In a bit of weaving narrative and gameplay systems, you have two competing bits of experience to earn for different skills. It’s with the cop and triad experience trees that things get interesting. It also ties into your face meter, which slowly fills as you perform well in combat, using it giving you the ability to intimidate enemies, regenerate health, and more. You also gain more time on food buffs, extra endurance, and even new counter options. Face experience is neutral, found via side missions and granting you the ability to wear more types of clothing, which can offer different extremely useful bonuses. Wei has an experience system to unlock new skills and moves, but it’s divided into three categories.
![yakuza vs sleeping dogs yakuza vs sleeping dogs](https://www.giantbomb.com/a/uploads/scale_small/9/97089/2977418-main.jpg)
YAKUZA VS SLEEPING DOGS PC
On the plus side, the PC version runs surprisingly smooth on even high settings, easily one of the best seventh gen console game ports out there. The parkour system works fine enough with either control scheme, as it just takes a tap of a button to climb and jump around the environment to save precious time, but anything more complex becomes a complete nightmare without a proper console controller. It doesn’t help that camera control is extremely awkward without a stick. The driving controls are simply unusable as well, requiring stick fluidity not allowed by a WASD style set-up. The keyboard controls have noticeable lag to them, which makes combat far more frustrating than it needs to be. It’s worth noting that the PC version is best played with a controller.
![yakuza vs sleeping dogs yakuza vs sleeping dogs](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/1rpm5G5rjro/maxresdefault.jpg)
It’s worth it, though, as little is as satisfying as managing to reek violence on triad while expertly shooting just right to to avoid winging any civies you come across. The control between regular combat and gunplay is very different, so you then need to get the hang of what you can and can’t do in each mode. You can also just whip out a gun once you gain access to them and go to town, though third person shooting controls feel a bit clunky, and seemingly on purpose. If you’ve never experienced Arkham style combat before, you will have a steep learning curve, but it does become incredibly satisfying once you start getting the hang of it. Wei has no block, so he has to rely on dodging and a counter move for defense, which ends up changing combat from being a battle of attrition to a highly offensive dance where you figure out the patterns and moves of your enemies before they pulverize you. Unsurprisingly, the game takes a lot of notes from the Grand Theft Auto series, what with car theft, wanted meters, and a sandbox world to explore and screw around in, but there’s a lot more there in the details.įor one, it was clear the devs were inspired by Batman: Arkham Asylum, creating a similar fist to fist combat system based around rhythm. Square Enix then popped up and saved the project, turning it into a new IP. Sleeping Dogs has an interesting history to it, starting life as a new installment in the ambitious GTA-clone True Crime series, before it was canceled by Activision. He finds himself being pulled between a welcoming triad life and his duties as an agent of the law, and before things are done, there’s going to be a lot of bodies in the wake of his violent identity crisis. The problem is that Wei is a man without a home, a cop who wants to do the right thing, yet has no real roots and a whole lot of rage over various past tragedies. However, he’s actually a cop, using his past connections to go undercover and help take down the organization. He joins back up with some of the old gang he ran with, now members of the Sun On Yee triad (a thinly veiled stand in for the actual Sun Yee On), aiming to climb the ranks and make a name for himself. You play as Wei Shen, a man originally from Hong Kong who moved to the states and has just now come back home. It’s odd that United Front Games, the people who brought you *checks notes* ModNation Racers managed to do that in 2012 with Square Enix’s “sleeper” hit (heh) Sleeping Dogs. The key seems to be having a unique hook and balancing out all the various mechanics to create a cohesive whole, and that’s not something many can do. All of these things you like from other things are in here, so you must like it, right? Often, these games fail to make their own sort of identity, and now we’re at a point where many major releases feel like they’re all using the exact same foundation and it’s holding them back. A problem we’re having with massive, big budget games is that they try to cram in too much and create a sort of game design soup.