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Games of the Decade: Expansion Pass #9/Blog a Day #22

Hello everyone, how are you?

One thing I love about video games is the variety of locations that they take you on. Some take you on some interesting and fantastic places like the Mushroom Kingdom, Dream Land, or even Hell if you've played DOOM. But what about video games that take you to real world locations? One thing I love is how games set in real world locations not only pay attention to detail, but also craft a story loosely inspired by real world stuff that happened, in this case it's own version of criminal gangs. For #9 we are taking a trip to Hong Kong and tussle with its criminal underworld with Sleepy Dogs.

 

        The music in the game is actually really good (even if you can't understand it)

I remember hearing about Sleepy Dogs sometime late 2008 or early 2009 via 1up. At the time it went under a different name, I don't remember much about the game but it sounded like something interesting but I didn't have an console that would of been able to play the game anyway.  Fast-forward to 2017 and my brothers actually got me Sleepy Dogs on the PS3, as part of a collection with other Square Enix published games like Just Cause 2 and the recent Tomb Raider reboot game. I tried Sleepy Dogs after Just Cause 2 though and here is how the game is.

I'll try not to spoil too much of the game. In the game you play as Wei Shen, a Chinese-American who is a petty criminal and gets promptly arrested when a drug deal goes south. Except that it was all a ruse since Wei is actually infact an undercover cop and getting arrested was all part of the plan. Wei's job is to infiltrate a Triad oganization known as the Sun On Yee. You can imagine what happens here.

Wei Shen has a number of skills at his disposal, from running, jumping, swimming, driving vehicles, being able to use weapons and being able to fight. He is also adept at parkour as well. You can also use the environment to your advantage and you can use that to kill your enemies when your fists aren't enough. You can smash an enemy into an air conditioner, or you can dunk them inside a spinning fan and more. It's stuff like that that sets this game apart from similar games.

 

                                                      I see some irony here

The game is a third-person action-adventure game set in an open-world, after a set of tutorial missions the game lets you do whatever you want from doing side-missions or other activities. Hong Kong in this game is divided into 4 districts named after regions of the city. Here you can do stuff like meeting certain requirements in order to unlock more story missions,or you can partake in other activities if you want to take a small break from the criminal life. You can get side-quests from other characters, participate in races, enter fight clubs or go to a karaoke and sing. You can even go shopping for new clothes and new vehicles.

The game does a really great job of capturing the look and feel of Hong Kong. The areas are lively and populated with people and the scale of the city is really impressive too. They even went the full mile and got music in Cantonese and they got voice-actors that are appropriate for the characters. They put a lot of thought and effort into making this game.

"But Captain N, where can I play this game?" Well on PS3 and Xbox 360 but I recommend the Definitive Edition that's available on the PS4, Xbox One, and Steam. The Definitive Edition of the game has a number of improvements from both gameplay and audio-visual quality based on the feedback that they got from the original release and it includes all the dlc as well. The game goes often on sale for less than $10, sometimes up to $5. DON'T SLEEP ON THIS GAME.

 

                                Even Hong Kong has their own version of Agent 47

Final Thoughts: Sleepy Dogs is by far one of the best open-world games that I have ever played. The story was really great and had me hooked and even the side-missions were great too. Sometimes they had you do some absurd things, especially this one side-mission character named Calvin. Every time he had a mission for me I know it was bound to be trouble but I went ahead anyway because I know it would be mundane and fun.

I love how the game had a bigger focus on hand-to-hand combat. Like yes there is gunplay but I love that you can choose to use your fists and use martial arts rather than a firearm. You just can't button mash your way through a fight and that's what I love about the combat since you have to actually plan your button presses. I also love how they went the whole mile with the authenticity of both the game and the voice-actor they got for it. The radio stations even play music that you'd normally would listen in Hong Kong

It's definitely one of the most underrated games that I have ever played, I never got bored of doing anything in this game and I loved Wei as a character, someone who works as an undercover cop but at the same time is someone who is questioning his loyalties due to all the stuff going on. The game sold well but infortunately didn't meet sales expectations. It sucks because a sequel was actually planned that took place after the game. I hope one day they do decide to give us a sequel. But if you can, please get this game, I'd even take a Switch port of it at some point too. It's also the only game I know that you can make out with Emma Stone.

                                                  Well my internet did get cut so.....

Loyalty and trust is sometimes put to the test in different situations. You might question both depending on what you see or hear. But only you can decide who to trust and to do the right thing even if it's a hard decision.

That's all for this one. For #8 we are joining the Frontier Militia and we are going to pilot a mech. How cool is that? Thanks for reading and remember...

 

*All images were taken by my PS4 and my copy of the game*