PixlBit

I've been in a gaming slump all summer, and most of the spring, as well. I think I might have played a little Pinball Arcade, but that was pretty much it. My poor consoles sat, neglected and collecting dust, until last weekend. I was stuck at home due to mechanical failure of my normally (until this year) reliable 1999 Subaru Outback. I was also very bummed out about this because it happened on my way to my gramma's 90^th birthday party, which I'd made them change the date for, by the way. As I looked around my small living space, I realized that the dust bunnies were taking over. I hauled out the vacuum cleaner and went to town, until I got to the TV stand. Once I got the TV, stand, and consoles clean, that was the end of the cleaning spree.

I wanted to play something, but wasn't sure what. I looked at the vast numbers of unplayed PS3 and 360 games on the shelf and felt a bit overwhelmed. I decided to fire up the 360, and gave Mass Effect a try. I liked it, but wasn't really in the mood for something rpg-ish. As I scrolled through my accumulated digital games, I came across Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon. Hmm... Well, I did like the demo enough to buy it... I had a glorious but brief romp, dying many sad deaths and giggling over the useless “hints” during the loading screens. I'll definitely go back to it, it just wasn't what I was looking for at that moment. Back to scrolling through the digital library again...Came across a couple of free games I'd scored through Games With Gold and forgotten I'd downloaded. Rainbow 6 Vegas got deleted off the hard drive pretty quickly. But Sleeping Dogs, a game I really didn't expect to like, grabbed me good. Next thing I knew, it was 4:30 AM on Sunday. Oops! Good thing I didn't have to be anywhere on Sunday. I figured I'd sleep in. Hahaha. The pets had other plans. Kaylee waited for me to doze off and then vomited next to my pillow, giving it a really good wind-up before she did. After cleaning that up, I managed to doze off again around 5:30. I figured if I could at least fall asleep before it got light out, I'd be ok. Nope. Bandit, who had refused to get off the porch and go out in the rain to do his business on Saturday decided he really, really, really had to pee at 7:15. At that point, I gave up. Figured I'd just have breakfast and curl up on the couch with Netflix/Amazon/Hulu Plus and hope for a nap. Which I got, sorta. In between phone calls that I really didn't want to answer, but since I was already awake... I fell asleep when I didn't want to, right after the first Pats TD against the Bengals, and woke up just in time for the fourth quarter to start. I watched about three minutes and then out again. I had to ask Jason for the score the next morning.

Back to Sleeping Dogs. When I told Jason about it, he commented “Huh. That's not your usual kind of game.” And that's true. I'm not usually a huge fan of open world games, but Sleeping Dogs has enough direction that I know where I need to go to advance the story, and all the other stuff manages to tie into the main story so that I don't feel like I'm aimlessly roaming around. For those who don't know, Sleeping Dogs is sort of like GTA set in Hong Kong, but with better controls and a better story. You play as Wei Shen, an undercover cop whose objective is to infiltrate and bring down the Sun On Yee triad. Along the way, you can take part in drug busts for the cops, steal cars for a guy who runs a chop shop, go on dates, sing karaoke at a couple of clubs, go clothes shopping (clothes can give you XP and stat bonuses), do favors for people, race, bet on cock fights, or just cause general mayhem. There are collectibles to find – lock boxes give you money, clothes, and sometimes weapons, health shrines increase your max health, and jade statues can be used to unlock more fighting moves. You earn XP in three areas: cop, triad, and face. Each will unlock various bonuses, making the missions easier.

I spent a little time on the story, which is pretty good, but I've spent a lot more time just roaming around and doing the various side missions. Along the way, I discovered that if you run over the parking meters, you can collect the coins that scatter out. I try to avoid running down the pedestrians, it just makes me feel bad. I also discovered that some vehicles have tire irons in the trunk, extremely useful for smacking down those pesky thugs that need to be cleaned out of certain areas for the drug bust missions. I'm also slowly amassing a fleet of vehicles that can be accessed from any parking garage in the city. Cool! I dunno how they do it, must be a transporter or a wormhole hidden inside each one... I also found a bug that trapped me inside the parking garage and I had to reload a previous save file. Not so cool.

According to the reviews I've read, people seem to average 20 hours on this game. I have a feeling I'm going to spend a lot more time than that. I'm just having way too much fun to just play the main story arc for now. There are also a couple of dlc packs with more missions that I'll eventually invest in, once I've exhausted all the fun there is to be had with the main game.

All in all, I have to say I'm pretty happy that this showed up in Games for Gold, because otherwise I never would have picked it up. I would have considered it “not my thing” and skipped past it in the store, never knowing what I was missing out on.