Sleeping Dogs Lie, But I Do not - Preview
by Gordon Bryant , posted on 07 June 2012 / 3,179 Views
There were two stands at E3 demoing the new open world crime drama, Sleeping Dogs. The first was a gameplay demo for the fans, allowing attendees to check out the game's movement and hand to hand combat gameplay, as well as some of the story; the second was a more action-heavy segment of the game that included gunplay and car chases, as well as more of the story. This was a demonstration by Liberation Front and wasn't playable.
The gameplay demo started with two young thugs arguing over something that isn't elaborated on; the smaller of the two seemed apologetic while the larger of the two was very angry, swearing action will be taken. After a short scene wherein the two bickering thugs allude to a gang war, I was tasked with chasing down a rival gang member... or maybe a turncoat; it wasn't made clear. This is where the gameplay started, with me in a presumably gang-run restaurant. There was a colored indicator telling me which direction the target was in and how far away he was. I noticed immediately that the controls were very sloppy, and there was a surprising tendency to get stuck in between immovable objects.
After leaving the restaurant, I walked through the densely crowded, colourfully lit, and shoddy-looking downtown area to find my mark. The crowded area proved to be a bit of a challenge to overcome. I did eventually find a street vendor who knew where my mark was, so he led me where I needed to be. There I found who I was looking for, presumably dealing drugs to a lady of the night. Once he saw me, he immediately bolted, resulting in a chase through the streets. As expected, the people in the streets didn't slow him down, but definitely slowed me down, and the freerunning/parkour sections weren't particularly interesting or fluid; I basically just jumped up over a couple fences and gates until my target returned to his gang, which he commanded to attack me.
This is where the combat began. There are three commands: strike, counter, and grapple. Striking was almost entirely punches, and is the only way to attack; as far as the demo is concerned, there were no combos or more complex manoeuvres, which is a shame because I was under the impression this game had some martial arts. Pressing the counter button at the right time made you counter attacks, kicks, and punches, obviously. Grapple allowed you to push or, in the case of the demo, throw one of the rival gang members into a garbage dumpster. After going through two rounds of opponents, I eventually caught and fought my enemy, forcing him into submission as a cop stood by, arresting me when it was all said and done, and that was the end of the demo. After the screen faded, I was given a short trailer for the game which was sure to make me understand this was all about gang warfare.
Afterwards, I attended the developer demonstration of the game, which focused more on gunplay and car-based chase sequences. This part of the demonstration started with two of the characters from the playable demo negotiating with a rival gang about generic game territory related nonsense. Clearly someone isn't happy with the negotiations, because the next scene had the main character bursting out into a club to kill everyone, including the strippers and patrons, before engaging in a lengthy car chase scene through downtown Tokyo.
I'd absolutely love to be ecstatic for this, as the idea of an open world crime drama game based on Tokyo is like a dream come true, but the game looks, sounds, and plays very sloppily. The animations were messy, cars and people would randomly burst into the sky or fly 30 feet in the air after being shot at with an assault rifle. If it was coming out next year, I'd assume this was all simply a matter of lack of polish, but it's due out August 14th in North America and August 19th in Europe on PS3 and 360, so it's not like they have much longer to work out the kinks. There are many other games I'd rather spend my energy on.
