The two I've recently played through are Sleeping Dogs for the PS3 and Tales of Abyss for the 3DS
I'll start with Sleeping Dogs for the PS3:
The Story:
Sleeping dogs follows the story of Hong Kong native Wei Shen. Shen and his family moved to the States when he was a child and eventually Wei became a Police Officer with the SFPD, raising through the ranks quickly and becoming a detective. Through some miraculous under-cover exchange program, the young detective Shen returns to Hong Kong as an undercover officer for the HKPD, his job is to disrupt the Triad organization operating in his old neighborhood. Shen quickly hooks up with an old childhood friend and begins doing naughty things to gain their trust.
The story in Sleeping Dogs moves very quickly and while it does offer entertainment, unfortunately it is one of those games where things happen way too quickly and you're left in a position where you're supposed to feel bad for a character, but since there was very little development and face time you're kind of like "lol". Also the fast paced story doesn't offer much in way of explaining the infrastructure, mechanics and hierarchy of the Triad organizations. Okay, it's a video game not a lesson on organized crime, but still they present a lot of characters and terms that relate to the actual Triad organizations and players are just supposed to know what they are. Had I not studied organized crime in University, I probably wouldn't have had the faintest idea who some of the characters in the game represent. Which to some people can cause confusion and a "why should I give a shit about so-and-so?" feeling.
And as you no doubt have guessed, Wei starts questioning his actions given that he is an officer of the law and naturally his HKPD handler does the same, and there's the good old moral dilemma of being gangsta and po-po at the same time.
Perrty Grafixs:
Visually, Sleeping Dogs is fantastic, and even though the PC version of the game has an upgraded texture pack, the PS3 version still looks excellent. The draw distance was great especially for the amount of detail and once and while you'll find yourself simply starting at a building checking out the amount of little windows, air conditioners and other crap that are tacked on to them. Also there weren't too many pop in errors, which are a giant pain in the ass in open world games, not to mention
In addition the visuals really shine when the rain starts pouring down. Plenty of reflections and misty pretty colours make it an interesting game world during Hong Kong's fierce rain storms.
Driving:
The driving in Sleeping Dogs is very arcadey and little bit lame. It's nice and easy to pick up, but I prefer something that requires a little bit of skill building. Many other people really like the arcadey aspect of Sleeping Dog's driving but for me, it was a little bit lacking.
However, plenty of stupidness occurs while driving, and while stupid I have to say its pretty awesome. Such things as jumping out of your car to hop onto other cars and nick them. One hand over the roof shooting out tires and a button to ram your car into other vehicles in different directions. Stupid but fun. There's also a way to hold your door open and whack unsuspecting pedestrians with it in the course of your duties as a Police Officer. heh heh heh.
Guns and Gunplay:
Guns are in inetersting topic as far as Sleeping Dogs is concerned. Firearms are more prolific later on in the story line and only really used when NPC enemies are going to have them. This is either because the developers wanted to keep the combat focused on melee, or they tried to introduce the retarded political agenda demonstration of "guns are hard to get cuz their banned" Well yes, the majority of firearms are illegal to posses in Hong Kong, however, that doesn't stop criminals getting them at all. Like most places in the world there is a very developed and active black market trade for guns in Hong Kong and this is one fact that is missing from Sleeping Dogs. Missing to the point of non-existence.
There is literally no way of buying an illegal gun in Sleeping Dogs, the only times you get them is when they're lying on the fucking ground, stealing one from the police or a police car, stored in a lock box, or given to you by one of the characters in the game."Guns are somewhat of a rarity in Hong Kong." One of the characters states, however, they only seem to be a rarity to you. I know the game isn't supposed to be realistic, but honestly having an open world crime game without a black market arms trade is just kinda lame. It would have been better to have a black market arms dealer skulking around rather than either getting one gifted to you thirty seconds before you need it, or just finding one on the ground right before you need it.(the latter is especially prevalent in free roam) Also sometimes you're not even given a firearm you just hop on your bike or get in your car and the random ass 9mm MP7 looking thing appears. Then again nicking guns from the police is much cheaper, and frees up your disposable tax-free income to buy shitty suits you can't wear yet.
What guns are featured? None quite frankly. The developers didn't go for licensing and didn't just blatantly nick models from real firearms. You're probably thinking this pissed me off, but actually it didn't. It was nice to see someone use some imagination for once, and lets face it, when devs decide to blatantly model guns from real firearms, you get all sorts of retarded names and calibers...they might as well have just made the guns up themselves. Some guns do resemble actual firearms, theres one that looks like an MP7, UMP and also another sub machine gun that looks like a 7.62x25mm sub-gun that the Chinese Police use but the developers didn't go out of their way to throw realistic looking firearms at us. As seen in the above picture ^. Official word from Norinco: "Pissed!" I'm sure they thought it was going to be like Kayne and Lynch 2, a giant advertising showcase for Norinco.
Gunplay is fun but honestly is just a congealing of combat from other games, cover shooting and bullet time is really what it focuses on and the bullet time can only be triggered while doing action movie stunts and pretty much makes the shooting sequences really easy. They also put an emphasis on tactical lights, many of the guns in the game have them and they come in handy in a few of the levels.
Melee Combat:
Melee combat is really the bread and butter of Sleeping Dogs, you will lay a lot of ass beatings and said beatings are quite fun to carry out. There are a few melee weapons you can smack people around with and a handful of environmental pwnage options, such as windows, payphones, security shutters, window fans, roof-top air conditioners and some others. The combat focuses heavily on countering and you will encounter three types of enemies. One which are basically mobile punching bags, if they attack you can can quickly punch them to stop the attack, or use the counter system. You can grab them at any time and smack them into the world object of your choosing. Two the brawler who's attacks can't be interrupted by a quick punch, so you need to use a counter, then proceed to beat the crap out of them afterwords. And three, the pain in the ass sumo wrestler wannabe grappler, this dick has to be countered and hit with heavy attacks, don't get to close just try and heavy kick him in the face until he pisses off.
Problems:
Ranking system, specifically the "Face" In addition to your Cop and Triad levels, you have your face level, this is leveled up through doing favours for people such as making deliveries, distracting the jolly policemen during someone's nefarious dealings, removing a drunken ass from an establishment and just doing other stupid shit. Your face level does help you in combat, once you fill the meter your health regenerates, but over all is just a pain in the ass since to wear ceritan suits or buy certian cars you need a corresponding face level to acquire them. By the way, going for a wank at your local massage parlour gives you a full face meter for your next ass-beating segment. Remeber, always get fapped before going into battle.
Free Roam activities are very very very repetitive. Theres races, drug busts, truck hi-jackings and stuff to collect, but after the third time, each of these activities seems repetitive. They also nicked the mini games from GTA China town wars, which is kinda fun and beats just pushing an action button, but like in GTA China Town Wars it gets old quickly.
The animations are little bit out there, and on many occasional s break the visual flow of whats going on. For example, the melee combat is heavily focused on countering, and while many of the counters are nice spectacles, it is actually rare for them to match up precisely. This means that when Wei counters an attack, more often than not, either Wei himself or the attacker teleport a few feet around and then the ass-kick is laid.
Audio was at many times not synchronized. This started with the occasional lip syncing error and got the point where you'd fire a gun and a second later hear the shot. This really took away from the game, not to mention was a pain in the ass during gunfights since someone could shoot a burst into you and you wouldn't hear any visual que until Wei was dead.
Conclusion:
Over all, Sleeping Dogs is a fun game, but there are some pains in the ass. I wouldn't really reccomend the game at full price, either rent it or grab it when it comes down. You'll have fun, but it will wear off...or maybe my face meter is just low and I just need to visit the local massage parlour.
