Sleeping Dogs - 9 Years Later

Along the bustling streets of Hong Kong we see a commercial utopia with pork buns on every corner and a dense population; However, a darker Hong Kong lurks just beneath the surface, exhibiting violence, fear and loss, and at the center of it all is Wei Shen, raised in Old Prosperity. Wei grew up with future members of the Hong Kong triads, particularly the sun on you, although due to a sister becoming addicted to drugs, Wei's family decided the best course of action was to seek a better life in America

years

later

. A police officer gets a job working undercover with the Special Tasks Unit to infiltrate the Hong Kong Triads, but I think we're getting a little ahead of ourselves here, let's back up and take a look at how we got here in 2002, Luxo Developer. flux announced as they described an action racing game inspired by popular action movies for the PlayStation 2 titled True Crime Streets of the True Crime Malay released two mixed reviews but sold quite well starring a police officer who investigates a series of attacks. with bombs in Chinatown that the game looked like. racing gun game and even multiple endings, it is obviously a product of its time, although most critics criticized its poor graphical fidelity and performance and as it is an open world third-person action game, 101 comparisons were released with the Grand Theft Auto series. three

years

later

, although we received True Crime New York City despite it being a separate story from the first entry in the true crime series, it began a New York gangster turned police officer who was newly promoted to the role of detective who was a witness of the death of his mentor and him. has to get to the bottom of this, unfortunately, true crime new york received the same criticism that highlighted the game's many graphical errors and some had theorized that the game was rushed to meet its release windows, while many applauded its gameplay and the overall product selling poorly and being considered a financial failure, this led to the game's publisher, Activision, putting the series on hiatus and eventually handing the task of creating the next entry years later to United Front Games.

There were other reasons why the product was discarded, but there are other videos. which go into greater detail about that united front based in Vancouver, Canada, was a promising developer, as they had already developed big hits like Mod Nation Racers and pretty much nothing else, regardless of the fact that they took an open world game they were already developing and they reworked it. true crime hong kong true crime hong kong looked a lot like the other true crime games, albeit with greater visual fidelity and a seemingly reworked combat system that was inspired by the recently released Batman Arkham Asyly.

As the years went by, we saw more and more. game trailers and there were some immediate problems, the first was that the new protagonist, wei shen, seemed quite generic and forgettable, the best way to describe this was that it seemed like you were just playing as an npc, not an actual protagonist, combining this with a couple of other problems and I'm sure Activision saw the writing on the walls as the game that followed the financial bomb that was true crime in New York was not likely to be a success. Other factors also led to a loss of confidence, as delays were frequent and the budget was becoming increasingly tight with Activision canceling True Crime Hong Kong.

Fortunately, Square Enix decided to go with the title. They allowed United Front to finish the development. Solve any problem and see your vision through it all. Publish it under a new, completely disconnected title. From the true crime series that takes place in the crime-ridden Hong Kong region, you play as Wei Shen getting into all sorts of undercover trouble including car hijackings, high-speed shootouts, fistfights that leave enemies with damn circular saws in the head and much more to keep you entertained and that's without even getting into the Hong Kong nightlife and the generally exciting history that publishes the positive reviews.

Sleeping Dogs seemed to be a diamond in the rough when it came to open-world action games. A unique driving and combat style enabled gameplay. To really stand on its own and give it a sense of identity if Hong Kong's masterfully crafted delights didn't already, combine this with the story which, while cheesy, serves as a love letter to old Hong Kong action movies. kong and it's a solid story in its own right and we ended up with a product that left me baffled as it didn't seem to get the love and appreciation I think it deserves. Sleeping Dogs upon its initial release garnered some coverage on YouTube, but in recent years the coverage has increased.

It's been minimal, so I guess I'll take some time to give my own opinion on the series now to give some context to this whole retrospective. I should also tell my story of the game. I bought

sleeping

dogs

at the time of release because the trailers leading up to it intrigued me. I loved it so much that I bought its re-release, which included all the DLC from the definitive edition of Sleeping Dogs. On my second playthrough, I took a closer look at the game's narrative and ended up enjoying it a lot more, although I never dabbled.

However, in the DLC I took several years off from the game because when replaying some missions to finish the game 100% I encountered a bug where my save file became corrupted and I lost over 40 hours of game time. Butthurt and decided to get rid of the game and forgot about it for a while. Then I bought the game on Steam with all the DLC included and that's where all this footage comes from. I'll focus on PC-based performance and presentation. port, but I might also mention that the definitive edition for ps4 worked fine and the error with my corrupted save file must have been pretty weird because I couldn't find any other posts online about it, so without further ado, let's talk

sleeping

dogs

.

Starting with the technical aspect, obviously with a game as old as this I don't expect cutting edge graphics but I have to say that the graphical fidelity here is pretty good and the character designs look great, Shen's design in particular stood out . To me, he looks remarkable and ordinary at the same time, his physical tone gives me the impression that he is obviously quite skilled, but his clothes, although somewhat iconic, don't stand out too much, what I liked was that waze's outfits consist of blue jeans and a blue jacket with a white tank top underneath the typical attire of a triad member at least on the lower level you see them in a tank top the tank top is part of waze's outfit which could represent their connection staff with the sun in this tank top is covered by a blue primary color, a color commonly associated with the police, his tank top is being repressed by his coat in the same way as his son, any past is being repressed by his future in law enforcement, maybe I'm looking into this too much. but I feel this was too convenient to be involuntary.

Wait's design also says more about her personality, as her tattoos are surprisingly symbolic of her character. She has a tattoo of a dragon and a phoenix. The dragon represents power in the case of Way and the phoenix. It is often a symbol of rebirth and in Chinese culture symbolizes luck. In Way's case, her rebirth was the result of the death of her sister. She became addicted to drugs due to the triads and eventually overdosed, which may have been the catalyst for Way's decision to join law enforcement. way also has a tattoo of guan yu, a prominent figure in chinese folklore who played an important role at the end of the han dynasty and the tldr is that he was quite loyal and his morals over time have been accentuated making him a symbol of loyalty and morality, it makes sense that this is tattooed on the road, as his loyalty plays a large role in his character, acting as his greatest strength and his greatest weakness, other main characters such as dog eyes, winston, uncle poe pendru and many others have good designs that fit their personalities and even the supporting characters also look good although their designs are very similar which could be a testament to the fact that they are just low level lackeys but I think the notable figures could have used a few more distinctions, for example, take a look. in conroy duke vincent and even xiao whose designs are combined in a way that makes it difficult to remember them individually, no big deal because these characters are very small at the end of the story, but the beginning of the game had Fortunately, I always get the names wrong That's literally the biggest criticism I can throw at this game when it comes to the character designs, there are a ton of cars to play with and while they all look pretty cool, the high-class supercars specifically have eccentric designs. . which is good since during high speed chases you will be looking a lot at the different car designs when an enemy is chasing you on four wheels, it is not unusual to see them appear in front of you or in the case of entering the numerous neighborhoods of the region, you will see the texture load slowly once you enter one of the neighborhoods, although you will see the dense streets filled with billboards, bright lights, and a ton of decorations that really sell the idea of ​​being in a populated region, the signs Neon lights tend to illuminate the world more than street lights at night and while the lighting here isn't the best even by the standards of the time this game was released, it still sells Hong Kong in a fabulous way. during the day Hong Kong almost seems a little boring because there is a huge lack of inorganic lighting, but when the sun goes down it's like Hong Kong really comes to life and that's something we also see within the story.

Unfortunately, not everything here is as polished as it could be, as glitches were quite common ranging from minor glitches where an NPC would float for a brief moment upon entering the club bam bam to more intrusive glitches where upon casting a knife there was a small chance that, instead of being thrown towards the enemy you were aiming at, it would. it just hit me in the face causing the game to end instantly. I usually don't criticize failures because they are so intermittent for everyone, but this particular knife failure only happened three or so times, but it happened enough to make me second-guess doing it. use of mechanics another thing that caught my attention considering the time this game was released were the faces, they all look great and very natural, a lot of games from that time in hell, even games today have faces that They fall into the uncanny valley, however Sleeping Dogs is not one of those games, that being said, lip syncing is quite difficult here.

Normally I wouldn't mention something like this if it didn't distract me from the cutscenes, but unfortunately it did, there were a few points where I found myself saying yeah, that could have used a little work, oh my god, wait, listen, you I swear it was dirty and while these moments don't happen too often, especially not enough to ruin the game, I felt it necessary to mention, unfortunately, another big problem I found with the cutscenes on PC was that their speed of frames was more than inconsistent. I don't think they are limited because they go up to 60 frames per second, but they often drop frames and for the life of me I couldn't figure out why.

When I got into the game, the frame rate was perfectly stable and I never experienced any drops, so I apologize more if the cutscenes look a little jarring. What I can say is that these scenes, aside from the lip syncing mentioned later, look great and have an excellent style that really immerses you, this of course couldn't have been achieved without the stellar voice acting in the game, literally all the voices here sounded pretty good except for some of the side quest characters and I don't want to talk too much about that but I felt it necessary to say that the voices of the main characters were great and if I look at Wei Pandrew's faces, Uncle Poe and even some like Sifu and Raymond, their voices immediately come to mind, I think specifically Wei Will's voice actor.

Yun Li does an incredible job of capturing the stress, aggression, and confidence that the narrative exudes has a lot of implications for William without going into it too much. I must say the voice actor really sold the emotions, the music does a great job too. job of setting the tone as it mirrors the dr jekyll mr hyde situation that wei finds himself trapped in when on surveillance, he is calm and collected trying to maintain peace and quiet, yet covertly has to accentuate the aggressive aspects of his personality to fit into this reflects even more on the region itself is day, it seems normal on the surface, but it isat dusk when criminals start up to no good and life translates perfectly to the soundtrack;

Only the menu themes, of which there are four, cover the themes of this Game and form as a character, the opening themes usually have a mix of peaceful traditional Chinese instruments before they end up colliding with the hard-hitting trap beats. Some make the two blend in absolute harmony with Chinese instruments and Western hip-hop. together in parallel, who is also someone with roots in Chinese and American culture outside of all that, although I'm going to go on record here and say that this original soundtrack is one of the best I've heard from a game like this. It won't top the Persona series, but I'd die if I didn't shake my head every time I heard these opening themes.

The different radio stations in the game have decent music, but I won't comment much on it because they are all licensed which means I can't play them lest I let umg rip my kidneys out, regardless of whether they were okay, nothing amazing or even comparable to the original soundtrack, but something to enjoy while heading to different objectives around the map, of course the map. himself is one of the most prominent figures in the game and where all this triad upheaval takes place now, instead of using GPS technologies to accurately recreate Hong Kong in the same way that True Crime La and True Crime New York did, The United Front chose to take a more gameplay-centric approach and create their own interpretation of Hong Kong.

There is only one Hong Kong Island in the game with the new Kolun Territories or any landmarks such as Hong Kong International Airport or the subway system being absent. Additionally, there are only four Hong Kong neighborhoods here, being North Point Aberdeen Kennedy Town and Central. Which means you won't see other neighborhoods like Wanchai either, and despite this, the map still feels crowded and is actually a pretty good size. The aforementioned neighborhoods are not at the proper geographic points, but it doesn't matter because, as stated, the map was not intended to be a one-to-one recreation. The first point I should mention is that these four neighborhoods are separated by two or three roads that are very defined, meaning that the transition from one neighborhood to the next will not always be easy.

I would have enjoyed a more integrated Hong Kong, although I imagine the reason for such a clear separation between the neighborhoods is due to hardware limitations and the need to give the consoles time to load into the new environments, regardless of whether Don't want the The fact that Hong Kong is not an accurate recreation may seem like a criticism because it is not, in fact I have a lot of praise to give to Hong Kong here, especially at night, it feels incredibly alive and the densely packed houses in slums look just as good as open commercial districts, as it would be impossible to represent such a dense population with hardware, as hundreds of npcs per block would need to be converted into a united front.

Instead, it reflects the density of Hong Kong within its surroundings. Take a look at some of the markets. In Hong Kong there is such a small space between one store and another and everything, especially in low-income areas, is so tightly packed and so close together, and looking up reinforces a claustrophobic feeling as the billboards, neon signs and Ads cascade your vision with stimulation. and an overwhelming amount of logo names and everything is very well executed, it's not just the environments here that offer the aesthetic of being overwhelmingly dense, even the road signs have so much information that when driving you can't help but squint to make Also, there is no wall left here as there is always an AC unit with signs or a window inside it or there is trash or a person leaning against it and while there may not be anything visually appealing about these details alone , come together to create a product in a region that is larger and more claustrophobic than the sum of its parts, seeing so many bulges in almost the entire game wonderfully depicts the oppressive nature of Hong Kong's crime zone.

I think the downside of having such a dense region is that remembering locations from each other was difficult for me, I always found it strange with sleeping dogs because in many open world games like saints row or grand theft I find that at the end of a game If not before, I know their respective cities like the back of my hand, but with the dogs sleeping, I was using my map and landmarks more consistently to get around. I mentioned a similar problem when I covered the Assassin's Creed reveals. The conclusion I drew there as to why Constantinople did not stand.

In my mind it was because notable landmarks were missing and I think this is still true, but for sleeping dogs the landmarks are still there. I can think of many of them off the top of my head as I write this, the k-bar temple. club bam bam the night market in North Point weighs many properties, the golden koi and yet everything in between is just grey. One criticism I saw online from many critics and players was that the world felt forgettable. I can see why they feel that way and While I don't necessarily agree, I think the reason is because of the lack of visible reference points.

I want to make this distinction because, as I mentioned before, there are landmarks here and the problem is not the lack of landmarks, but that the landmarks here do not stand out, kbar is just a hole in the wall no bigger than the other businesses that surround it. The houses on your path are very similar with the exception of your apartment in North Point, even the night market itself in North Point can be a difficult task to identify despite being in the center of the map, if these landmarks were visible from the ground or had greater distinction, they could potentially be easier to find, on top of that, because everything fits into this claustrophobic layout, it means you have a lot of things to keep track of. and there are so many signs and buildings that catch your attention that making the distinction from one building to another can be difficult, but I don't think this is the game's fault, I think it's just the downside of keeping the environment as authentic as possible. this to the obvious contemporary Grand Theft Auto 5.

In GTA 5 I think the reason I found it easier to memorize the map was because there were fewer points of interest, there are many landmarks, such as skyscrapers visible in the center, and they always give you an idea of ​​their position in the city ​​and there are many buildings between these landmarks, however, these middle buildings do not attract as much attention because they lack the foliage that Hong Kong presents. This is not to say that everything in Hong Kong is interesting, but it is attention-grabbing, there are a lot of neon signs and details cluttering the screen and when so much of the screen wants your attention in addition to whatever target is in front of you, nothing of That catches your attention, I think that's why some have cited it. the game is forgettable because I think there is too much clutter here again.

I don't think it's a bad design choice as aesthetically Hong Kong is absolutely beautiful, but I think it's a product of its inspirations. I find this in particular difficult to articulate. Since I feel like the aesthetic and look of Hong Kong is unique and memorable, but the map itself feels so disorienting at times and made me feel a bit unfamiliar with the region as a whole throughout my entire playthrough, I think that's what No. What doesn't help is that the minimap is so wildly inaccurate at times that it was a constant annoyance and you can barely rely on one of the luxuries that such a densely populated region provides is the ability to incorporate movement to a greater extent and sleeping dogs take advantage of it.

Of this, but to the minimum extent possible, there are very defined paths that you can use your parkour skills on and they are usually filled with scaffolding or covered with a green tarp. I can go into more detail about the mechanics of this movement later, but for now I can say that the movement-based environments had a lot of variety and it was always fun to make these massive jumps to cross a space or chase after a target. Some of these restricted movement sections take place indoors and these indoor environments look even better. than their external counterparts, it's clear that a lot of effort was put into these environments and the aforementioned club interiors look incredible on top of others, such as the warehouses you enter, and while I could go on about the details, trust me, I'd rather Taking a moment to express how I feel about these interiors from a design perspective.

The combat-focused interiors are very interesting and have a variety of interactive aspects that allow the combat to feel as alive as possible by throwing someone's head into a fish tank. and then hitting the next person with a fish from that same tank is something that not many games can say they can offer. I can go into detail about the environmental takedowns later, but for now I want to praise it, even though the game likes to throw. There are a ton of enemies in front of you, there are a lot of these environmental takedowns present in any given area that allow you to thin out the numbers almost instantly when it comes to gunplay, there are a variety of environments aesthetically and they all end up being the same.

Design-wise, a surprising number of the environments here see you in an open room with a couple of boxes scattered about and that's it, to be fair, there are some really intense scenes as well, as exemplified by the shootout in the graveyard or one of the endings. Scenery that sees you in a restaurant jumping on tables and taking cover behind booths in general, although the environments don't really do anything special and that's perfectly fine in my opinion, there are sure to be some interesting environments like the one in the back top of a building in the The opening hour of the game, in which you find yourself fighting a very small army of men and bashing them against the skylights to break the glass, is that fun?

Yes, it's innovative or even that unique, not really, but when it comes to combat, I really don't think it's necessary. The combat alone was interesting enough to keep me engaged and the environments aesthetically stimulated me as well, so I never felt the need or desire for more complex level designs when it came down to it, if I were to give an idea of what they could do. In the context of a sequel, we could use some more mobile environments. We might have to stop a convoy of trucks full of stolen goods, but because the goods are so fragile, we can't just run the vehicles off the road, which means we would have to climb on top of them and fight off some thugs who have also climbed by jumping from one truck to another, it's certainly an ambitious idea, but if executed well it could be extremely memorable for now, although let's talk about what they actually did with the Gameplay, the gameplay here is really the bread and butter of this game and while it's not perfect like everything else in this game it's still pretty good, there are many aspects to the gameplay being movement, vehicles, gunplay and fighting, whatever they may be.

They have their own unique flaws and strengths and they come together under the level design to create something unique and give this game another sense of identity. I think the first thing we need to cover is combat, as it's easily the most unique part of this game. For better or worse, often compared to the Arkham series, combat here is based on attacking and counterattacking. An aggressive playstyle is recommended here, as all the skills you start with and even the ones you unlock are based on allowing you to hit an enemy by using your fists, a gun, a car engine, or even a ice crusher, combining aspects of kung fu judo wrestling and more.

The fighting style is heavily inspired by mma and looks immaculate, and this was designed by United Front. in mixed martial artist georgia st pierre to lend his knowledge and help united front create the most satisfying and realistic combat possible. The little details that went into this also blew me away, like in one of the early versions of the game, the running jump kick that can be performed. it looked slightly different and, as the developers put it, felt out of place. gsp was able to identify that the problem was kicking the enemy with the same foot they jump with, which is incorrect.

This is just one of many examples of the united front's dedication to making gameplay that is both cinematic in its style but grounded in its execution. I want to address the comparisons to the Arkham series from the beginning, as I'm sure there are already a lot of comments referring to such a comparison. Sleeping dog combat is much more grounded. in the surrounding environments compared to arkham, it also relies on combos much more than arkham with comboslight and heavy attacks and the face meter also adds a new layer of complexity. Sleeping dogs also have a different variety of enemies compared to the arkham games along with different ways to take them down such as by grabbing them or by using weapons like knives and pipes, the only real comparison you can make is that they both use the square to attack and the triangle to counter and different degrees of rhythm are needed, I'm not.

To say that Sleeping Dogs was not inspired by the Arkham series and while I can't say for sure that it was, I think it was, but it's not a scam, it took the most basic and basic aspects of Arkham's combat. and they put their own spins on it and built it from the ground up to create something truly unique. Also, if we really want to paint a game as guilty of plagiarism, then we can at least say that the Arkham series is also guilty since Arkham Knight took the environmental removal of the electrical box directly from this game, I wouldn't say that, because when both games They are combat based third person action games, there will be a natural overlap, don't confuse this with a definitive statement about which combat system is better, the truth is.

I like both and for different reasons, another series this game is often compared to is Grand Theft Auto and I think this one actually has some surface level ground. I mean, they're both third-person action crime games where you find yourself driving, shooting, and hitting your solve a lot of problems, but I think this comparison is superficial at best, since the city is completely different, the story takes a different approach with the whole undercover thing, the combat obviously has a lot more depth than Grand Theft Auto and the filming has a more cinematic quality. element that further separates it from GTA To be fair, I haven't heard many people say this is a GTA rip-off or clone to the same extent as I've heard it with the Arkham series, but I thought it at least was.

It's worth mentioning, sorry, I felt like it was necessary to get that out of the way because it seems like every time there's a counter button in a combat system, it's immediately considered an Arkham clone and if it has a dodge button then those themselves. People were mourning the dark souls clone as if his bloody murder made these surface level comparisons diminish the quality and unique traits of both systems in each game and with that I will finally shut up. Combat can be very difficult to take in at first if you're not familiar with third-person action games, but in its simplest form, if you tap the square button to perform light and heavy attacks while using the triangle button to counter an enemy's attack, the most important thing to nail down with this system right away is that its pacing is almost always tight, not perfect, but just enough that spamming the buttons and trying to combo too quickly won't get you very far. , you have to tap the next button in a combo sequence since the previous one is finished for best results and almost all combos consist of tapping the square to varying degrees and always end with a strong attack.

It is performed by holding down the square instead of tapping. The different combos only vary depending on the number of light attacks that come before the heavy attack. You can tap the square up to 4 times before holding it to finish with an incredibly satisfying spinning kick that does the most damage, but you don't necessarily want to do that all the time, a combo can't continue if it's interrupted by counter damage or anything else. , and trying to pull off the 5-hit combo will leave you exposed for quite a while, meaning you'll have to make these judgment calls and sometimes just straight-up bets on whether you should go for the riskier 5-hit combo or a Safer combo of 2 or 3 hits.

To mix this up we can add some grabs that can be used to stun or just hit. enemies, some enemies are tougher and will have their guard up and grabbing them is a good way to break that guard. You can also use weapons to defeat some enemies. These weapons, which can range from butcher knives to fish, have a certain durability and for good reason. Since they deny any blockade, you can go to town with the opposing triads for a while. Alternatively, you can throw your weapon, which will kill anyone it touches, but immediately break it. Be careful when doing this though, as it can backfire via the glitch I mentioned above or if you miss, it could bounce back and hit you, which it has done hilariously before.

To avoid this, you can lock onto an enemy, although this is the only time I found blocking to be particularly useful. I don't find myself attacking an enemy I didn't mean to, as pushing the stick in the direction of the person you want to hit is as precise as it needs to be. Finally, there are some environmental takedowns that are easily the most interesting part of the combat. They are both brutal and effective, instantly defeating any enemy. The best part about heading into a new environment was grabbing someone and looking around to see where they could throw them and I swear my eyes lit up like a Christmas tree when I saw it. an open elevator shaft or a kitchen stove or better yet a fish tank when you enter an environment you will probably notice these interactive elements as when you fight an enemy they are highlighted in red.

I think environmental takedowns are mechanically simple and literally require you to press a button but on the other hand they don't serve as an easy one all the time, more as a way to reduce numbers, not all enemies can be attacked so that this further restricts the power of these takedowns. Which I appreciate: they gave you the advantage in battle, not victory on a silver platter. The same sentiment rings true for weapons, as they can easily reduce numbers by keeping the fight in your favor. Another tool at your disposal is the face meter. Because of how it's contextualized in the game, your reputation within the community can improve your reputation through favor races and the like with rewards that include things like discounts and shops, although it doesn't actually reflect that, instead acting as a sort of adrenaline meter and the meter fills up by doing attack counters and almost anything else and it drains when hit once full it activates automatically and you get a damage buff that regenerates health and you can perform any attack on any enemy so the heavy ones that cannot be grabbed, for example, will be grabable when the face meter is active your counters will also get a big boost.

I would say the only criticism I have with the face meter is that it serves as a passive benefit rather than an actual tool at our disposal and that is because we have no control over when it activates, once we do it enough. Well in combat, the meteor eventually fills up and activates and although in concept it translates into a combat system that rewards consistency and momentum if you're good enough to not get hit. an extended period of time that at the end of the game you will probably need. You don't need a bonus if I'm kicking ass and not getting hit.

I don't need the extra health that face mode provides and the same goes for it. the damage buff, although to a lesser extent I think the face meter would have been more useful if we could choose when it activates, for example we could charge the meter through normal use and when charging it, the meter can no longer go down after being struck. meaning you could save it when you're near death or outnumbered, it would give the player more agency and allow them to make a one-off comeback like in the movies, a trend you've probably noticed listening to everything. the skills is that it seems like the fights are always very much in your favor, sure they are 1 vs 5, 10 and even 1 vs 15, but you have almost all the advantages you can have and, in addition, there are more improvements in your combat skills , some basic upgrades give you damage buffs and allow you to take more hits, but if you progress through a certain side quest, you'll eventually be able to gain entirely new abilities within the story.

He eventually reunites with his former martial arts master, Sifu, who had his collection of 12 jade statues from the Song Dynasty stolen, he was able to recover one of them, but 11 are still missing and with each statue he thus finds and returns Sifu offers to teach him. a new combat skill, many of these skills further enhance some of the form based skills, such as your Basic combos, if you were to perform a heavy 3 hit combo, they will kneel the enemy with one of the buffs, they will also stun the enemy and They'll leave you open for a follow-up attack that deals incredible damage by grabbing an enemy you can hit. them and throw them to the ground, but with upgrades you can break the enemy's leg, which will not only stun them for a long time and open them for a subsequent attack, but also surprise the surrounding enemies, leaving them defenseless for a few.

Seconds too, instead of following up with a basic attack you can follow up with a grab and bash a guy's skull in the final update titled team muk or as my uneducated Canadian ass calls it, Dim Mac sees a way to change his basic counterattack by a flurry of blows that leave enemies on the ground and at a significant distance, although I could go over more of these improvements. I think everyone understands that these upgrades offer alternatives and improvements to his pre-existing abilities. I also appreciated that the jade statues are all placed. over the map and in many locations only accessible in the story, meaning you'll experience a natural progression with combat and constantly pick up new moves to keep combat fresh.

I think the AI ​​here is pretty good too and I enjoyed that during some encounters the enemies will simply run away and jump into the nearest car to escape, which created an air of realism, but also created some fun moments like this one where a guy He got into a car and ran me over. On your way out, there are four types of enemies to face, there are the run-of-the-mill thugs who can be damaged by almost anything, the lanky or high-speed enemies who are able to dodge attacks, meaning you'll have to stun them. with counterattack first, heavyweight brutes that cannot be grabbed or stunned and must be taken down with brute force alone and can trap you in a headlock, fighters that need to be grabbed to become vulnerable, and specialist enemies that are a slight combination of all of them, I think the enemies here are fun and although their designs are not as varied as I would have liked, they get the job done, I think it would have been interesting if there was an advanced and learned enemy. of your last attack so if you hit them with a basic combo they will change their stance and depending on the stance they will be weak to grapple for example until you hit them with a grab the final enemy type is boss fights , which was fine.

I guess I think the interesting cutscenes made them more memorable, but it would have been more interesting to see something more complex than just fighting a normal enemy with a big health bar, so calling these guys boss fights is a bit of a stretch, but Presented as such in the overall narrative, the combat here is probably the best part of the game and while on the surface it may seem similar to the Arkham series, the combo fighting and environmental takedowns make it more like a fighter like Mortal Kombat. More than anything else, there are some purchasable foods and outfits that can provide bonuses, such as health regeneration damage buffs and faster focus generation.

The meals were useful, but I never felt the need to use them because I felt that combat without them was a fair challenge for everything. Although, on the other hand, a man who never eats a pork bun is not really a complete man, there are a large handful of costumes from other games and references to Chinese films such as Bruce Lee's iconic yellow tracksuit from Game of Death or the Rico Rodriguez costume from just cause 2. These costumes also have bonuses such as additional police experience, access to special moves and weapons, and other special advantages. I'm not going to sit here and act like these suits are revolutionary, but I've always enjoyed little things like this and it's indicative of the passion that was put into this game, it was also a lot of fun to replay some of these story missions. where the sun leader in Yi praises Way's loyalty while wearing a suit with the words police written on it.

I like your way of thinking. That is the attitude that makes us strong loyalty Discretion used to be more common I also appreciate that when in a police uniform he can handcuff enemies and when he steals a car he shows his license plate legally confiscating it now we should take a look at the other side of the game here, since hitting someone's head against an electrical generator isquite lethal, I would say a bullet is equally as such, the gunplay here is, in all honesty, pretty wacky and extremely easy, the gunplay is based on cover, so there is a skill we need Look at it from the beginning because it is very broken and I barely have images of myself without using it.

If you are behind cover, you have the option to jump over your cover. Do this while aiming down sights and you'll go into bullet time, where everything is in slow motion and this slow motion extends based on how many kills you get while in the mode, you essentially find some cover vaults to shoot at enemies in the head and then immediately rinse and repeat until the entire room is removed and this method is usable. throughout the entire game, because this is a cover based shooter I swear there was literally no weapon section that couldn't easily be combined with this and because gunplay without such an action packed vault is so boring that you're basically conditioned to use it all the time.

Time upgrades can also extend the amount of time you spend in bullet time, making it worse. There are a few reasons why shooting isn't very fun, assuming you're not using bullet time. The first thing we need to address is aim assist. I played this game on an Xbox One controller, and while I could have easily played it with a keyboard and mouse, I always play on whatever device and input method I'm most comfortable with so I can properly represent the game whenever I critique something. Performance related, especially when it's on a gaming console, I get a lot of comments saying I should play it on a PC and while I appreciate that a 3000 platform can solve all my problems, I'm a student and I can't. necessarily justify and allow myself to spend a semester's tuition on a gaming machine and I'm sure I'm not the only one in this situation since aim assist issues don't exist on keyboard and mouse, but I'm going to criticize it anyway because there are a lot of people out there who can only afford one console or just prefer to play on the console.

This year's targets are broken, I'm not saying it's poorly designed, just that it works more like an aimbot than anything else in many cases. You'll just randomly cross the room towards an enemy and if you're aiming at one enemy and want to switch to another, you'll feel like the aim assist is really fighting you and the stamina can be frustrating at times. It's to help you not do the work for you here, although the only effort you have to make is to drag the crosshair from their body to their head and when they die you can simply stop ad and ad again to reset the target or just drag the crosshairs, but this is very easy once you figure out bullet time.

Something that's really funny about this aim assist issue is that despite being too strong, you still miss a lot of your shots, but not because your aim is off, but because of the following issue. You may have noticed that depending on the weapon you are using, the scope changes will have a circular sight that will vary in size and assault rifles will have a classic crosshair design and these are not only visual differences, they also represent your precision. I can't stand it when there are random inaccuracies in shooters, but it's normal, even competitive shooters like Valorant have weapons that aren't accurate, but in that case it's just a little off, the bullets go wherever they want and that makes that using any weapon is decent. accomplish a task since no matter how accurate your shot is, you might miss a couple of bullets, it left the gunplay feeling really unreliable and inconsistent.

However, this doesn't end up being too frustrating because these inaccuracies don't result in death and that's because the shootouts are a little too easy considering the absurd amount of bullets we can eat before tapping and the bullet time mechanic. to jump you can just jump over cover and despite being exposed and riddled with bullets you don't have to worry at all, I don't think the difficulty has to be like that. It can be adjusted for fighting though, but a possible hard mode would have been nice. Finally, there is very little variety in enemies within the shooting segments.

Sure there are normal enemies and brute fighters alike, but they never do anything but shoot, or even use. Armor the Bullet Time also makes the game incredibly easy, but it's also the most interesting part. I understand that there's not much they can do to spice up the gunplay itself, and truth be told, they do the best they can. the level design, which we can get into later, but for now the shooting itself is pretty boring in a vacuum, but the set pieces and bullet timing save a rigid and rather wacky system that would otherwise be uninteresting, the next part of the game feels a bit stiff. is the course we can start with parkour, it is achieved by pressing similar line For the filming, which serves more of a cinematic fantasy than engaging gameplay on its own, I think parkour achieves this, never presenting itself as something that is used all the time and sweetening the action scenes as much as it can .

Parkour as much as you want in the world, but unfortunately the parkour button is mapped to the same button as sprint, meaning there will be a handful of times where you'll just try to run and the path will randomly crash into an obstacle. randomly falling on it, of course, outside of your movement on foot, you will be inside a vehicle and the driving here is quite different. I don't think it's bad, in fact, I really enjoy it. It's a very arcade system for lack of a better term and the driving feels very stiff. Your skills in games like GTA and even arcade-style driving games like Watch Dogs won't translate here, as in contrast to describing GTA driving, it's driving on ice.

Sleeping dogs feel like you're driving. Through mud all the time when you ride a bike, it takes a considerable amount of force to be knocked down and many less high-end vehicles feel quite sluggish, which is fine by me, but it's worth noting that all cars here they feel heavy and even with the best cars in the game, you don't necessarily feel like you're going as fast, in contrast to the bikes, which I found more fun to ride. Motorcycles are easier to ride at slower speeds, but an experienced player will outperform them. in a car and that is because of the unique drifting mechanics of this game, drifting and turning in general is quite complicated.

I don't think they are bad, but they hit me with a steep learning curve and instead of holding on and letting go of the emergency. Braking as you normally would, you would have to squeeze the brakes and the steering wheel a little. Achieving this successfully was rewarding for me and I had a big advantage in many of the races I liked because they were consistently challenging to achieve and time. It was different for each car, meaning that at the end of the game I was still struggling to achieve it consistently, but to be clear, that's the fault of my skill, not the mechanics.

Fortunately, many of the game's cinematic elements are presented inside the vehicles when shooting a car tire. While driving, the tire will explode and the car will explode in slow motion. You can also jump off your motorcycle halfway and while in slow motion, pull out your gun and shoot the surrounding enemies and even shoot the bike, causing it to explode on you as well. You can also ram vehicles and after two or three rounds, a vehicle will flip over and explode in an incredible way and is useful for taking out any cops following you. You can also and this is the best mechanic I swear, jump from your vehicle to another vehicle which is useful for losing the cops and stealing a faster vehicle on the fly and I know this is all wildly unrealistic but that's the point , it must be similar to those cheesy action movies with explosions and crazy stunts and it's amazing the variety of vehicles.

It wasn't something that surprised me, but there was enough here to satisfy me and some of the high-end cars are a real treat. You can buy these cards at various dealerships in Hong Kong, but there was really no reason for the vast majority of the beginning of the story to see you within the tight markets of North Point and the vehicles aren't really necessary even when they are, you have a predetermined motorcycle that gets you from point a to point b perfectly fine when you arrive. move to the more open districts where a relatively fast car is required, they give you a free high roller vehicle that can easily take you to the end of the game and if for some reason you want something faster, there are a series of side missions where you can unlock the fastest car for free that comes equipped with mini guns, power ups and armor that blows any other car out of the water so I never found a reason to buy any vehicle mechanically but for some its styling may have been a reason.

There are also enough boats here, but they were nothing special. I wish I had more to say, but the ships play a very small role in the story and so are very basic, you can buy some upgrades to make it easier to get into the cars, but that's it though, since we're on On the topic of upgrades, now we should talk about the experience points you get throughout the game. If you complete all the missions to the best of your ability, you will probably have close to all the main upgrades. At the end of the game I discovered that when I finished the main story I had all the police upgrades, but no triad upgrades.

That's okay because there are some side quests. I can offer more triad XP, but when I completed the game completely. I didn't have enough experience yet and replaying these missions offered minimal experience and diminishing returns, even the three DLC expansions didn't provide enough experience and I'm really confused as to why they did this. I can at least praise the game for having really good Natural Progression, but I'm really confused as to how this wasn't noticed. Finally there is a quest system in the game that works similar to other open world games where if you commit a crime alongside an officer you will get a desired level and you can outrun the cops or just kill them, it was pretty basic and, Honestly, it wasn't a problem most of the time because it was so easy to lose pursuers, while the gunplay, parkour, and driving were nothing special, even by then standards.

This game came out, I think the combat really stood the test of time and is easily the bread and butter of this game even though much of the gameplay is nothing special, the reason this game is so memorable is for the level design and the elements that surround the mechanics. Offering some of the most memorable scenes I've played to date, and some of the most frustrating, the level design here is quite interesting because, within the main story, the levels are engaging and throw in a lot considerable mixing. Improve your path by combining this with the way the levels are presented under the narrative and we get expertly crafted main story quests, but then we get side quests that are so short and simplistic that I'm surprised they share the same gameplay as the aforementioned ones. previously.

Main Story Quests I think it's important to mention that I'm aware and understand that side quests shouldn't be on the same level as main story quests, but the quality of some of these side quests will really stand out and I'll comment on them. Now the main story missions see you balancing police work and triad jobs. Police missions see you investigating triad members and sneakily planting more bugs and generally chasing down thugs. The triad missions lean more towards the cinematic elements of the game, as they see it. When you're doing a lot of driving, shooting, and fighting, these main missions always have an intriguing aspect: the introduction of a new character you meet during the mission, an interesting mechanic like planting bugs in a karaoke bar, or some other interesting prank or set.

It's like walking through a destroyed wedding venue and taking out staff in a blood-stained suit. Many levels seem straight out of an action movie and the different objectives can be a lot of fun - having to shoot at opponents' cars while an npc drives yours was veryfun for show, although the cars spawning almost infinitely could really get you out of there, it was also mechanically quite shallow as you just aimed and held r1, but it was fun anyway as it wasn't too plentiful when the rolls are reversed and you're chasing someone, it can be quite a dive when you discover that you can't actually destroy the car until the game gives you the objective to do so, until then you just have to follow the card to track them down. and if you get ahead of them you just have to slow down and allow them to catch up or you have to take out the surrounding cars several times before you can start taking down the lead car that served as another roadblock.

I don't think this is so. It's a big deal, but some of these chase segments went on too long, other scenes have the same cinematic flare like the wedding I mentioned and another example of this is the funeral, the rain hitting the concrete like wave vaults over the tombstones that they act as cover, eventually a grenade launcher is used to clear the way and while the scene was absolutely epic, it was again mechanically bare at this point in the game, you know the overpowered nature of the vault and along with the design of this stage, consisting of tombstone after tombstone, you're basically handed victory on a silver platter, I mean if you're going into this game looking for mechanical depth then combat is really the only time you'll be truly satisfied, however if If you go into this game and want to experience an undercover police power fantasy like I did, then I think you'll be able to look beyond the superficial mechanics, the combat sees you in a handful of interesting scenarios, most with unique environmental takedowns tied to it. to them the first time.

What you will find is at the top of the market, where you have to defeat Ming and his lackeys, throwing enemies into the skylights and breaking the glass when they crash into them is more than satisfying and many air conditioning units are ready to carve heads . Crazier and crazier as the story progresses, such as the construction site you work on directly after a cutscene where you watch yourself being tortured to near death as you walk around leaving bloody footprints, you can throw enemies into gaps in the elevators, pushing their heads into a stove, and later you can even throw a guy into an ice crusher.

The combat itself has enough depth to keep you interested over multiple playthroughs, but they don't really change how you use it much. This is somewhat satisfied in one of the fights. Focused DLCs, but we'll get to them later. However, the gunplay does have some interesting ways you do it in the story and that's good because I really needed it, for example there are a lot of times where you do gunfights in interesting areas. like a hospital or a restaurant, but there are also confusions like shooting while in a vehicle, as mentioned above, since weapons are not as accessible as they are in contemporaries of this game, the missions usually dictate what weapons you can use and using a grenade launcher to annihilate enemy forces at North Point is certainly a highlight and marks a sharp turn in the narrative.

Driving doesn't have a lot of confusion, but that's okay because it's usually not the only focus of a mission and the destinations you drive serve as moments of dialogue between Way and his connections, while I suppose these conversations could happen in a cutscene, since The only interesting thing is that the conversation itself driving the player somewhere keeps them stimulated while also listening to the dialogue, so while the main story missions don't break new ground, there is a constant flow of new ones. plot developments, game developments, and coincide with the natural acquisition of more upgrades and new skills, making them almost constantly engaging and fun.

The flip side of this is the side quests. These side quests are at best a decent distraction and at worst the bane of this game's greatness. Let's start with the fun distractions first. There are several games you can participate in, such as chicken fight poker and karaoke, which, while not groundbreaking, are fun. Try it at least once, there are fight clubs where you face wave after wave of enemies. These clubs were consistently rewarding to play because enemy numbers reach double digits very quickly and with minimal environmental utilities you're forced to rely on skill. just to remove these rings it's a good challenge and a good test of your knowledge nothing special but certainly fun the races are basic but the problem is not its simplicity but its artificial intelligence the elastic bands in many cars are too strict and once you advance and you get a decent lead, you will find that the rubber band just stops and it was very strange to see me not in first place on my first try, especially with the vehicles from the last game, each vehicle is limited to a class based on its overall performance and these races restrict which class you can use, so it's not like you can take a supercar to a smart car race, but each class will have a car that is better than the rest and you can't.

Take out cars by ramming them the same way you would in the open world, when you ram your pursuers you could hit them two or three times and their car would just explode, but that can't fly here because in theory you could make everyone else cars in the I like that you had to think more about ramming because with the impact nerfed simply ramming a car wouldn't be enough to stop it, instead you have to ram it into things like obstacles or buildings that would give you the advantage. As mentioned before getting the lead with some of the cars from the last game was a piece of cake, the different race classes are unlocked as you progress through the story and once you finish them all there is a final race which should be a final test.

In some ways this final race was quite disappointing, although there are a number of missions where you can pick up a car and turn it in for cash, some of these are the pickup trucks that you can find in steel in the open world and some are the missions for tang that come he sends you an address where you have to chase a car, steal it and deliver it, and while the idea is fine in itself, the game asks you to do it too many times, it became very boring and the rewards always They are cash, so I wouldn't recommend it.

There are many police missions in Hong Kong where you don the police uniform and deal with some minor crimes. They're usually shootouts, fights or chases, basic stuff, but good for experience and money. They never did anything too interesting. but fighting with a baton and putting handcuffs on these guys was relatively fun and there were also a reasonable amount of these missions, most of which unlock suits and vehicles for you to use another side mission that allows you to fulfill your police duties. Hong Kong drug raids these missions were nothing special, but they didn't need to be.

What they did have to do is at least entertain the player and I can't say that has been completely achieved. Drug busts see you waltzing through an area. Kick ass Hack a camera and then return to your apartment to spot a drug deal in the act and have the drug dealer arrested. The best way to handle this was to simply hack any cameras you found and then force yourself back into the main plot. to your house do all the drug busts at once, the problem with doing this is that you quickly realize that the same guy in the black suit is the dealer and the minigame goes from finding who is the dealer, which one is not a something difficult on its own to automatically press the . around the map are used to increase your face range and are pretty simple.

These favors include many different tasks ranging from fun escapades to menial deliveries. In some you will see your friend Calvin asking for a way to wait for him in a car and then attack someone in the street and our job is to lose the police, the reasoning for these attacks is usually quite funny and they were brief and few enough to not needing any innovation in my opinion, that was sleeping with my girlfriend, you can't just punch a Policeman, I know I have to have a getaway ready. I really appreciate it. A little warning would be nice.

Oh, think about leaving that girlfriend too. Well, she's not exactly my girlfriend. I like her a lot, although she has a nice smile. Her dress is very nice. I'm not even dating me yet, man has to be optimistic, though is he with that guy like you are right now? Come on, I think the only favors that were stupid were the muggings, they just see a stranded person asking for help and then the way is to fix it. The problem is that the money is stolen and we have to track down the thief, they were usually quite short, but because their speed and efficiency made no difference to the amount of time it takes to catch the thug, I quickly began to sigh every time I saw a Broken Car I don't want to focus too much on these favors because there is a very good variety of them and discussing them all would take too much time.

The general conclusion from them is that they allow you to use your skills in different contexts. and they help the region feel alive, there are a lot of people who need help and the favors, although they feel like working, end up being fun in my opinion, it's like doing side quests or collectibles in lego games, it's not difficult nor very interesting, but It is a relaxing and low-risk job that contrasts with the intense plot, with the only difference that Lego games do not usually have an intense plot. There are many collectibles in Hong Kong ranging from health shrines to jade statues and random red envelopes with money.

Closing boxes with clothes and cash, were never something I went out of my way to collect until the end of the game and that's because many of the story missions will take you to a collectible location, so they were easy to catch while doing something else. What I really appreciate is that the dates you continue on lead to the different collectibles being revealed on the map, for example after finishing the date with Amanda she will mention that she has been taking pictures of the health shrines in Hong Kong. Kong and add their locations. On the map the dates are generally interesting but they are very superficial as each woman has only one date associated with them and potentially another favor but that's it, we don't really get much out of them and it made me feel like they were underdeveloped. you're doing a simple task with your partner and you end the night with a very implied sexual relationship and that's it, you can't even call them after Amanda is an American tourist who aspires to be a writer and photographer and who during her trip to Hong Kong meets bumps into Wei.

Shen asking about Sifu's martial arts school. This is how we are introduced to Sifu and his collectible jade statues. Amanda isn't necessarily the sharpest tool in the shed, as she, a tourist, willingly climbs into a stranger's vehicle to be taken to some martial arts alley. school like you haven't seen taken this is like the number one rule of tourism man regardless of your date with her she sees that you just take some photos of her and that's it, you meet sandra while helping vivian run some errands and we discover that she she is like a cuckold dog sonic the hedgehog and during her date we have to drive fast to satisfy her the next thing is not to ping the niece of the old salty crab who by sharing weighs interest in technology you can call for an appointment and on said date they can hack some security cameras together You can probably guess what happens at the end of their date.

Next up is Tiffany, the hostess of the Bam Bam Way club, befriend her to gain access to the VIP room, but then you get to hang out with her, which sees you singing karaoke with her in the club. fun fact about these two, they both become wise about way's relationship with each other, they don't pay well, he scolds you in a voicemail for dating tiffany and tiffany will start dating another man, there is an admission tied to this, where Way plants a bug at a local pay phone and follows Tiffany. to her date, when he confronts her about cheating on her, tiffany throws way's argument back in her face and the two end up breaking up.

I enjoy that this mission shows how intense trust issues can be in a relationship and how he can become overbearing and his detective skills don't help with that either. I also appreciate that tiffany is no longer considered essential after this mission,which means you can run over it. The last girlfriend is iliana, who works at kbar, after helping her with some stalkers, you can eliminate her. on a date where you run freely after kbar, she then states that she has been thinking about this for a long time and the two head to her room. Overall these girlfriend missions were very underdeveloped, other than Tiffany and no ping they didn't do much.

To flesh out the girlfriends or in some meaningful way, they were helpful in revealing the locations of the collectibles, but at the end of the day I wouldn't have cared if the time they put into these dates was spent on other side quests, I say. This is because while most of these are, at worst, boring, some of them are actually infuriating - for example, let's talk about death by 1000 cuts. The mission is a little strange because I read online that you can eliminate endless waves of enemies, but I never saw it. that in my game the version I saw had an objective where you had to kill 30 enemies.

The same goes for the shaolin tournament quest. Both missions were originally dlc, so my best guess is that they were modified for the definitive edition independently of the shaolin tournament. It was a lot of fun because the monks are very tough enemies and offered a good challenge - Death by a Thousand Cuts, on the other hand, was such a shitty thing that you're on a lot of enemies and there are 30 enemies you have to take out, but only up to five. will be in the lot at the same time, you will receive an indestructible golden blade, but all enemies also have knives.

The twist is that the knives are poisonous, meaning that just one hit will initiate a decay effect that will lead to Way's inevitable death with each subsequent hit. Fortunately, by speeding up the process, for every 10 enemies you kill, you will regain some health. The problem is that this fight is terribly difficult and not because the game overwhelms you with enemies, but because of the strangely inconsistent hitboxes on many occasions when dodging swords. You won't get hit but you'll still get hit by the poison and the poison will easily kill you before you can take out all 30 enemies and that's assuming you don't get hit at all after that, I know this is true.

There is no problem with just my copy because my girlfriend on her computer experienced the exact same thing. I was only able to complete the mission by running around, picking up weapons, and then throwing them at the enemies, basically whining at her. I really don't want to go. way too deep into this mission because in the grand scheme of things it's not a big deal, but my god if this didn't piss me off to the nth degree and really highlight how unpleasant this game's combat can be, there's also a chain . Side missions surrounding Dr. Tang as he builds a supercar see you collecting parts for the vehicle and testing said parts, such as an emp, turrets, and autonomous driving systems.

It was quite interesting and you were rewarded with the finished car which is easily the best in the game, the series of time trials unlocked after completing the series are not the best because they see you simply destroying a certain number of cars within a time limit and There are too many of these, given the superficial nature of the concept. Most of these you don't even have to drive the car, it's just point and shoot, so overall these missions were okay at best, I didn't talk about many of them as mentioned due to their simplistic nature and repetitive, but I think I got the ones I had a lot to say for a lot of these side quests that will have you traversing a map multiple times, so having taxis that act as fast travel was really convenient and a welcome feature, it really sucks that these quests They were so underdeveloped compared to the main story missions that they felt expertly crafted.

I think when it comes to the side quests, we got quantity over quality for most of them and while the gameplay seems good enough to pull off these side quests, it can't and by the time you really get into these bad boys, You'll find that you're simply bored or, in many cases, frustrated and it's one of the worst parts of the game. Sure you don't have to play side quests, but despite being in love with the main plot and so many other aspects of this game, I have to criticize where appropriate. I want to clarify that I don't think the side quests are that bad, in fact, I wouldn't even say that most of them are bad, they're just a little boring.

I don't like to use the word uninspired because I think it's a bit vague, but that's the word that comes to mind when I think about these side quests and even though it doesn't change the fact. I think the sleeping dogs are awesome, disappointing compared to other aspects of this game. The main missions were obviously exempt from these criticisms since they saw you in interesting places doing interesting things and because the missions advanced and expanded the plot of this game. which in my opinion was the best part, is where we should look away next, as I mentioned the story here is the best part of the game and while it may not be the most original story and while its influences are clearly used on its sleeve, it doesn't change the fact that it is a truly unique story for this medium and its execution and the way it is intertwined with the game elevates its impact that much more, so let's start with a summary, the game begins in Hong Kong with Wayshen and a fellow undercover officer, Nas, attempting to infiltrate the Hong Kong triads, Wei has presumably been in Hong Kong for a while but has yet to find any infiltration routes originally from Hong Kong Way and his family is moved to San Francisco to start a new life after the waste.

The sister became addicted to drugs, this addiction was unfortunately not broken and Way's sister ended up dying of an overdose. The deal between him and Nazarene goes wrong and Wei is caught when in a prison cell he meets a childhood friend of Old Prosperity, Jackie Ma Jackie. is a kind and cheerful member of sun on yi and offers to show the way to the rest of the water street gang and subsequently to their leader winston, who is a red pole, a quick tangent about the triad hierarchy, It's a bit complicated, but for the sake of simplicity and because the game doesn't go too deep I'll present it like this: Combine the information provided by the game and the information about the triads that Sun Yi is based on Sun Yeon at the bottom of the food chain.

We have associates. These are uninitiated members who help. the sun on you in some way, for example, Winston's mother, although not directly involved with the crime, feeds and encourages Winston and his allies and allows them to plan their next move within their establishment, one step ahead of the initiated members which include those like conroy, who are established foot soldiers who do the dirty work, but only after the initiation process is complete, from there we get the red poles, the red poles supervise the soldiers of infantry and are similar to Overseers, being the penultimate rank they report to the Dragon Head or more commonly known as President, the President is the highest rank that can be achieved and is essentially the big shot and is the de facto leader of the sun in yi, so way's goal now that he has a path to sun in ye is to discover the identities and locations of the members gain their trust, collect evidence and prepare it for the police to arrest before leaving from the prison, where he spent a short period of time and meets with his superintendent Thomas Pendrew and his handler Raymond, who explains to him. that way is entering unknown territory with these gangs, since they are not like the ones in San Francisco, insinuating that in this way he has carried out an operation like this before explaining his skill in combat, quick conversation and way of assimilation, then He meets up with Jackie, who gives him a briefing. about where wasted childhood comrades are dog-eyes and Winston is red poles and we find out that way and dog-eyes have a bit of history with each other as it is revealed that dog-eyes was the one who got hooked on drugs. to Way's sister when she entered the Golden Koi Wei becomes familiar with the rest of the crew and her abrasive nature annoys them.

Winston scolds Jackie for bringing a stranger, but remembering the path through her sister's memory, Winston allows her to collect the market payments. Before we leave, Conroy and the gang decide to test Waze's fighting skills, but Dog Eyes appears throughout this conversation, we see that despite their agreements, Dog Eyes is trying to take control of the night market, which is Winston's territory, after collecting payments, they inform us. one of winston's men betrays him, we set the record straight and the police catch us while inspector tang interrogates us. We get more information about way's history in san francisco and pendrew blows way's cover, leading to an outburst from way safe tang, he's one of us, what jesus, pendu, let me open the door, there are some plaques outside , who didn't listen to you, it's okay, we can trust her, trust her, I just met her, congratulations, we go out and help Jackie steal some watches that turn out to be fake. all in an effort to rise through the ranks on winston's team, we take over the bus route and make a stop at the police station where we reconcile with inspector tang and offer our assistance in the many cases in hong kong in which that we will be doing between our triad duties, then we returned to the golden koi.

Winston mentions that an associate named Benny has started working for Dog Eyes and we have to go to the bam bam club to set the record straight and gain more of Winston's trust. Then we find ourselves behind the golden koi and they accuse him of being a rat and I love this scene for several reasons. The first is that he usually talks fast and is witty, but here he slips up a bit because he catches him so off guard that his deductive skills allow him to. he turned the tables very quickly on Ming, who is accusing him of being a cop, abandoned him, pop star Winston, I know he did it, oh you're going to do that, this here is a snitch, that's right, mink , but your anger I sent you.

You're the pop star and now he's in jail, yeah, and who gets up again, who moves from that, you're going to take over the pop stars, the whole cannon main scandal, now no more leftovers for You, you will supply drugs to the entire city, you and the dogs. The pop stars are gone, but you're still negotiating, aren't you? So who supplies you? We then meet up with Inspector Tang and investigate a racetrack where the champion has been on a killing spree, but he is quickly shoved aside when Winston orders us to destroy dog ​​eyes at a sweatshop in retaliation for the dog eyes he found. they shot the golden koi.

This job is very important because the owner is initially supposed to be killed, but wanting to avoid collateral damage and general killing, he persuades Winston to let Wade bring it. He is alive so he can work for the Water Street gang. This is one of many cases where Way presents a beneficial route that includes not killing anyone, keeping his cover intact, and his morals. However, the rest of the crew become suspicious and use this job as a test to see if he is not a cop and force him to kill again and again so that the gang's chest full is acquired, unfortunately the warehouse explosion called the attention of dragon-headed Uncle Poe, who was voiced by James Hong, who also played Poe's Father in Kung Fu Panda I will never be able to get that image out of my head and now neither can you.

Uncle Poe praises Winston's actions and offers him a better paying job which we complete for him in the way we know each other. with a gentleman named Ricky when we meet Raymond, who concludes that our actions have been on too large a scale and put the integrity of the police force at risk. Raymond decides to log off, but quickly backs down once Way informs him of his meeting with the president. You're just a foot soldier. Well, this infantryman just got marked for a promotion because I made sure Sue Wall got out safely. She will be in my report and maybe this time you will read it.

Then we'll find out about Winston and Peggy. Next wedding we take Peggy to get her wedding dress and even head to a temple to get a rare flower that will guarantee the couple will stay together for the rest of their lives, unfortunately while everyone is inside and weighing outside, drinking wine for the Uncle Poe at the wedding. The guest of honor we hear screams and gunshots when he sees that the waiters have started massacring everyone on the way to the wedding, he fights for his life and, when he passes by, he sees winston and peggy dead while whey continues to evacuate everyone who is left in Foot, he finds a seriously injured Uncle Poe and takes him to a nearby hospital referring to him as his own uncle, which is important to remember.

Way meets with Raymond again, where he expresses further concern over the fact that WayHe becomes too attached, but waits and reveals that they can't get him out because with Winston missing. to take his place your job was to approach Winston now that is no longer a great strategy come closer to open your eyes Raymond, I am Winston now that he is gone, I will take his place, you want the president, I report to him now you want the red poles I am one of them that's what worries me you're one of them returning to the club bam bam and theorizing who could have been behind the attack at the wedding we received an offer from big smile lee another red post who upon realizing the power vacuum and Winston's death calls for the Water Street gang to hand over all the profits to him, all of this was delivered through Lee's messenger ponytail, Wade doesn't take it so well and it leads to a shootout outside the club and eventually , a hand-to-hand confrontation with ponytail and, while fleeing from the police, she is saved by broken nose, jang, another red pole, she explains that with uncle poe in critical condition, big smile lee and the other red poles They will seek to fill the role of the dragon head because if they do not have a defined leader, the 18k, a rival gang will try to attack.

Big Smile Lee plans to rely on human trafficking and other unethical ventures for profit, while Zhang wants to take a more ethical approach. and we enlist waze's help to help jackie with a payment issue and deal with a loose end that is seen as a threat to way's identity. We return to the golden koi to see Winston's mother and disable the bug we planted earlier to ensure privacy. sake at the wedding he recognized johnny ratface, a member of the 18k and, upon being tortured by winston's mother, he reveals that dog eyes were behind the wedding after finding him and taking him to mrs chu, she gives him eat some of his special stew but then reveals that the meat in it is actually from johnny ratface's corpse which is so amazing and brutal at the same time he then kills dog eyes and wade leaves to meet the others red poles in uncle po's room, where uncle poe starts the journey as red pole all he has to do is locate a drug dealer.

Uncle Poe also requests that while he recovers, someone become temporary president, since Big Smiley is about to volunteer. Zhang chimes in and recommends bobbing while he poses in blood like a red pole. Wei has the ability to initiate Jackie as a full member of the sun in you and to celebrate, together they track down that drug dealer while fighting him, although the drug dealer pulls out a gun, but Jackie saves him by shooting the drug dealer in the back of the room. head, this leaves Jackie traumatized when we discover that this was his first murder. This begins an arc for Jackie where he reconsiders gang life and questions if it's really what he wants after initiation.

Wade meets with Raymond again and informs him that he must investigate Sunny Woe, an entertainment manager, and although he is not a member of Sun, he is a source of income and therefore a target. Raymond also mentions that they are accepting Jackie despite Way's pleas. Jackie was arrested after doing a job with Wei and even covers for him. too, but before we can dwell on that for too long, Wade gets a call from Ricky saying that the 18k are shooting up the hospital and that they're targeting Uncle Poe after fighting with Ricky, their bond deepens enough to the point in which he offers to present weight to sonny with 2chin getting too comfortable while temporary president zhang asks us to sabotage his house to make him believe he is unfit as a leader and this works now there will have to be an election to see if the president becomes in jang o lee weighs sunny's instructions to place a camera in vivian's apartment and while all this is happening uncle poe dies and pendu explains that the work here is done knowing that if he leaves now the son will be under the control of big smiles lee does it worse than ever he tries to let her know that there is more work to do wei explains that he will only give pendu the evidence he needs to put sunny away if jackie can go free pendrew doesn't like way's deal and while he frees Jackie, also reveals to 18k the location of Uncle Poe's funeral and blows the cover of Big Smile Lee, who kidnaps Jackie to get Way out when Way rescues Jackie.

Jackie is contemplating even more of the gang's life and comes over. Concluding that he wants out, he plans to meet Jackie the next day and finds him dead in shock and confusion. Way is knocked out and is being tortured by an assassin called Mr Tong, but Way escapes and kills him. Wade picks up Tong. calls and sees that Jang is next on the hit list and Lee is just planning to murder anyone who gets in his way while looking for a big smiley, we face ponytail again and despite my expectations of him having a boss battle, it just drops without a cutscene or anything.

As if to show the player how you were here for Lee and nothing else, we chase after Lee and after a boat chase, we blow up a barge and fight him with everything he has. Wei throws Lee into an ice crusher. Wade then meets up with Raymond and tries it. to explain that Pendrew was corrupt and sold him out, but it doesn't matter because he was promoted and there is no evidence against him, until a few months later when Wei receives an envelope with a USB drive containing camera footage of Pandrew lethally injecting himself. Uncle Poe Wait uses this to keep the flash drive for life in a prison.

He spent his entire career putting her son into Wei's limbs and then talks to Inspector Tang, who thanks him and he thanks her in return for allowing him to feel good about himself through those. police jobs, he explains that he really has nowhere to go and that Hong Kong feels like home, to which Tang responds with a very memorable line, but then we see that the Hong Kong officer Broken knows Zhang is watching from distance and she exclaims that Wei should be left alone because in one way or another he was loyal to her. The first thing I have to praise about the story is the pacing and the way it interweaves with the gameplay and the little interactions.

The game does everything you need it to. To establish the stakes early and effectively, the fact that Wei and Jackie catch up not only explains Way's personal ties to the sun in Yi, but also builds his friendship with Jackie, all while feels natural. All of the character introductions make sense and, as mentioned above, feel. natural and this also applies to dog eyes. I appreciate the way he conveniently moves up in the world as he completes police cases and draws the sun out of the yi members above him, ending up taking his place one way or another and getting more property. each one becomes more luxurious than the last and his son-on-yi actions and traits become more and more genuine.

I'm your son now, get out of here before I break every bone in your body oh man, no, I'm sorry, I didn't know that. His attachment to who you were grows throughout the game and the biggest indicator of that is in one of the final police missions, where in an argument with Tang we see him getting defensive about the gang members. You think hkpd puts a lot of effort into solving dead gangsters. so now that they're not people, when we visit mrs chu after winston's death, we see wade put out the bug he planted earlier, i guess in an attempt to give the family some privacy, this is definitely a product of their time with the gang and discovering that a lot of them, like Winston and Jackie, are not bad people, but this life is basically all they have known since they were little.

Police missions are done between triad mission groups and at first there is a balance between police missions and triad missions. but when the game comes to an end, that balance is completely out of control, you start to focus more on the triad missions, not only because they are luckily more interesting than the police missions, but because the form itself is becoming increasingly more attached, I think it's a real turnaround. The point in their transition is the wedding announcement, how when Way enters the hospital he refers to Poe as his uncle, are you going to take care of my uncle? and if anything happens to him, I will hold you personally responsible.

Oh, thank God, police work helps you. sit even further after these developments To be fair, this could also be a matter of your role in the sun in you increasing, which would require more attention on your part as you continue to rise up the ranks, dive deeper into the gang lifestyle, even showing off to certain individuals that he is your son and that who you are, where and when should not be trifled with, all of this aligns with the waze act which, as mentioned before, becomes less act as the game progresses in the subtlety of This is reduced in meetings with Raymond, as on multiple occasions they explain that the form is becoming one of them, but it is a minor weight of criticism.

He appears to have a tough demeanor and uses simple aggression to allow others to take him seriously when he first meets them. gang, I noticed the way he brushed past one of Winston's men, bumping him on the shoulder towards me, this was a way of adopting the tough guy persona typically associated with gang life, he's acting like he's above of these foot soldiers, which makes him the first to come to mind. when a higher position is necessary, this continues as Wade takes greater initiative and is advised by Winston on the best way to deal with the opposition, such as Suwa, who convinces Winston to take alive rather than kill.

This quick thought works perfectly because no. only it doesn't affect uncle poe, but it also prevents unnecessary deaths, something that becomes less worrying as the game progresses, you can notice that at the beginning he finds many excuses not to kill, but when the end of the game comes, even things as the objectives will change to reflect Way's mental state. Usually your target will say kill x, but when you take down Big Smiley's men, he watches as he says the killing is over with peacekeeping. At this point, he is full of triad and the goals reflect that change. mentality I mentioned earlier how the ponytail falls without even a cut scene compared to his enemies like Ming who despite being a small fish was at least chased in a cut scene, I think that's because in At this point, Way doesn't care about the police's ponytail. leaves men or whatever else Lee wants on a silver platter, of course, I can't blame that mentality, especially when I find out that not only has your superior betrayed you, but then seeing your best friend's relationship Dead Way with Jackie is something that I felt was well done, even if it didn't always feel real.

What I mean by real is that it seemed like Way really cares about Jackie, especially because of Jackie's good heart, but to keep up appearances, he is often cold towards him, e.g. In a scene where they're about to leave for a job unless they catch us, well, we won't unless you come, his cold, abrasive way of speaking makes it seem like he's intentionally acting like Jackie's superior, Jackie is one of the most tragic characters in this game from the moment we meet him, Jackie is shown to be almost innocent and kind-hearted. He's lived his life looking for the romantic gang life in the movies, but all he finds are small side businesses and every time there's real danger, he panics.

I'm not going to sit here and criticize Jackie for being like that because believe me, if I have hundreds of bullets coming my way, I'm going to turn around and cry like a baby, but what I'm trying to say is that Jackie is just like me. and I'm sure many others are simply not cut out for this life. The reason this is so unfortunate is that this life is all he knows. He doesn't have any credentials other than performing menial tasks as a soldier in organized crime, not exactly. something you can put on a resume: his understanding that death is the only thing that awaits him in a life like this is natural and mixed with his good heart and the guilt and immediate shock of knowing he just ended his life from another person.

He lived like a pawn and died like one too just when he was about to change his life. He spent his life being Winston's servant and his death only served to make possibly his closest friend vulnerable. What's worse in my opinion are his subsequent line saves. to avoid being buried alive he was going to die like an animal man like a dog or something and that poetically terrified him. Jackie's eventual disappearance sees him hanged and gutted like a pig in a butcher shop like an animal. Jackie is in my eyes how. It would have ended as if he hadn't adapted his personality to the triads, they both really don't want to hurt anyone and just want to get by, but Jackie's refusal to let go of his albeit sometimes questionable good heart leads to his death in the meantime reason The way in whichHe escapes from life by giving in to that almost animalistic rage and ignoring every moral he has.

When your mindset changes from killing to slaughtering, it dehumanizes these people because only an animal could commit such acts against someone who is ultimately innocent. A similar sentiment is true. For Winston, he has a good heart to a point and even though his temper gets the better of him, no amount of hotheading justifies killing someone and his wife on his wedding day. Hell, Jackie wouldn't even have been killed if she hadn't been Pendrew the ultimate villain of the game, there are a lot of antagonists to the story here and they evolve with the stakes. The dog eyes at the end of the day were just a low level red pole, so small in comparison to the next antagonist, a big smiley face and even smaller in comparison.

To the last pendru, the reason I call Pandrew the villain is because, unlike other antagonists, Pendrew constantly works behind the scenes to orchestrate the many obstacles in Way's path and, although he is not the direct cause of the Jackie's death, he did give Lee all the information. he needed to kill wei and find jackie. I also appreciate that Pendu is not killed along the way but, with Jang's help, is imprisoned to rot and potentially be killed by the triad members he locked up to further explain Pandrew's master plan. The whole tradition is that before in the sun, in Yi's life, there were three tigers who were leaders of the sun in Ye, Uncle Poe, who was a red pole at that time, made a deal with Pendu Poe, sold to the three tigers for Pendu to arrest, allowing Pendrew to receive a hefty promotion and Poe to ascend to the position of president while receiving immunity from the police.

Later meetings between the two showed that they agreed that Pendu would not investigate Poe and, in return, Poe would keep public violence to a minimum years later. Violence was arising in Yi with the civil war brewing and Pendu assigned an undercover policeman but he was captured and killed. This is why triad members are highly skeptical of Way's legitimacy on multiple points. Pandrew tried again with Way and we all know it. how his murder of poe went was him tying up loose ends and it was revealed that that way he was meant to be killed because of how closely attached he was becoming another thing i appreciate about the ending is that wei doesn't really win, sure pendu gets eliminated and every other antagonist is dead, but at what cost his friends were slaughtered like lamps to the slaughter, he has a conscience riddled with guilt and trauma and, as we were shown in the year of the serpent dlc, he gets the short.

At the end of the stick in strength due to his reckless actions, the only reward he really gets is some satisfaction in his life and he only gets it because of his unwavering loyalty, even when he is after a tricky task, the advantage is that if Zhang Keeps his word, the son will take a new path in an attempt to make more ethical profits, even if it is still illegal. I find myself torn to some extent when it comes to the path as one character, Wade, doesn't really have any character growth throughout the game or at least from what I could see when the game starts he is charming, intelligent, a expert in operating vehicles, firearms and fists, and does almost everything on the first try without making any mistakes, while on the one hand I would have liked a character with more growth, but on the other.

On the other hand, there are very good reasons for the form to be so seemingly perfect and his growth is not necessarily in his personality but rather in his relationships. I also understand that there are many plot points, characters and tropes that are heavily inspired by Chinese cop movies and in my opinion that is the best way to experience the story, it is a romance movie in the same vein as the games. unexplored are internal affairs, was a huge inspiration for the game and the cheesy execution is even more over the top in the zodiac tournament, one of the game's many DLCs, so even if Wade doesn't completely satisfy me, the cast that surrounds it certainly does.

Mrs. Chu is just one of many examples of a supporting character who has a good amount of depth even when they are ultimately insignificant in the grand scheme of the game. The way she reflects on Winston's life and realizes that she encouraged him to enter the life that ultimately left him dead was heartbreaking and humane, although her brutality is shown to be even worse than her children's as they follow them. torture and kill. responsible for the death of his son the plot with ricky and vivian was equally enjoyable but this video is long enough and I don't have much to say about it I just thought it was good what makes the plot more enjoyable for me are the little ones details Jackie's poetic death being slaughtered like an animal has the same feeling as Winston's death and Peggy makes an effort to grab Peggy, a special plant that is said to ensure the couple stays together for the rest of their lives and, as we know, this works and the two who were still in love on their wedding day die in each other's arms.

I also found that the length of the story was perfect. Enough time is spent working the streets for us as the player to form the right connections with the characters, and yet by the end of the 10-hour story it feels like a lot has happened. I think this is because there is a constant level of quality and that every scene and mission in the game is necessary for the delivery and execution of the plot. That's why I think it's so good and almost all of the plot threads are tied together. I would have liked a funeral scene for Jackie, but I also imagine that it's not necessarily easy to show up at Jackie's funeral, where all of her friends from her triad are generally the narrative.

It's not super complex, but its execution is really where the quality lies. I won't sit here and act like the story is the best I've ever experienced, but the sheer quality of the story and its consistency is fantastic and makes it one of the most memorable games I've ever played, what makes it better is the foreshadowing. which precedes some of the major twists, deaths and changes to the story, making a second playthrough well justified, although an additional replay would have given the game a huge improvement. favors for not only further incentivizing a second playthrough but also allowing the player to max out their stats, the plot had a nice cast and all the qualities I already mentioned and that is why it has been generally praised across the board to Despite the poor sales, United Front was able to squeeze out some DLC content for the game, some of which is good and some of which is ultimately boring.

Many of the smaller pieces of dlc, such as the costumes, were obviously included with the definitive edition and as such have already been talked about, but the three separate dlc campaigns. They've been excluded because they're too disconnected from the main game, which is why I've waited to talk about them until now. The first DLC campaign that launched in October 2012 is titled Nightmare on North Point and the story is this: don't pay. somehow they are on a date where no ping is kidnapped by a smiling cat who has a big scar woo, a big scar wu was a man who was executed by the sun on you and his body was ground up into cat food, hence the name Smiling Cat, Smiling Cats name he hates by the way, he summoned some stuffed old men like Ponytail with Dog Eyes and Johnny Ratface to avoid saving and not paying, but he can't do them any harm until he drinks a special tea and by doing so you can put an end to the ghost.

The enemies, when they remove the ponytail, reveal that the only way to defeat the smiling cat is to burn its finger, which is the last remaining body part that links it to the real world. We defeated some more thugs and then defeated Smiley in a normal boss fight. fashion while we rescue without paying we are going to end our date but she looks at the camera with a bright look. Story wise there isn't much to this dlc but for me that's fine when it comes to a content pack like this where it's advertised as a halloween event more than anything I'm going for the gameplay that doesn't mean That the game doesn't try to do some interesting things with its premise, like with Vincent, a character you probably forgot about in the main game. he was just a random foot soldier in the water street gang and unfortunately that's what makes his story compelling.

He's essentially a forgotten ghost and in the underworld not having things brought to your grave is pretty sad. Vincent remembers that he didn't care about those things in his life and he discovered that he was terribly wrong. I would have enjoyed a larger subplot around this and I was also confused about not seeing either Winston or Jackie because they were some of the more shocking deaths in the main story, some changes have been made to the game and while are minor, they are fun enough to satisfy in this short-lived dlc. Way's facial meter is now replaced by his supernatural powers.

It doesn't change much, but your finishers have more appeal. The new enemies here, the zhang shi, have to be defeated and grabbed in order to be destroyed. They weren't anything too interesting, but the larger enemies at least required a little more effort. It's nothing too interesting, but the larger enemies at least required a little more effort. These guys can only be damaged when the new face meter is active and while I appreciate the extra layer of complexity as you have to farm the lackeys before you can defeat the enemies. Big Guys, I ultimately didn't feel very invested in this concept, as you're basically forced to farm the small enemies with basic attacks only to do the exact same thing to the big guy.

Luckily there is a sword you can use and this is absolutely Awesome and the takedowns associated with it are also great as far as combat goes, there wasn't anything mechanically interesting that wasn't at least present in the main game apart from the finisher whose Minds use the same animation over and over again. I don't know if I would say I'm disappointed but more like disappointed. The best way to exemplify this would be to mention the boss fight against the smiling cat, which was over so quickly I'm surprised it even fits. There are some side quests here if you want to call them that and they consist of collectibles, jiangxi random checks and favors, although they are just a group of enemies surrounding a pedestrian and when you take them out they casually run away and just say thank you.

I've talked a lot about Dlc done right in some videos and many of you have started asking me what I defined as Dlc done wrong. So far this is the worst Dlc I've ever talked about on my channel. Overall, I found it pretty boring and disappointing overall, although I can appreciate the new excuse to return to Hong Kong, that's where the appreciation ends. The next major DLC to be released was the Zodiac tournament, which is easily the most inspired of the three. The story is simple. He is tasked with investigating an illegal fighting tournament on Zodiac Island.

Tang was able to get an invitation as a competitor. He meets up with Dr. Zhang and explains that the island is made up of the best of the best after touring the world. island and brutally defeat your opponents, the remaining fighters face each other in a battle to the death and when they refuse, zhang reveals a spiked booby-trapped ceiling, Wade defeats his opponents and then kills zhang, who although no use protects him a lot and puts an end to the story, the aesthetic here exudes style and homage, especially to enter the dragon and it is noticeable that, as you fight against the different competitors, you will find a soundtrack that is reminiscent of said films and the cards title they present.

The main characters are as charming as they come. I could talk more about the presentation here, but I think the images here speak for themselves. The gameplay here is pretty basic and works more like a boss race than anything else. Zodiac Island looks a lot like this dlc as a whole. It's quite small and most of your time here will be spent in combat, the different stages you find yourself in and the more tactile bosses were entertaining enough, but I couldn't help but want the boss fights to work similarly to others. in the main game. game but I really appreciated the final encounter with the competitors under the booby trapped ceiling to prevent the ceiling from lowering and to have enough time to defeat everyone you have to do it and now that I think about it this is really brutal you have to throw tosomeone. into the gears by lowering the roof and using his body to lock it.

This was a nice twist on the game and it took me a few tries to get it right. It was pretty short to be fair, but I enjoyed it more than a nightmare at North Point, even on the side. The missions are shorter and are just a few statues offering trivia about different fighting styles.If you collect them all, you get a special suit that supposedly gives you a special combat move similar to how George's suit gave you the flying punch, but I can't figure it out. For the life of me, the island itself was also perfectly fine, but the booby traps that got in the way served as more of a pain in the neck than anything else.

The final DLC campaign to be released is the Year of the Snake and this. one, unlike the others, directly follows the events of the main game and is not a side story, not that side stories are bad, but I was craving more of the grounded story we saw in the main game, the story develops a lot after the events. From the first game I still work with the Hong Kong police department, the first thing I appreciate is that he is forced to work that way as punishment for the chaos he caused in the events of the main game, something I initially wanted to criticize the plot was the lack of police consequences for way, but i like that we have an answer for that here, while way deals with petty crimes, he discovers a terrorist cult that plans to destroy hong kong when the clock strikes 12 on new years.

He first discovers this plot when discovering a car bomb and even though his dispatchers are happy to stay put, he drives a car into the ocean saving many lives. This is just one aspect of how, while he means well, he doesn't necessarily follow the rules as Wade deals with the different bombs around him. In the region, he finally discovers the identity and location of the director, and upon defeating him, the clock strikes midnight and we see that no bombs have gone off. I'll keep it 100 with you guys, I couldn't care less about this dlc. The story was out of the first 10 minutes, so it was forgettable that despite writing the script just a week after completing the DLC, I had to go back and play it again.

This doesn't feel like an expansion, it feels like some side quests. The DLC promotes its 12 stories. quests, but they're more like four or five story quests and then a bunch of side quests that just happen to slowly advance the plot. The actual side quests in this Dlc are as simple as they come and I'm not literally making this up. You have to carry an object down the street, it's 10 seconds, what are we doing? Man, the whole dlc felt very effortless and I hate to say that because I really like this game, but considering this nightmare dlc in Northpointe doesn't even make it. use your save files from the base game, I'd say don't bother with that, you won't get anything worthwhile other than an outfit or two and maybe that's because I already completed the entire game and two DLC at this point, but there was nothing new mechanically and while the combat system is here and great, it's not strong enough to carry this game through the main campaign side quests and three DLC, a good DLC is based on the world, the characters , the gameplay and story of its base title and this.

The dlc barely builds on the world and characters to such a small extent that one could argue it's insignificant. I wanted more or at least something new. Instead we just got a bunch of the same things we saw in the main story and while that's not bad in and of itself. I was hoping for a new way to at least use our abilities instead of what we got considering the story outside of the first 10 minutes feels as disconnected as the other two addons and I think my frustration is less with what the DLC is and more with what is not.

I also need to acknowledge again that I played this after fully completing the base game and two DLCs so I might have burned out on the game and maybe that's just a I have a problem if you enjoy this dlc with more power to you but just It didn't do it for me, so while Sleeping Dogs may not have been the best, there were plans for a sequel. Sleeping Dogs 2 was put into development in 2013 and was quite ambitious, it would see the way when the main character was once again joined by a corrupt partner with the ability to arrest anyone in the region and influence a branching story that would see the player in the shoes of both paths and their partner and the setting this time would be to be in the Pearl River Delta in China, they even plan to have a companion mobile gaming app and that almost makes me grateful that the project was canceled that same year.

Another sadly canceled project is a free online spin-off called Triad Wars, which would have taken place in the same Hong Kong from Sleeping Dogs, where we play as a criminal trying to rise through the ranks through a variety of missions and jobs. From what I saw, it seemed pretty similar to Grand Theft Auto online and I think Sleeping Dogs. The gameplay would have been stellar, but the series of bad news unfortunately gets worse as the United Front finally closes the doors, meaning the chances of a Sleeping Dogs sequel are as slim as fortunately, the Sleeping Dogs legacy remains. something that remains to this day.

With fans like me still talking and playing the game, even the subreddit is still active with funny clips and discussions, a lot of people can recognize that the game isn't perfect and I don't think people are hailing this game as the next one. big deal, but for how solid it is, it deserved to at least sell more than it actually did, it only sold 2 million copies and while that is a very large number and although Square Enix called its development a success, it was also considered a financial failure. I think the reason sleeping dogs are still talked about, albeit to a lesser extent today, is because the game executed its mechanics in a fantastic package and it was if everything was tied together with a bow and a cherry on top of the open world in my eyes. while not necessarily as accurate as it could have been, it has an unparalleled aesthetic and level of detail that is really worth praising and that goes double for its combat system, it was able to surpass any surface level comparisons to that of the arkham series and solidify itself as something fun and mechanically deep or at least deep enough to last the entire runtime, the shootout wasn't in the same vein, but at least it fulfilled any super cop power fantasy and was used in different ways to keep things fresh, the level design itself followed. suit, as outside of combat the game gives you many different ways to use your skills, whether it's chasing someone through parkour planting bugs using security cameras street racing car shootouts jumping from car to car and the list goes on.

All this follows a story that in my eyes was compelling from start to finish and brimming with detail and I feel that Sleeping Dogs, although as mentioned not perfect, is still a must-play game simply due to its unique concept and more sophisticated execution. How adequate, a game does not do it. It has to be perfect to be great even though much of this game is not up to par with many side quests that feel like slog and the Dlcs that left more to be desired on almost every front, I still recommend it simply for the Passion I have for the game and I hope it gives you the same passion, who knows, maybe you too will ramble on about it for over an hour, maybe with enough passion from all of us we could get a sequel or at least a reboot, God knows how. a long time in the future, but maybe I'm drowning in wishful thinking about this, I mean, even if we had a sequel with the amount of time we'd be waiting, I don't know if I can handle something that disappoints and doesn't live up to the expectations. expectations, perhaps with how intense the fans of this game are and how the distant memory of this game becomes even more clouded, we may reach a point where nothing lives up to this game that has been wrapped in a pink tint, maybe it's just better. letting sleeping dogs lie down is strange to say after everything that has happened, but Hong Kong feels like home.

Hi everyone, this is the first outing I've done in months where I haven't been dead tired while recording it, so this. It'll be a change of pace, I just want to say thanks for watching the video, it means a lot to me, the video and this game mean a lot to me, so it was nice to put all that passion into one project, even if it took me like a month, you know? I went through a bit of a slump while editing this, where I didn't do anything, but then I recovered near the end, so I'm grateful.

So I just want to say that if you want to follow me on Twitter you can find random opinions and videos. It is not like this. It usually does not clutter the page. I retweet a lot of cat videos and weird memes. um if I'm honest with you but that's all you'll find and uh I just want to say this video is coming out during pride month so happy pride month I hope you enjoy it um I hope I'm looking forward to the next video and I don't even know what it will be. I know I want to do one about Dying Light and I'm working on one for Dying Light, but that's kind of on the side right now I think my next one might be Miles Morales, but I don't know, I don't know at all.

I'll figure it out. I want to wait a few days. Watch the video again in a few days. It seems okay, where could I have improved? I want to thank our customers. I forgot to do it. Sorry, customers. Honestly, you guys are the best. They are the reason I can take my time. with these videos and I try to do them the best I can and I know that they are not perfect but they are the best that I can do at that moment and I hope to improve every time because I feel like I am improving, I feel like I am doing better and better with each video, so let him go to his sponsors, I apologize, uh, joseph bozzian, christopher moreno, mark short, please help, this is not a patreon name, mel has a gun. please send help, oh god, I'm beaten and pyrite and then for our silver tier sponsors we have boss jacob douglas thomas jones and gonzo gonzalez and then for the bronze guys we have denzel ritesh nathan figgs over east and offheadnar845719 thank you all very kindly.

For supporting the channel, it really means a lot to me. It's an amazing feeling to know that people not only want to see what you have to say and the things that you and they want to see in what you do, but they also want to pay you for it. For me, I'm surprised that you guys enjoy the videos enough to say that I want to help this person financially and I appreciate it and my school tuition thanks you from the bottom of my heart, so yes, if you want to join the patreon. down in the description you'll find a link to that along with a link to my twitter, my discord server, which is pretty chill and, yeah, that's basically all I have to say, please leave any comments, feedback or anything, and uh, I'll try to respond to as many as I can.

I also opened channel memberships, which is basically an alternative to Patreon. That's all you need to know if you're familiar with Patreon. Channel memberships are exactly the same anyway. I love it. Guys, thank you so much for watching, I hope you stay safe and healthy, take good care of yourselves and we'll see you next time.