Sleeping Dogs Review

[Rob Williams]

If you've been on the lookout for a gritty open-world gang-related crime game taking place in Hong Kong, you not only have very specific tastes, but you're also in luck. Sleeping Dogs follows in the footsteps of such games as GTA, but adds in enough originality to set itself apart. Does this ambitious title live up to its hype?

Read through our look at Sleeping Dogs for the PC and then discuss it here!

 

[Kayden]

My own thoughts on this is that it feels like Midnight Club 2 and Shenmue 2 all wrapped into one. The review noted that the gamepad was superior to the KB/M and I would agree 100%, it's a little silly that the zoom for a fire arm is bound to shift when using the KB/M. The biggest problem I have with this game is that when you restart a mission all of your bonuses and personal vehicles disappear. this is very expensive and aggravating to say the least. A big technical issue exists for nvidia SLI users out there is that there is no SLI profile to be had for Sleeping Dogs, so you will have major performance limitations unless you add a SLI profile as described here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkxldeTGEY4 :

1.) Go to the following link and download the Nvidia 3D Settings Profile Manager:
http://www.geeks3d.com/20100528/manage-your-sli-profiles-with-nvidia-geforce-sli-profile-tool/...

2.) Export your current SLI profile.
3.) Open the document it exports, and scroll down to where Sleeping Dogs would go.
4.) If there is no entry, copy and paste the following:

Profile "Sleeping Dogs"
ShowOn GeForce
ProfileType Application
Executable "hkship.exe"
Setting ID_0x00a06946 = 0x0C4010F5
Setting ID_0x1033cec2 = 0x00000002
Setting ID_0x1033dcd3 = 0x00000004
Setting ID_0x10ecdb82 = 0x00000001
EndProfile

If there is already a profile, make sure the the first line of code says "Setting ID_0x00a06946 = 0x0C4010F5" and not "0x004010F5".

5.) Save the profile, and import it back into the 3D Settings Profile Manager. Now you're done! This isn't a final solution, Nvidia still needs to release an official driver for this game. This simply allows my second GPU to work. And, furthermore, I've never seen my FPS monitor from DXtory ever drop below 60.

Quick note: I've received a few messages about an official nvidia release(actually a beta driver, but whatever). I tried it out, and got 5 less FPS on 3 attempts with the benchmark. The profile numbers are a bit different, so I'm sure it has to do something with it. So this fix still works better for me. I also received a message about this being low FPS for a 690, with a screenshot of their benchmark using an AMD card. Well considering in the opening for the game, theres an AMD splash screen, which company do you think was ready for an official release? Just sayin.

The only problem with this is that you have to load this every time you reboot your machine because it isn't an official SLI profile so it gets removed every time you reboot.

There are several minor bugs that have yet to be addressed so if you're on the fence about it and you like your games to be perfect, you might want to wait a little a bit until a few patches come out to fix them. A somewhat critical bug I specifically encountered is one for side missions, where I died on one and they all went away, after I did a few story missions I found another one but then they went away again after completing it, doing more story missions hasn't given me anymore.

All in all, I am thoroughly entertained by Sleeping Dogs and this is defiantly a sleeper hit and if your willing to look past these little problems right now I defiantly recommend it.

 

[Optix]

In game radio + Road Runner Records + Fear Factory = driving win!

 

[Rob Williams]

I must be listening to too much death metal lately, because RR in-game seemed a little too tame for my tastes. In truth, I barely listened to the radio, I just cranked my own tunes. I didn't find that many tracks caught my attention like they do in Saints Row 3, or even GTA IV.

 

[Optix]

I find myself listening to the "traditional" Chinese radio stations anyway since I'm a sucker for that style of music. Last weekend the family and I went to the dragon boat races and they had some of that music and folks doing fan dancing and dressed up like lions. It was pretty cool to watch first hand.

 

[Rob Williams]

Oddly I found myself doing the same. I'd move to Asia in a heartbeat if it were easy to do, so this game helped me feel like I was there, almost. You know, aside from the fact that it's still a game. Its recreation of Asia is just so damn good, and that music added to it (you hear that a lot in taxi cabs over there).

Never been to the dragon boat festival; I bet it was pretty cool though.