Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition is a remastering of the 2012 hit, re-made for the new generation of consoles. As we have already reviewed the original, it would seem there’s not much to say about the new edition. You couldn’t be farther for the truth.
First of all, a major advantage of the Definitive Edition is the incorporation of all of Sleeping Dogs’ DLC right out of the box. That, already, is worth your time if you haven’t played the original, as Sleeping Dogs received an enormous amount of DLC (we’re talking over 20 additional packs). While most of it is cosmetic in the form of various outfits or pretty cars, some of it still gives you more content to go through in the form of the two mission packs – Year of the Snake and Nightmare in North Point, the latter is a horror-themed adventure I greatly enjoyed on the PS3.
Second and most obvious is the remastering of graphics, effects and environments to take advantage of the capabilities of modern hardware. The game looks absolutely gorgeous on the PS4 – night time in Hong Kong never looked better, especially when its raining and you’re driving at breakneck speeds. A special mention goes to the tattoos covering most characters – they mostly look better, sharper and cleaner.
Unfortunately, once the initial effect wears off, you can see some ugly cracks show up on the veneer. The high-res textures aren’t quite as good as they should be (especially compared to the high-res texture released for PC) and some textures are still the same ones they were in the previous generation. Within the first ten minutes of gameplay you’ll notice quite a few “patches” where the gloss is just not adequate – quite a shame, really.
To make matters worse, at least on the PS4, there are some glaring framerate issues. There are hiccups and frame rate drops which happen quite often, especially in high-particle scenes, and forcibly pull you out of enjoying the game. Over several hours of gameplay I had at least one of those hiccups every 20 minutes at least – might not seem like much but it does add up to several interruptions per hour.
To sum it up, Sleeping Dogs: Definitive Edition is not something you should pick up if you played the original on either PC or previous generation consoles. Judged as a standalone game, you’ll get tens of hours out of it and enjoy it greatly, especially accounting for the DLC campaigns. Judged in comparison to its previous-generation predecessor, however, there really isn’t a reason for you to grab this Definitive Edition remake unless you’re a hardcore fan.
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