Anyone eager to get a new sandbox game might be interested in the Sleeping Dogs game coming out next month. The game will let players play as Chinese-American, undercover police officer Wei Shen, who is trying to infiltrate the Triad organization Sun On Yee. Sleeping Dogs has features familiar to other vehicle sandbox games like the GTA series or Saints Row games, except it mixes them with action and martial art films. Dan Sochan, producer of United Front Games gives us the walkthrough trailer for one mission in the game, “Mrs Chu’s Revenge.”
After the cutscene, the player experiences one of the new features to the game with a tracing mini-game, where Shen is meant to drive their vehicle to the center location in the triangle. While the driver in this game seems reckless, he should be careful with damaging property or crashing into civilians as it reduces a “good cop” meter. Once Shen reaches the location, the second half of the mini-game takes place where you select which option gives the most bars. Finally, in the third part of the mini-game, you have to find which person-icon is common with each tower. After completing the mini-game, Shen now knows the location of the target.
Once Shen reaches the location, the trailer now shows off the combat in the game. Here Shen can perform counters and grapples against thugs, or use his environment and power-ups in the guise of weapons. He can deliver critical or fatal damage to an enemy when you use your environment, such as dropping an engine on a thug, or stabbing them with a knife. The game switches seamlessly from a brawler-game to a cover-based, third-person shooter with the introduction of guns. However, the game introduces “aggressive cover” mechanics by giving Shen a bullet-time power up when he vaults over cover, and increases the length of the bullet-time when he gets headshots. Finally the mission ends with an over-the-top vehicle combat section, where Shen can shoot down enemies from his vehicle to reach the target.
Sleeping Dogs is meant to be inspired by martial art and action films, and I think it definitely shows in this trailer – a bit too well. I’m not sure if action films in China or any Asian country are this violent, but it seems hard to believe that an undercover cop could get away with the violent actions committed here. But the trailer does show how Sleeping Dogs adapts well to each feature listed, and it doesn’t look to be over the top silly like a Saints Row game.
Sleeping Dogs will be available on the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and PC in North America on August 14, 2012. European gamers can get the game August 17, 2012 while Italy and Spain gamers have to wait to August 31, 2012.
