How to go Above the Law

Wei Shen is not your average undercover cop. Wei has had to develop a series of unique skills to survive his forays into criminal organizations in the United States, and those skills have served him well. In Hong Kong, his abilities will be pressed to their limits. If he is to survive, Wei Shen will need to do more than simply talk the talk. His armed and unarmed martial skills will be strained, and his marksmanship will be tested. He’ll need to be a better driver than anyone else on the road. In order to successfully bring down the Sun On Yee, he will ultimately have to be a better Triad member than he is a cop, and he will need to face the consequences for it.

Sleeping Dogs provides a blend of detailed melee combat mixed with third-person shootouts, street racing, and even parkour during some of the elaborate chases throughout the streets and alleys of Hong Kong. You’ll need to be effective across all of these disciplines if you hope to succeed.

In addition to control maps for the console versions of Sleeping Dogs, important controls or moves with special properties will be covered in greater detail.

Camera Control

Taking in your surroundings is the most important thing you can do at any given moment. Being observant allows you to find hidden items or cameras to hack, as well as gives you clues to any special opportunities to take advantage of during a fight.

Movement: On Foot

Walking/Jogging

Your basic way of getting around. While it isn’t the fastest, if you’re weaving through a crowd during a mission, this can help you avoid accidentally harming pedestrians when you bump into them. Running or even walking head-on into a pedestrian makes Wei Shen shove them aside. This can cost you Cop points.

Sprinting

When you are not in a vehicle, but are still in a hurry, sprinting is your best option. Wei Shen can sprint indefinitely, or at least until he runs into an obstacle that slows him down or stops him cold. Sprinting is incredibly useful; powerful attacks are available from sprinting, as well additional maneuvers to help you navigate your environment. By sprinting at a wall during a fight, it’s possible to jump off of the wall to kick nearby enemies, or slam victims you’ve grabbed into nearby obstacles or other environmental hazards. During chases on foot, sprinting allows you to quickly vault over obstacles or leap over gaps in the terrain.

Vaulting/Jumping/Climbing

As you approach obstacles, you will sometimes see an action prompt at the bottom of the screen, telling you to hit the indicated button. This allows Wei Shen to scale vertical walls, Action Vault over waist-high objects, or leap across large gaps. It’s important to be prepared to tap the Action button during the foot races in order to keep up with your targets. During fights against armed opponents, vaulting over the cover they may be using in the direction of an enemy will cause Wei Shen to tackle them to the ground in an attempt to disarm them. Vaulting over cover while armed with a gun, or leaping over large gaps, also provides a bullet time effect, allowing you to take in your surroundings, plan your next move accordingly, or easily target any nearby enemies.

Taking Cover

Wei Shen is not invincible, and while he can take a pretty severe beating in a fist fight, bullets and explosions are capable of taking him down very quickly. During firefights, your first move should always be to find some hard cover. You can shoot your enemies from cover, or vault over the piece of cover to attempt to tackle and disarm an enemy. Most importantly, you’re relatively safe. Not all cover lasts forever, though. Cars can explode, and pieces of masonry can be broken. You need to be prepared to move if your little safe spot becomes compromised.

Enter and Exit Vehicles/Interact With NPCs/Pick Up Items

This button has other important uses that are combat related, but outside of battle, this is how Wei Shen is able to talk to other denizens of Hong Kong, enter and exit vehicles, or interact with security panels.

During certain conversations, you will be prompted to press this button to Fast Talk your way past wary security guards, bouncers, thugs, or hospital nurses.

When stealing a parked car, before you have upgrades you’ll need to break the windshield. This almost certainly will set off the car alarm and attract police attention. Later upgrades allow you to enter a vehicle faster and give you a chance to disable the alarm system with this button.

Be very careful about exiting a vehicle while it’s moving. Wei Shen automatically tries to protect himself from serious damage, but at high speeds this isn’t going to cut it. You also have no control of where you go after ditching a moving vehicle, which means there’s a good chance that you will roll directly into oncoming traffic.

Movement: Driving Vehicles

Steering

Both cars and motorcycles are steered more or less the same way. The make of the vehicle determines just how sharp it can take a turn. Keep in mind that very few vehicles retain turning performance the faster you’re driving.

Motorcycles can wheelie when you pull back on the analog stick, but this affects your steering greatly. It’s also possible to press forward and have Wei Shen lean closer to the bike to gain extra speed, but all motorcycles at higher speeds are harder to control, not to mention far more dangerous in the event of an accident.

Accelerate

The throttle on every vehicle works mostly the same. You can gently accelerate, or put the pedal to metal. How a vehicle responds depends on what type of vehicle it is.

Brakes

Obviously, these slow you down if you’re going too fast, but don’t expect miracles if you’re careening towards a wall at a hundred miles an hour and you only have fifty feet to make the stop. Brakes are useful if tapped during a high-speed turn, helping you maintain fine control of the car or motorcycle.

Emergency Brake

The e-brake on any vehicle can be combined with the standard brakes to help come to a stop, but the far more interesting use of the e-brake is to set up drifts through turns.

Action Hijack

The Action Hijack is by far one of the most exciting moves available to you in Sleeping Dogs. By holding down the Action button, Wei Shen will open his driver-side door or stand on top of his motorcycle. If you then approach another vehicle, you will see a greyed-out arrow behind it. When the arrow turns green, tap the Action button again to launch Wei Shen at his potential new ride. He’ll then deal with the driver of the vehicle, and you will gain control of it shortly afterwards. This is also a good way to shake loose a persistent police pursuer.

It’s not always easy. Some vehicles, like armored cars or moving trucks, require you to climb along the side of the vehicle to reach the driver’s seat, and you will have to survive a series of Quick Time Events before you can finally take the vehicle.

Ram Attack

The Ram Attack serves two purposes. First, it damages and eventually disables any pursuing Triad or Cop cars and bikes. Second, it can act as an emergency course correction during a frantic race through the streets, giving you a chance to weave between cars at the last moment.

The Ram Attack can hit targets in front of and to the sides of your vehicle. This ability can’t be used in rapid succession, so don’t expect it to act as a speed boost during a race. It also must be done while your chosen ride is moving at a decent speed.

Horn/Siren

As crazy as it might sound, the horn on any vehicle is an important tool in your overall arsenal. During missions, you stand to lose points with the Hong Kong Police for every civilian you hurt or kill, no matter how accidental it might have been. Things do get complicated during car chases though. To avoid running down pedestrians, you can honk your horn, and civilians will try to run or dive out of your way. Cars driven by civilians may switch lanes to avoid you. It’s important to avoid harming civilians, as your Cop Upgrades depend on your ability to keep the casualties limited to the Triad as much as possible.

Melee Combat

Wei Shen isn’t going to work his way into the Sun On Yee without employing a little violence, and fortunately he’s well equipped for it. The melee combat in Sleeping Dogs is simple to get into, but requires a bit of finesse. While simply mashing the Attack button might work against the basic thug early in the story, this will only serve to get you killed later on. Successful melee combat comes from being observant to the types of foes you’re up against, paying attention to any incoming attacks, and responding calmly to the situation. It’s tempting to wail away at the controls when you start taking a beating, but this can make an already bad situation much worse.

Lock On

The first thing you should know to do in a fight is to lock on to an opponent. This allows you to better focus on your chosen target. By holding down the correct button, Wei Shen will lock on the opponent that he’s facing. However, the other important feature of the Lock On command is that it automatically targets the closest opponent who happens to be armed with some sort of weapon. Use this to pick out those pesky cleaver-wielding enemies from the crowd. Using the Lock On feature also reveals the health levels of all nearby enemies, displayed as a ring around their feet. It even tells you any class modifers the enemy is currently enjoying.

Light Strikes

By tapping the Strike button, you perform a Light Strike. Up to five Light Strikes can be chained together, and they are fast enough to interrupt weaker opponents in the middle of their own attacks. Be wary of enemies who are capable of blocking or countering these attacks. You will want to avoid committing to a full combo against those opponents. You can interrupt a Light Strike combo with a Heavy Strike at any time, which is how most special moves are executed.

When Wei Shen is equipped with a melee weapon, your Light Strikes change depending on the item equipped.

Heavy Strikes

Holding down the Strike button causes Wei Shen to execute a Heavy Strike. These attacks cause more damage to opponents, but are slower to execute. Heavy Strikes can be used to cap off a combination of several Light Strikes. As you progress further into the game and earn new Melee Upgrades for Wei, these Heavy Strikes become much more valuable, and are used to trigger special techniques. Heavy Strikes can be inserted into a combo after one or up to four Light Strikes.

Heavy Strikes can be directed in any direction around Wei, a good choice for lashing out at enemies trying to creep up on your flanks.

As with Light Strikes, equipping a melee weapon changes how Heavy Strikes are executed.

Counter

This is arguably the most important part of your fighting arsenal, even counting the various Melee Upgrades you can earn throughout the game. The Counter move allows Wei Shen to intercept any incoming melee strike from unarmed or armed opponents, and then deal damage. Simply wait for melee attacks to get close to Wei, and hit the Counter button to return the favor. Foes that are about to attack you are highlighted in red, clearly marking the immediate threat.

Counters should not be attempted randomly. Blinding hitting the Counter button places Wei in the Counter stance, but if no attack hits him during the first part of the stance, Wei will stand vulnerable for a moment, unable to move or fight back. Triad upgrades can shorten this window of vulnerability, but this can be avoided entirely by simply timing your Counters effectively.

Grab

Grabs are the solution for opponents who are keen on blocking your attacks, and are the setup to do immense amounts of damage to the victim, or control groups of enemies by throwing the Grabbed opponent into them. It’s even possible to sprint at an enemy and tackle them to the ground, or you can pick up a downed opponent off of the ground. Once you have Grabbed an opponent, you have a variety of options available to you.

You can pummel a Grabbed opponent with Light and Heavy Strikes. Certain combinations lead to special techniques that need to be unlocked via upgrades.

You can throw a Grabbed opponent into other enemies. This has the added bonus of knocking them down, or at least causing them to stagger back. If you’re completely surrounded, this can buy you some additional time.

You are able to drag an opponent around with you. They will try to struggle, so the occasional punch to the face will calm them down. It’s even possible to sprint with a Grabbed opponent. If you sprint at a wall or other environmental hazard, you will automatically slam the victim into it.

A big part of combat in Sleeping Dogs is the use of environmental hazards to brutalize your opponents. This has the added bonus of building up your Face meter, as well as forcing nearby enemies to cringe in disgust or cower in fear, or in some cases even running away. By walking (or sprinting) with a Grabbed opponent toward any flashing red environmental hazard, you can immediately take that enemy out of the fight.

Grabbing is not recommended against the heavyset Grapplers unless they’ve been stunned. It’s also not an option against opponents armed with melee weapons, as they tend to kick you away and cause some damage. However, in situations where you don’t have a gun but your enemies do, Grabbing them will allow you to take their gun and use it against their allies, provided that Cop Upgrade is unlocked.

Throwing Melee Weapons

You can pick up knives, cleavers, and tire irons from the ground during a fight, either by taking them from a conscious enemy or by beating enemies senseless and picking up their weapons long after they’ve collapsed. You can then Lock On to an enemy, and then throw these improvised weapons at the enemy to cause serious damage. A basic thug can be taken out with one accurate toss of a knife, making it an excellent way to thin out enemy numbers when you are surrounded.

Quick Time Events (QTE)

While not necessarily a set of moves, during melee combat and other parts of the story, you may get into situations where the game tells you to press a specific button or follow a series of button presses in order to avoid injury, death, or arrest. This is why it’s important to not mash buttons wildly during melee combat. Pressing the wrong button during a QTE can cost you significant amounts of health, or even make you fail your current mission.

Ranged Combat

As you will learn during the course of Sleeping Dogs, firearms are fairly difficult to come by in Hong Kong. They are tightly controlled by the government, and simply being caught with a firearm illegally is enough to get a person thrown in jail for a good while. Wei Shen’s arrival in Hong Kong and eventual infiltration into the Sun On Yee sparks a series of chaotic events throughout the city, and inevitably there will be a lot of shooting.

Firearms are brutally powerful in Sleeping Dogs. Even a fully upgraded Wei Shen can be gunned down in seconds if you’re careless about finding cover. Headshots are instantly lethal on the vast majority of enemies, and they are your best bet for dealing with the sheer numbers you’re up against. Headshots are also rewarded with Face and Triad point bonuses.

You can blindfire from behind cover, or take aim while making yourself vulnerable. Always keep an eye on your surroundings to make sure you’re not about to get sniped or flanked by hostile gunmen.

Don’t be afraid to use the bullet time effects while vaulting over pieces of cover. Despite the slow down, you’re still able to aim at targets very quickly. Later Cop Upgrades improve the length of this effect.

There are many missions that expect you to drive and shoot at the same time. The controls are changed up a little bit, but fortunately, aiming at enemies while driving also provides a bullet time effect, making it easy both to keep your car on the road and to aim and shoot at targets.