Why does this game gather so many positive reviews?

[? Mark]

EDIT:
Since the first comentator believes that I am just unhappy that the game shoud have worse average reviews, let me ask you to read the whole post, not not the title alone. Overall I am wondering, regarding the bullet points provided in my list, whether they are liking so much despite the weaknesses I've explained, or maybe they don't notice those weaknesses.


This is not a trolling topic.
I play the game myself.
And I want to play it till the end of main story.
But as far as I can see, the game is kinda low quality in many aspects, and should get something like 70/30 ratio of good/bad reviews.

Here is my list of the main weak points in this game (from least worrying down to the worst):

• The game is bugged. Yeah, nothing game breaking, but tons of frustrating bugs, which led me to loose time more than once.
  Also there is one really hilarious, cool looking bug: when you throw an enemy on the ground and then punch him, if there is an object with ragdoll physic under him, during the punch you'll fly up high into the air for the punch. Reminded me of some Devil My Cry moves :)
  
• The game is heavily scripted. It is, as if developers want us to play every (or almost every) mission exactly the way they planned it. Sometimes, on rare occasion, you can go slightly against the script, but that would be very hard to do gameplaywise. While as long as you follow the script(s), the game is quite easy, so it's like watching a movie (and a very long and boring one) while mashing buttons.
  I''ll give one example, but there are many: when you have a task to bring down racing cars during a race, regardless of how slow and inefficiently you drive, those racers are scripted so they would slow down to let you reach them. And when you need to escape the police, the police cars would drive faster than your Lamborghini-inspired racing car.
  
• Action-hijacking looks stupid Wei flyes and sometimes even changes a direction of his "flight" while reaching for a roof of a truck from his motorcycle. The devs didn't even bother to consider that Wei would rather jump on a door of truck from his motorcycle, rather than on its roof.
  
• Ramming? In all other similar games I played you just controlled your vehicle to ram the enemy vehicle, but here a special button was added, and it seems to destroy enemy cars in 2-3 hits, while your car doesn't get damaged at all. (Also for some reason devs decided to remove this feature from racer, where it actually is the only instance it would be fun and more or less fair to utilize the way it works).
  
• Tons upon tons, of stupid, easy, boring, pointless mini-games which try to simulate some hacking. Pitiful.
  
• The shooting sequences are terrible. Shooting from a car is nice and fun, but enemies appear to be too weak, while your vehicle is armoured, which is not fun, at least for me.
  
• melee combat is kinda fun, but the methods don't appear to be balanced. For instance, I found a cheating easy way to get by even in the toughest fights with 10+ enemies: just unlock in the martial arts club the ability to sprint on an enemy + grabbing him + punching him, and you may continue doing this until you clear the filed of all small and medium sized guys, and while reducing their number also looking for the openings and gaining a face meter to get several hits on the big guys
  
• The story: alas it's very, very bland and feels all like a cliche. With such a cliche the least they could do would be throwing in some humour, some irony or sarcasm. Instead they pressed on seriousness, which leaves everything very grey and boring. Nothing in this story will come as a surprise. Even if I anted to retell you the whole story, I wouldn't be screaming SPOILER ALERT. The only nice surprise for me were the Easter eggs of pre-made outfits representing 47 and Adam Jensen. As far as I can tell, those could be added only in Definitive Edition. . And the fact that scenarists wanted to keep it very serious does not help because the characters don't make you to sympathise with them. At all. Seriously. I am not joking, I played games with "pixel graphics", gameplays of which made me sympathise with procedurally-generated characters without any story attached to them, besides the "story" I had with them during gameplay. So, it's a sign of a very bland story. Sadly.

[Alin.]

I didn't liked certain aspects of the game, and oh, i forgot to mention that the story is bland and cliche. WHY DID EVERYONE LIKED THE GAME SO MUCH WHEN I CLEARLY SAID THAT I DIDN'T LIKED IT REEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
For real now. You didn't liked certain aspects of the game, very well, it's your opinion. Don't expect us to agree with what you said. And don't expect us to bash the game for things that you didn't like and maybe we did.


How about this; good games get postitive reviews, ever think of that? If the game is great, which is, the reviews will be positive even after 4 years since it was launched. Which they also are.

[? Mark]

Originally posted by Alin.:

I didn't liked certain aspects of the game, and oh, i forgot to mention that the story is bland and cliche. WHY DID EVERYONE LIKED THE GAME SO MUCH WHEN I CLEARLY SAID THAT I DIDN'T LIKED IT REEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
For real now. You didn't liked certain aspects of the game, very well, it's your opinion. Don't expect us to agree with what you said. And don't expect us to bash the game for things that you didn't like and maybe we did.


How about this; good games get postitive reviews, ever think of that? If the game is great, which is, the reviews will be positive even after 4 years since it was launched. Which they also are.

I am asking why people like it so much.
Additionally, I am asking, whether they are liking so much despite the weaknesses I've explained, or maybe they don't notice those weaknesses.

You just told in your comment that you like the game.
But instead of explaining your opinion, you expressed that because you like the game more than I do, I should not be writing about it at all.

Or would you rather see me writing a praise to this game?

Here is a good suggestion to you:
Please provide a comment to all (or some) of the bullet points in the list provided by me.

[Alin.]

Originally posted by ? Mark:

Originally posted by Alin.:

I didn't liked certain aspects of the game, and oh, i forgot to mention that the story is bland and cliche. WHY DID EVERYONE LIKED THE GAME SO MUCH WHEN I CLEARLY SAID THAT I DIDN'T LIKED IT REEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
For real now. You didn't liked certain aspects of the game, very well, it's your opinion. Don't expect us to agree with what you said. And don't expect us to bash the game for things that you didn't like and maybe we did.


How about this; good games get postitive reviews, ever think of that? If the game is great, which is, the reviews will be positive even after 4 years since it was launched. Which they also are.

I am asking why people like it so much.
Additionally, I am asking, whether they are liking so much despite the weaknesses I've explained, or maybe they don't notice those weaknesses.

You just told in your comment that you like the game.
But instead of explaining your opinion, you expressed that because you like the game more than I do, I should not be writing about it at all.

Uh no, i told you that if a game is good, it will get many positive reviews. And just because you didn't liked certain things, it doesn't mean we all did and do. Simple. I already said, it's your opinion. You can write about it, i didn't told you that you shouldn't, just don't act like your opinion is some kind of fact.

Besides the bugs and glitches, i never found anything wrong with this game. It's one of the best open world games, and also one of my favorite games of all time. Played it since the original Sleeping Dogs came out in 2012.

[OMG My Profile Name Does Not Fi]

Because despite its flaws it is great fun....

[? Mark]

Originally posted by Alin.:

Originally posted by ? Mark:

I am asking why people like it so much.
Additionally, I am asking, whether they are liking so much despite the weaknesses I've explained, or maybe they don't notice those weaknesses.

You just told in your comment that you like the game.
But instead of explaining your opinion, you expressed that because you like the game more than I do, I should not be writing about it at all.

Uh no, i told you that if a game is good, it will get many positive reviews. And just because you didn't liked certain things, it doesn't mean we all did and do. Simple. I already said, it's your opinion. You can write about it, i didn't told you that you shouldn't, just don't act like your opinion is some kind of fact.

Besides the bugs and glitches, i never found anything wrong with this game. It's one of the best open world games, and also one of my favorite games of all time. Played it since the original Sleeping Dogs came out in 2012.

Okay, story is a subjective thing.

But wouldn't you agree, that behaviour of AI in races and chases is way too scripted?

And wouldn't you agree that shooting sequences are just poorly implemented and remind in execution of those PS2 era games based on movie licenses to earn a quick buck?

[? Mark]

Originally posted by OMG My Profile Name Does Not Fi:

Because despite its flaws it is great fun....

With that I can agree!

It is fun indeed!

But lets take PUBG, for instance, which, considering the sales figures, is even greater fun, gets Mixed reviews, despite its also a great fun, because people get frustrated occasionally.

Why is not the case with reviews on this game though?

[OMG My Profile Name Does Not Fi]

Originally posted by ? Mark:

With that I can agree!

It is fun indeed!

But lets take PUBG, for instance, which, considering the sales figures, is even greater fun, gets Mixed reviews, despite its also a great fun, because people get frustrated occasionally.

Why is not the case with reviews on this game though?

That is an interesting point.

I would say though that people view MP games much more harshly than SP and especially balance changes, so it is perhaps not an entirely fair comparison.

[kirrm]

Originally posted by ? Mark:

Why is not the case with reviews on this game though?

Most of negative PUBG reviews cite two very specific points: cheaters and technical issues, including unreasonable CPU requirements. If I buy a battle royale game, I kinda expect it to be at least playable, and cheaters admittedly will be a showstopper.

Sleeping Dogs, on the other hand, came out in 2012 and now it's a rather niche game - in a sense that you probably know what you're buying. For a bloody and violent action set in triad wars, I'd say Sleeping Dogs delivers on every expectation. Now to your points.

• Bugs. Actually, most of the bugs I've seen in this game were rather entertaining (not that I have stumbled over them a lot), I definitely didn't get stuck anywhere over them. For instance, in a bike race if you're doing a wheelie and drive over any minor bump in the terrain, you are launched flying like a rocket. I've failed the race multiple times because of it, but it was a lot of fun. I don't recall any frustrating bugs specifically.
  
• "Heavily Scripted". Yes, it is. But I've felt it the most outside of missions. I've been more annoyed in a sense that even though this is an open-world game, you're still in a box. You can't get over fences you're not designed to climb, you (in most cases) won't be able to fly over roadside barriers even if you launch your vehicle over it. The whole world is divided in two areas: the playable area and the exterior. I personally didn't like it much more than the scripted missions, but not so much to dislike the game as a whole.
  
• Action hijack. It is absolutely absurd, but you call it 'stupid' and list it as a downside. I call it 'fun'. Especially when Wei changes directions in midair, e.g. when the targeted car suddenly makes a turn. It is indeed unrealistic, but that's still entertaining. Also this is one of those little quirks that make the gameplay more diverse in general, like grabbing people and using them as body shields or throwing them in a trunk of your car. The more things you can do in the game, the better.
  
• Ramming. It is pretty much the previous point, although probably less fun and less useful. The broader point is that the driving and car physics in general in Sleeping Dogs are very caricatural (this relates to the earlier point of a very controlled environment the developers put you in). For the driving mechanics of this particular game, the ramming makes sense. And it does damage your vehicle, by the way, and probably more than just crashing into stuff.
  
• Pointless minigames. I was bored only by the safe lock minigame, because the lockboxes around the world tend to have them and it gets very repetitive. All the other ones I liked, especially the surveillance cameras.
  
• Shooting. I don't know what you're on, the shooting was awesome. There's not much of it in the game (compared to other games and proportionally to the hand-to-hand combat in this game). Maybe if it played a bigger role in this game (like in GTA), it should have been more advanced, but I think it is more than sufficient. I genuinely enjoyed shooting heads in this game - more than in other TPS or FPS games. Maybe I'm just too casual.
  
• Melee combat. You know, mentioning the melee aspect of this game as a downside should be made a punishable crime, IMO. Seriously though, I think (I may be wrong) melee combat is why people love this game. As for the "unbalanced" - well, if people mash X in Mortal Kombat and win, that's the developers' fault, because MK is 2-player game. Sleeping Dogs is a singleplayer, you play it to your own pleasure. Constantly performing one move (a takedown in your case) will be boring, no doubt. But... Don't do it? I don't see how the takedown move is overpowered, because I imagine this will take order of magnitude longer to dispose of the enemies. The weaker guys are easier and faster to deal with by other means. Also they're handy to throw them at the fat guys. The fat guys will always counter your takedown, unless you've just filled your Face meter. The strikers (middle-sized ones) are kind of intended to grapple with, although there're other grappling moves, way more powerful than just a takedown.
  
• Storyline. This is probably the most subjective one. I liked it. It contributes the overall violent nature of the theme so it gets its job done. The dialogues were good. Again, your original concern was why more people don't dislike the game. I don't see how the storyline of this game can lead somebody to leave an overall bad review for Sleeping Dogs. In fact, there're games of a bigger magnitude with storylines I find much cringier and dumber and it seems that nobody cares.

For me, the most disappointing thing in the game was the perceived feeling of loneliness. It almost felt like it was just Wei Shen running around in an empty city. It probably has something to do with, as you've put it, lack of proper attachment to the in-game characters, except for the main character.

whether they are liking so much despite the weaknesses I've explained, or maybe they don't notice those weaknesses

In conclusion, I think it's a combination of those two factors. Maybe I'd rephrase the "people don't notice those weaknesses" as "people don't see that as weaknesses".

[? Mark]

Originally posted by kirrm / iPlayer:

Thanks for detailed feedback.

Also, regarding the bugs: in several places I tried to climb on a climabable object, when Wei was locked in a loop if trying to climb-starting to fall off - trying to climb... and so on.
I even considered reloading the game, but then noticed that I can slightly control the direction of his fall for a fraction of a second, which over several dozen attempts allows for breaking of this loop.

[Jet City Gambler]

You do realize that you're "reviewing" a console port of a game that came out more than seven years ago, right?

You can go read some of those old reviews if you want to find out why the game is rightly regarded as a classic of the genre.

Sleeping Dogs received "generally favorable" reviews from critics, according to review aggregator Metacritic. It was nominated for "Action Game of the Year" and "Outstanding Achievement in Story" at the 2013 D.I.C.E. Interactive Achievement Awards.

Eurogamer writer Dan Whitehead called the combat system "robust and intuitive". IGN's Colin Moriarty compared the combat to that of Batman: Arkham City and compared it favorably with Grand Theft Auto IV despite its simplicity and repetitiveness. Hollander Cooper from GamesRadar praised the combat, especially the unique melee attacks. Andy Kelly of Computer and Video Games welcomed the slower-paced missions. Carolyn Petit from GameSpot and Ben Wilson from PlayStation Official Magazine found the combat enjoyable and highlighted the environmental attacks as "empowering and effective"

[? Mark]

Originally posted by Jet City Gambler:

You do realize that you're "reviewing" a console port of a game that came out more than seven years ago, right?

You can go read some of those old reviews if you want to find out why the game is rightly regarded as a classic of the genre.

Sleeping Dogs received "generally favorable" reviews from critics, according to review aggregator Metacritic. It was nominated for "Action Game of the Year" and "Outstanding Achievement in Story" at the 2013 D.I.C.E. Interactive Achievement Awards.

Eurogamer writer Dan Whitehead called the combat system "robust and intuitive". IGN's Colin Moriarty compared the combat to that of Batman: Arkham City and compared it favorably with Grand Theft Auto IV despite its simplicity and repetitiveness. Hollander Cooper from GamesRadar praised the combat, especially the unique melee attacks. Andy Kelly of Computer and Video Games welcomed the slower-paced missions. Carolyn Petit from GameSpot and Ben Wilson from PlayStation Official Magazine found the combat enjoyable and highlighted the environmental attacks as "empowering and effective"

Yes. Because none of the points I am criticizing concerns the game's technical capabilities or innovation. I am specifically criticizing:
1) bugs (which by the release of "polished" definitive edition could be gone),
2) over-scripting of AI, especially on the road,
3) weak gunplay,
4) and most of all the story, (while it's subjective, as far as I can see, even the biggest fans of the game would not say it's interesting)

If you still think I am flaming a game just because it's old:
Remember other much-much older "GTA-clones", take Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven.
It's 18 years old, yet on all those fronts it was much more polished.


Once again, I don't attack graphics or lack of some features.

[Alin.]

Originally posted by ? Mark:

Originally posted by Jet City Gambler:

You do realize that you're "reviewing" a console port of a game that came out more than seven years ago, right?

You can go read some of those old reviews if you want to find out why the game is rightly regarded as a classic of the genre.

Yes. Because none of the points I am criticizing concerns the game's technical capabilities or innovation. I am specifically criticizing:
1) bugs (which by the release of "polished" definitive edition could be gone),
2) over-scripting of AI, especially on the road,
3) weak gunplay,
4) and most of all the story, (while it's subjective, as far as I can see, even the biggest fans of the game would not say it's interesting)

If you still think I am flaming a game just because it's old:
Remember other much-much older "GTA-clones", take Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven.
It's 18 years old, yet on all those fronts it was much more polished.


Once again, I don't attack graphics or lack of some features.

I actually find the gunplay to be very good. Especially when doing those Max-Payne-like bullet time shooting. For a TPS, the weapons sound pretty good too, all weapons have 2 different animations, which, is a detail that many TPS games seem to forget adding.
I'm sorry, but who are these "biggest fans"? I'm in this community since the game was released. And never saw someone say that the game is great, but the story is BS. I find the story to be very good. Sometimes the game can be pretty dark, but also comical, Sleeping Dogs knows how to perfectly mix action and comedy, and where to be serious and mature.
The game has also lots of great characters, and also a great protagonist, Wei. The voice acting is very solid as well. (wish they would mix both languages at the same time though) This is what makes me love the story.

[? Mark]

Originally posted by Alin.:

Originally posted by ? Mark:

Yes. Because none of the points I am criticizing concerns the game's technical capabilities or innovation. I am specifically criticizing:
1) bugs (which by the release of "polished" definitive edition could be gone),
2) over-scripting of AI, especially on the road,
3) weak gunplay,
4) and most of all the story, (while it's subjective, as far as I can see, even the biggest fans of the game would not say it's interesting)

If you still think I am flaming a game just because it's old:
Remember other much-much older "GTA-clones", take Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven.
It's 18 years old, yet on all those fronts it was much more polished.


Once again, I don't attack graphics or lack of some features.

I actually find the gunplay to be very good. Especially when doing those Max-Payne-like bullet time shooting. For a TPS, the weapons sound pretty good too, all weapons have 2 different animations, which, is a detail that many TPS games seem to forget adding.
I'm sorry, but who are these "biggest fans"? I'm in this community since the game was released. And never saw someone say that the game is great, but the story is BS. I find the story to be very good. Sometimes the game can be pretty dark, but also comical, Sleeping Dogs knows how to perfectly mix action and comedy, and where to be serious and mature.
The game has also lots of great characters, and also a great protagonist, Wei. The voice acting is very solid as well. (wish they would mix both languages at the same time though) This is what makes me love the story.

You mentioned several good points. Also I agree that Wei is a great protagonist.
I also haven’t noticed guns having 2 animations. (Animations of what though?)

[Marcos]

If I had to say something that could make the game better for MY taste would be:
I think this game should'nt be 'open world' or they should take out most of the repetitive side quest stuff.

anyway, I like the game and would rate it positive.

[Alejandro]

You're judging a wacky 2013 game made for the PS3, 360 and PC by how dumb it looks in 2019.