Completion time: 10:35:40

I had played Sleeping Dogs when it was first released on the Xbox 360. Back then I found it to be the best open world crime related title not named Grand Theft Auto. Fantastic melee system, a unique game world players were not accustomed to playing in, and a very well told storyline with some great swerves here and there. I had wanted to replay this for years now, and I was originally afraid to do so when I did, with it being so close to the release of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. I distinctly remember it taking 35+ hours to complete it the first time through, and that was with doing many of the side activities offered. When I looked up the playtime on How Long To Beat, I was shocked at the main story being listed as just under 15 hours.

Even more shocking – I completed it in a little over 10.5 hours.

Though the playtime shows brevity, Sleeping Dogs never felt like it quickly flew by, nor did it drag at any point. By the end it did leave me wanting more, but I was still more than satisfied with the journey I took with Wei.

In fact, even though I enjoyed my time with it more the first time through, I still was very much happy to have finally played through this again. The only two things that really stood out for me as negatives were vehicular handling and the radio stations. With the former, vehicles were either too loose, or way too stiff. The faster vehicles go from 0-60 in a nanosecond, which was a bit of a headache to maneuver with. The radio stations lacked any real personality to them. I decided to stick with the classical songs from Mozart and Beethoven to avoid having a muted VOD, but in an ironic twist, two Beethoven songs and one Mozart song were the only things that were muted, even with Opeth, Queen and Jadakiss playing on the radio at various time.

Beyond that though, Sleeping Dogs was an excellent game to replay after all these years. While I may not have enjoyed it as much as I did the first time, I still find many of its features to still hold up well. From the well done melee combat to the game world its self, Sleeping Dogs etches out its own unique identity in a sea of the “samey” feeling open world games that have come out since. This one is usually pretty cheap when it goes on sale ($4) and it goes on sale often, so I highly recommend anyone that has a passion for open world style games like this. It’s one of the best total package deals the genre has, even a decade later!

Rating: 9