You can grab enemies and use the environment to your advantage, putting people through aquariums, burning them on ovens, putting heads through speakers and in the most outlandish of all, impaling them on a swordfish.ĭriving is similarly excellent, cars handle well enough and the later models will have you hurtling around Hong Kong at breakneck speeds.

Light and heavy attacks can be mixed up with counters, throws and weapons to make you a formidable threat to anyone that gets in your way. Combat feels brilliant, it’s incredibly visceral and the bone crunching attacks wouldn’t look out of place in The Raid. Just as Arkham made you really feel like The Dark Knight himself, and more recently, Shadow of Mordor making you feel like the biggest threat to ever stalk Middle-earth, Sleeping Dogs effortlessly makes you feel like a supercop, you are classic Chow Yun Fat starring in your Hong Kong action movie. Like the Arkham series, Sleeping Dogs makes you feel awesome as you’re playing it. It’s all highly derivative but it’s the setting of Hong Kong itself that gives life to Sleeping Dogs and helps it establish a strong enough identity to stand out in a pretty crowded genre. You have the sprawling open world (though not as big) as Grand Theft Auto, the excellent combat system from the Arkham series that allows you take on multiple enemies like a kung fu master and the free running parkour elements lifted straight from Assassin’s Creed. Like most third person open world action games made after Grand Theft Auto III, Arkham Asylum, Assassin’s Creed, Sleeping Dogs borrows heavily from all series. It all weaves together to create a gripping narrative that drops in some incredible set pieces and superb twists and turns that will keep you invested in Wei’s story and hooked to the very end. Even a younger Emma Stone stops by (before her star took off) to lend her voice to one of a few girlfriends that Wei can acquire. Meanwhile Tom Wilkinson and Kelly Hu lend great support as his police handlers and the great James Hong weighs in as Sun On Yee leader, Uncle Po.

However it’s all neatly held together with some great voice acting that really helps sell the story, Will Yun Lee ( The Wolverine) is on excellent form as Wei Shen, weaving between English and Cantonese to really give depth to his character.

It’s full of genre cliches like crooked cops, criminals looking to get out and start a new life and loyalties torn between doing the right thing and the brotherhood that the triad represents. Borrowing heavily from Infernal Affairs and Hard Boiled, you play Wei Shen, a detective entrenched deep within the Sun On Yee triad gang and tasked with bringing them down from the inside while a gang war looms on the horizon for control of Hong Kong.

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