When Sleeping Dogs came out in 2012 for the PS3 and Xbox 360, it was a refreshing take on the open world sandbox action genre. More serious than the Grand Theft Auto or the Saints Row series, Sleeping Dogs plays out more like a Cantonese action film police drama. The story is engaging with developed characters and excellent voice acting from famous actors such as Will Yun Lee (The Wolverine), Tom Wilkinson (Batman Begins), Lucy Lu (Kill Bill) and even Emma Stone (The Help), among others.
Not much has changed with The Definitive Edition as far as gameplay. But that is not necessarily a bad thing. This game has all the missions, side missions, races and other things would expect from the genre. However Sleeping Dogs also incorporates a fighting system similar to the excellent Batman Arkham series and a free running system similar to the Assassins Creed series. These things combined in the sandbox world gives Sleeping Dogs a distinctive feel of its own, especially in the setting of a city foreign to western gamers, such as like Hong Kong.
What The Definitive Edition does have is a graphical facelift. Not what you might expect if the game was built from the ground up for the PS4 or Xbox One, but it is clearly better than the PS3 or Xbox 360. It also includes the previously released downloadable content with the supernatural themed Nightmare in North Point as well as more cop missions in Year of the Snake DLC. While these two packs are not anything special, they are fun and add a bit more time with a 25 hour plus game (if you do everything).
In the end, what you get with Sleeping Dogs: The Definitive Edition is a solid package that gives PS4 and Xbox One owners a chance to play a game from the open sandbox genre. While there really is not anything new that would warrant those who have previously played the game, this would be the “definitive” way to play the game for those looking to pick it up for the first time.
4 stars out of 5
