Sleeping Dogs

Although shooting games are more common than pocket lint, sandbox games aren't too far behind. Ever since Grand Theft Auto 3 entered the scene and popularised the open world sandbox genre, people have been wanting a piece of that pie. One of them was True Crime: Streets Of LA, which was an admirable little big game if not somewhat flawed in some bigger areas. It managed to spawn a sequel and then it nearly spawned another until some legal disputes not only pulled the plug, but chewed it in bits and buried the evidence outside. At least... it nearly did. Then Square Enix stepped in to give United Front a hand with the project and changed enough things to make it its own game so that they don't get in trouble. That game... is Sleeping Dogs, and honestly, thank *bleep* it got released because it's not only the single greatest game of 2012, but a really good *bleep*ing game on its own terms.

A lot of it is owed to its immersing qualities. For one thing, the story and the way that it's to...