When comparing Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition vs Crashlands, the Slant community recommends Crashlands for most people. In the question“What are the best games on Steam with a rich story?” Crashlands is ranked 36th while Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition is ranked 81st. The most important reason people chose Crashlands is:
For just the medium difficulty setting there is hours upon hours of content, and that's even if you skip all the side quests and just focus on the main story. Plus there are two harder difficulties to try and in the near future a tool will come out which will let you build your own adventures as well as play other people's.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Great story that deals with plenty of gray moral issues
The story in Sleeping Dogs is done well, touching on some very human issues. Playing as Wei Shen, an undercover cop, you pretend to join certain gangs in Hong Kong in order to spy on their operations. You're technically not supposed to care about the members of the gangs, but Wei ends up growing close to them, genuinely wanting to help them and be a part of their lives. This conflicts with his role as a police officer, causing him to play both sides while he figures out his priorities and who he's really loyal to. It's an intriguing dynamic that lets you get into Wei's head and his emotions.
Pro Well-implemented hand-to-hand combat with cool environmental finishing moves
The hand-to-hand fighting system is rock-solid with some neat finishers you can pull off. Punches and kicks are snappy and responsive, with a good amount of weight behind your button presses to really make you feel involved in every fight. You can grab opponents and maneuver them however you want, mainly with guiding them over to the nearest shutter cage, window, the edge of a rooftop on a high building, and so on.
Finishing your enemies off with these environmental finishers is tons of fun: you can throw them off a building, ram their head into glass, or slam down a shutter over their heads. It's a brutal spectacle that makes the combat here stand out from other games.
Pro Really good open world set in Hong Kong
The open world setting is great. Modern-day Hong Kong is pretty unique for a video game, and thankfully it's a true-to-life recreation of what the metropolis looks like. There's a perfect mix of traditional temples, for example, with taller, Western-style glass buildings that you'd find downtown. You can go just about anywhere, whether it's on foot or taking a car for a spin down the roads and highways, with plenty of side quests and mini-objectives to find and complete. It's a good-looking world that's designed well and filled with a good amount of content.
Pro The Definitive Edition has all of the DLC included in one package
Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition comes with everything added to the original game. This is pretty good for new players who have yet to experience Sleeping Dogs at all, or maybe for someone who played the original game years ago and didn't want to buy the DLC.
Pro Hours of content just in the main quest alone gives the player plenty to do
For just the medium difficulty setting there is hours upon hours of content, and that's even if you skip all the side quests and just focus on the main story. Plus there are two harder difficulties to try and in the near future a tool will come out which will let you build your own adventures as well as play other people's.
Pro Pleasing graphics that show off a well designed and polished game
The graphics look nice and you can tell time has been put into designing them. While not the most flashy, there is a certain style to the whole game that makes for a very cohesive experience.
Pro Pick up from your last save, no matter the device you are using, thanks to the built in cloud saving
Playable on Android, iOS and PC you're able to transfer the one game between multiple devices (on same or different operating systems) and take it with you anywhere you go. with a Butterscotch ID (the devs self implemented cloud save system).
Pro Excellent progression system where you never feel like you are grinding too much
Progression never feels sluggish or rushed, everything has a good pace to it from the farming of materials and grinding out the various components for the tons of items, to the incredibly unique combat/interaction system, it all blends well into a long gaming experience.
Pro Hundreds items to craft in a deep and varied crafting system that will keep the user busy for hours and hours
There are over 500 items that can be crafted in the game, giving the player quite a lot to experiment with and explore when it comes to crafting items.
Pro Great soundtrack that suits the humor and setting of the game quite well
A great mix of chill and energized music, that fits the setting of the game at all times. A pleasure to listen to on its own as well.
Pro Multiple game modes
Once you've finished the basic mode there's also a challenging and insane mode for replayability.
Pro Good writing
You don't need to read everything to enjoy the game but the writing is very good and really adds to the enjoyment.
Pro Lots of entertaining pop-culture references
Cons
Con Feels too similar to other sandbox open world games
If you've played a bunch of other open world games in a modern city, then Sleeping Dogs will probably feel too familiar to you. This is fine if you really enjoy these types of games and you're looking for something similar. For anyone else who wants something fresh from the genre, the samey gameplay mechanics, tons of icons dotting the map, and mission structures may end up boring you instead. If you're feeling burnt out from these types of games, you may want to steer clear of this one.
Con Unpolished
There are a lot of strange quirks about the game that make it feel and look janky. Controls aren't particularly seamless, with Wei's walking and running animations looking off, and driving animations feeling too loose and unrealistic. Even with the polished graphics for the Definitive Edition, they still look low-effort and low-budget, a lot like the rest of the game. One thing here and there isn't too bad, but adding them all up, they can end up as a bunch of distractions.
Con Not worth it if you already played the original Sleeping Dogs
Aside from the added DLC, there isn't much of an incentive to pick this up if you played the regular Sleeping Dogs. The graphical upgrades are okay, but might not be worth shelling out the extra money.
Con Cloud saves not through Google services
An extra account will need to be used in order to take advantage of the cloud saving as it does not work with Googles solution to cloud saves. While this does allow for the cloud saves to work cross platform, people may not want to take the extra step to make a new account with Butterscotch Shenanigans.