Sleeping Dogs, a GTA Clone?
Sleeping Dogs, United Front Games, 2014
GTA-Clone
I think some people kind of know what Sleeping Dogs is, especially since they always portray it as “GTA Clone”. A lot of people have been longing for this so-called “GTA Clone” game, mainly since the kind of its genre is so few, to begin with. I think it has to do with the GTA series being one of the most famous franchises ever, and an attempt to create an open world like that is a difficult task, and an expensive one too, So it really just left us with a very small amount. Post GTA V release, there are some that remotely resemble its design with their own distinct features, Watch Dogs 2, Mafia 3, Cyberpunk, Yakuza and its thousands of sequels and spin-offs, and Sleeping Dogs. With most of them being sequels, there stands out one of the best underrated games from its genre, and that is Sleeping Dogs.
Calling Sleeping Dogs a “clone” of something is an actual disservice to the game, and to the genre itself, to be honest. Even to call it “GTA-like”, like “Soulslike” for games that follow the design of Souls game from FromSoftware, is also a very reductive attempt at identifying a game. Sleeping Dogs was both more and less like GTA, it has the basic features, and also a very clear and identifying feature, that none of the GTA games ever has. I even believe that Sleeping Dogs should stand beside GTA V as an equal to each other as a pinnacle of open world action adventure.
2012 is a year full of good game releases, new and sequel. Some of them are even franchise classics, Like Farcry 3, Black Ops 2, Dishonored, Telltale Walking Dead, and Persona 4 Golden. Out of all the new sequels and spin-offs, 2012 saw the introduction of the new series, and one of them is Sleeping Dogs.
Sleeping Dogs
Sleeping Dogs, as a concept, is already different from GTA. The only thing that is similar between them is the fact that you can hijack a vehicle, shoot people, friend and/or foe, race, and explore a city, that’s it. I can argue that Sleeping Dogs has a better feature and gameplay than its counterpart. To call this game GTA-clone is like saying any shooter game is COD-clone based on it just being the more famous franchise than the other.
Sleeping Dogs is pretty medium in terms of scale. But for what it lacks in scale, it makes up for in its aesthetics. Hong Kong as a city is begging to be made into a video game. It’s beautiful, compact, full of a variety of different environments, and a great nightlife. And Sleeping Dogs made such a great attempt to show their version of Hong Kong. There are not a lot of open world games that look stunning at nighttime, the one that I can remember is Cyberpunk 2077. And cyberpunk as an aesthetic took its inspiration from Hong Kong, so essentially both Sleeping Dogs and Cyberpunk are the same anyway.
Sleeping Dogs benefitted from their gameplay being tailored with the main character of the story in mind. The main character of Sleeping Dogs is an undercover cop who excels in martial arts and parkour. So both of these skills are incorporated in the overall gameplay. Having a good combat design is beneficial if the story and the overall game need it, and Sleeping Dogs is full of it. I thought this game was fully designed for us to fight bare-handed all the way till the end because of how fun and engaging the combat system is. But this is a story of criminal gang wars, so it still necessitates gunplay, although not that much.
I also think that to make an open world game in a place where you cannot legally carry a firearm anywhere is pretty challenging for developers. You either need to implement another combat system, or you need a reason for them to have gunplay, so logically, the story always surrounds a crime, and/or criminal act. And Sleeping Dogs is both of them.
Side Mission and Collectibles
Just like any open world, Sleeping Dogs is also full of side-mission. But as an undercover cop, you’ve been given two types of side-mission, as a cop, and as a gang member. Both of these 2 types of missions are basically the same with different flavors. There is also a different type of side mission called “Favours”. These types of missions are sometimes fun because not all of them involve your usual fights and car chases, instead, some are just fun exploration, parkour, hacking, and getting girlfriends.
As for collectibles, let’s say that I prefer the collectibles in Sleeping Dogs, as opposed to Assassin’s Creed or GTA V. Each collectible you find is very beneficial to your character rather than just rewarding you by the end of it. You upgrade your skill tree and HP with it, so you are incentivized to collect it. The game also made it easier to collect it by doing certain missions. Not only that, but some collectibles also consist of mini-games, akin to Watch Dogs, so you at least get fun out of it. The scale of the map helps them by avoiding bloating the game too much with collectibles, the amount is sensible, unlike some other much bigger games in general.
DLC
I believe the developers are aware of how good the combat system is in this game because they created 3 new DLCs, 2 of which are just fighting games in disguise. Nightmare in North Point and The Zodiac Tournament, both are a great showcase of how much fun fighting in this game is, with the addition of many more fantasy elements in the mix, This DLC turns the game more or less into a beat-em-up style game. I personally love The Zodiac Tournament, because it’s clearly inspired by an 80s Hong Kong martial arts movie. The whole game in general feels like an 80s Hong Kong action cinema anyway, akin to Police Story.
By design, Sleeping Dogs was very different from any other, and the attempt to replicate this without proper inspiration would be in vain. Cyberpunk 2077 open world benefited by being one of the best cyberpunk-themed open worlds in recent memory, Sleeping Dogs also benefited from being obviously inspired by Hong Kong action movies, and also by being set in Hong Kong. For a game to not be associated with GTA, it needs a clear vision. If they decide to make Sleeping Dogs 2 (which I doubt it will, one can hope), they need to keep hammering the fact that they are a Sleeping Dogs sequel. But let’s be real, I don’t think any city will fit The Sleeping Dogs better than Hong Kong, and picking any other for a sequel would be a challenging task. Its success will be tied to its defining feature and city design, and trying new things will be risky.
GTA-clones can be worn as a badge of honor, but for any of those who have a clear inspiration and a vision for their game, I think they would rather their creation stand on its merit, and be judged by what it actually offers, and Sleeping Dogs stands tall.
