Comment on Weekly Recommendations Thread: What are you playing this week?
Coelacanth@feddit.nu 4 days ago
I finished Sleeping Dogs and am pondering whether I want to play the DLCs or move on. I started the first one but I’m not really feeling it.
The game itself was fine, I’m a little less high on it now than I was initially. The story climax committed the same crime RDR2 does - the kill count and utter destruction you cause pull you out of any sort of immersion you might have had. Especially since this is supposed to be an undercover cop story. It’s still a fine GTA clone if you like that sort of thing, and at 80% off (like it was recently) it’s not a bad deal. Solid 7.5/10 probably.
I played the game a few months ago and agree with everything you said, including the final rating of the game.
I’m wondering if you have the same takeaway as me or if you have a different view: perhaps it would have been better to play this game when it came out? At the time, the only recent GTA-likes were GTA IV (overall serious, almost a simulator), and Saints Row 4 (over the top, very arcadey). Sleeping dogs was somewhere in the middle of those two.
Yeah most likely. That’s a good point you’re making. But even then, it wasn’t that successful or talked-about at the time. When I first started playing it I was wondering why it wasn’t a bigger hit, but after finishing it I think I get it. So maybe even playing it around release wouldn’t have changed much? I will say the pacing and length was pretty spot on. The story had a brisk pace and for once for an open world game it didn’t feel too long.
It also needs to be said that it is a remarkably good looking game for being 13 years old and made for the PS3. Sure, I played the Definitive Edition and with DLDSR 1.78x on a 1440p HDR monitor with RTX HDR enabled, but still. It looks really good for its age. It’s especially impressive how crowded the streets are on the max setting.
Back in 2012, I only heard about Sleeping Dogs through word of mouth. Perhaps the marketing was really poor?
Gameplay-wise, I agree. It starts off pretty solid but once you get further, much of the open world feels samey and the missions start to include too much shooting, imo. That, and I didn’t really gel much with the melee combat after a couple of hours, but it seems like I’m in the minority on that. Finally, I feel like a lot of open world games at the time had a similar “formula”; they had many icon activities on the map, which were more-or-less duplicates of themselves.
I’ll focus on the positives, because there definitely were some: Absolutely agree on the graphics. There’s parts of the map that are pretty scenic (beach areas, city areas with more trees and vegetation), and night time looks amazing. Graphics wise it’s hard to believe it came out 13 years ago. I liked the music selection and I also thought the driving physics were pretty neat. Also, I liked that there were many things to buy, so cash isn’t just some point system.
It’s funny you say the open world felt samey, because one of my main takeaways after playing this game was “man, CDPR really hit it out of the park with architecture and level design for Cyberpunk 2077”. Hong Kong looked great and crowded- particularly at night like you said - but it didn’t have nearly the same distinctly different districts with identifiable character as you’d find in Night City.
The melee combat only got somewhat interesting towards the end of the game when there were some enemies that could resist your counters, otherwise it was mostly a case of waiting for someone to flash red and pressing Y. There are some interesting ideas with the techniques you can unlock and the combos, but most of it felt like window dressing more than necessary tools. The only thing you need besides counters is the upgrade that lets you disarm enemies carrying melee weapons.
Finally, I feel like a lot of open world games at the time had a similar “formula”; they had many icon activities on the map, which were more-or-less duplicates of themselves.
This is a great example of the game design sickness Ubisoft inflicted upon the world with the success of the Assassin’s Creed franchise. It’s released right in the window where that was all the rage, and this is absolutely peak Ubisoft Open World^TM. But that trend held for far too long - I’ve leveled that criticism against even titles as recent as Ghost of Tsushima.
The music selection was good, but I kind of wish the radio selection was deeper and not as wide. I would have preferred somewhat fewer channels but with a bigger selection of songs on each. I also missed more humour and talk show style radio. The driving did feel pretty good and the races were fun, although the AI was so atrocious at driving there was hardly a challenge. But throwing the cars into corners with handbrake turns and counter steering was enjoyable and I liked how the different cars had wildly different characteristics.
SteveNashFan@lemmy.world 4 days ago
If you enjoy the combat, Sifu takes that/the Arkham Batman style to a new level. Definitely has a crazy high kill count, but the story is all about revenge so there’s not too much ludonarrative dissonance.
Coelacanth@feddit.nu 4 days ago
Sifu looks good but I’m kind of scared of it. I’m not sure I’m good enough to enjoy it, I might be too old and slow. I’ve stayed away from the Elden Ring DLC for the same reason, and likewise Sekiro.
SteveNashFan@lemmy.world 4 days ago
There’s a story/cinematic difficulty, but I haven’t tested it out. The standard difficulty is a challenge, but in my experience it felt fair. I’ve never played a Soulslike so I don’t have a point of comparison on that front lol.
Coelacanth@feddit.nu 4 days ago
Sifu is more like a fighting game it looks like, but fundamentally the crux of the difficulty will be reacting to input - just like a Souls-like. And well, I feel like the challenge is the fulcrum of a game like Sifu. All I’ve heard about it is that it’s great, but hard, and the virtue of the game is overcoming that difficulty. I don’t know that the story and presentation is good enough that I’d enjoy it on Story difficulty.