Sleeping Dogs Diary: Entry #1

An Unexpected Development

I have been playing Sleeping Dogs for a few days now and I am really starting to enjoy it. The best facet of the game is the liveliness of Hong Kong and the sheer number of unscripted random events that happen around you.

This story has nothing to do with those.

There are three main types of missions in Sleeping Dogs: Triad, Police and Civilian. Last night I was doing a civilian a favour. A friend of my character can not drive and keeps using me as his get away driver.

I just finished purchasing a Hipster suit jacket and tie and walked out of the clothing store to a cat call of "it takes some guts to wear that" when I saw my buddy standing there with the Civilian Mission icon over his head. So I spoke to him.

He said for me to wait there a moment and then ran into the store I had just left and opened up with a assault rifle leveling everyone in the place. He then ran out of the store, climbed into a car and screamed "let's go!"

With cops appearing everywhere and squad cars, sirens wailing, surrounding me I had little choice. As my character berated his friend I climbed into the car and took off.

Like other open world games the police have a circle of influence and you need to get outside that circle. For me this involves driving between civilian cars, taking sharp turns, driving on the wrong side of the road (which is the correct side of the road as far as I am concerned – in Hong Kong you are supposed to drive on the left) and cutting through narrow laneways.

This time I was having trouble losing them quickly and was looking for something to help out. As I drove down one road I saw a Do Not Enter sign and thought my prayers were answered.

I tore into a sharp right turn with a hand brake assist and drove through that Do Not Enter sign like my life depended on it.

Directly into a Police Station parking lot occupied by a significant number of armed Police Officers.

Apparently, in Hong Kong, Police use these Do Not Enter signs at the back of their Police Stations to prevent civilians from crashing into their exiting squad cars. I now know this very important fact.

I had successfully assisted my Police pursuit by cooperatively driving directly into a Police Station parking lot. This is where I also discovered that all Police in Hong Kong are Butch and Sundance wannabes. Every single one of the thirty plus cops instantly drew their sidearms and opened fire on me, my friend and my car. I drove through the parking lot and directly out the Entrance Only to the accompaniment of bullets pinging off my nice new car.

I now know two things:

1. It still took me two minutes after that to lose the cops
2. Somewhere in Hong Kong there is a poster of the city's stupidest criminal. My character's picture is on it