronze, silver and gold. These unlock achievements and trophies.
Synopsis
Setting and characters
Sleeping Dogs is set in a contemporary Hong Kong, which is split into four districts named after regions of the city. The game reveals the story of Wei Shen, a former San Francisco Police Department officer who was transferred to the Hong Kong Police Department and assigned the task to infiltrate and destroy a Triad organization known as the Sun On Yee. The main storyline features two sub-plots: Shen's balance between completing his police mission whilst committing crimes to prove himself to the Triads, and missions assigned by a Triad lieutenant, including the assassinations of Triad members loyal to other lieutenants.Shen's mission is coordinated by Thomas Pendrew ; Raymond Mak serves as Shen's handler, and the two regularly meet in secret to discuss Shen's progress. Shen infiltrates the Sun On Yee via his childhood friend Jackie Ma, a low-level Triad member; he quickly gains the trust of Winston Chu, one of the Triad's bosses, and Conroy Wu, Winston's right-hand-man. Other prominent characters include David Wai-Lin "Uncle" Po, the chairman of the Sun On Yee; Uncle's advisor Pockmark Cheuk ; and other Triad bosses – Sam "Dogeyes" Lin, Henry "Big Smile" Lee, "Broken Nose" Jiang, and Howard "Two Chin" Tsao. Secondary characters include socialite Vivienne Lu. Shen's potential love interests include American tourist Amanda Cartwright, electronics expert "Not Ping", and night club hostess Tiffany Kim.
Plot
The game's prologue introduces Wei Shen as a petty criminal in Aberdeen, Hong Kong. Accompanied by an associate named Naz Singh, Shen attempts to conduct a drug deal with Four Finger Wu, a member of the 18K triad. The deal is unexpectedly interrupted by a security guard, who Wu kills with a cleaver in panic. Singh and Shen attempt to flee the area, but are quickly arrested by the police. In jail, Shen meets a childhood friend, Jackie Ma, who offers to introduce Shen to the head of his gang once they are released. It is then revealed that Shen is in fact an undercover cop whose arrest was part of a police operation headed by SP Thomas Pendrew and Inspector Raymond Mak to infiltrate the Water Street Boys, the gang that Jackie belongs to, a branch of the Sun On Yee triad. Shen joins the Water Street Boys with Jackie's help; despite initial animosity from one of the gang's enforcers, Conroy Wu, Shen quickly earns the trust of its leader, Winston Chu. Chu sends Shen and Jackie on several assignments against the Jade Gang, a rival branch of the Sun On Yee led by Sam "Dogeyes" Lin, a former associate of Chu's whom Wei happens to have history with as he was the ex-boyfriend of Wei's late sister, Mimi, a drug addict who died of a heroin overdose after she, Wei and their mother moved to America. Some time later, Shen is tasked by Inspector Jane Teng of the Hong Kong Police Department to arrest a ketamine supplier named Popstar and his associates.Popstar's arrest creates a bottleneck in ketamine supply, causing tensions among the Sun On Yee. The Water Street Boys begin suspecting that Shen is a cop, but he manages to shift the gang's suspicions to Ming, a ketamine dealer working for Chu. After Dogeyes' men shoot up Chu's mother's restaurant, the Water Street Boys burn down Dogeyes' waterfront sweatshop; Shen also captures Siu Wah, the manager of the operation, who is then forced to work for Chu. Having come to treat Shen as his second-in-command, Chu introduces him to David Wa-Lin "Uncle" Po, the elderly chairman of the Sun On Yee; in private, Chu also tells Shen to take over as the gang's leader, should anything happen to him. Retaliatory attacks on each other's properties culminate in the killing of Winston and his fiancée at their wedding by men posing as members of the rival 18K triad. Uncle Po is critically wounded in the attack, but is saved by Shen. As a reward, Shen is promoted to "Red Pole" of the Sun On Yee and he takes over Winston's position in the Water Street branch. He hunts down Winston's killer who reveals that Dogeyes instigated the attack.
Shen captures Dogeyes who is killed by Winston's mother. Po later dies in the hospital. As a branch leader, Shen becomes embroiled in a power struggle over the leadership of Sun On Yee, siding with "Broken Nose" Jiang against another branch leader, Henry "Big Smile" Lee. After Po's funeral, during which they are attacked by 18K members, Lee reluctantly agrees to an election that will decide the leader of the Sun On Yee, but promises retaliation if he does not win. Shen refuses Pendrew's order to get off the case out of fear of Lee taking over. Lee orders attacks against other Sun On Yee branches in an attempt to eliminate the competition and intimidate them into voting for him, including kidnapping Jackie and handing him to the 18K as a way to get rid of Shen. Just before the election, Shen receives a text message from Jackie to meet him, but he finds Jackie hanged and disemboweled on a pipe in an alleyway.
Shen is knocked out and wakes up, greeted by Liu Shen Tong, a feared Triad enforcer who knows Shen is a cop. Shen is tortured, but manages to escape and kills Tong. He then proceeds to assault Lee's compound, reaching Lee, who reveals to Shen that Pendrew sold him out. The two fight and Shen kills Lee, ending the long and violent civil war and allowing Jiang to become the chairwoman of the Sun On Yee. With the deaths of many senior ranking gang members, Shen is commended on his work but is informed by Mak that Pendrew has been promoted to Interpol and is out of his reach. Shen receives video evidence from Jiang showing that Pendrew killed Uncle Po by injecting lethal chemicals into his IV. After leaking the footage, Shen is able to incriminate Pendrew and returns to work on the police force. Jiang watches Shen from afar and orders the remaining Sun On Yee members to leave him alone, due to his loyalty to her.