Recent reviews by Simsal

So i decided to play this. Knowing it was early Alpha i decided that i knew glitches and bugs and issues were going to be plentiful. I'd seen the mod but never had the chance to play it, i sorta decided that the problem with it was all the hassle to go and buy ARMA II and then get the mod.

So the standalone.

My god.

I have never played a game before for such a short time (15 hours at the time) and found such an amazingly simple, wonderful, scary and anexious experience of my life. One moment it can be calm running through a field, next it's on a call to my friends, surrounded by 6 people all armed to the teeth, looking through the site of a wepaon hoping i don't get shot.

The experience of DayZ is something of wonder, it takes a simple concept of zombie survival, and combines it to make you always feel on edge, to feel scared all the time, to make you never trust someone you meet and make you feel so dizzy and confused as to where you even are on the map. The experience of fighting zombies isn't something currently amazing, but playing against other users, fighting for gear, trying to survive while constantly on edge for someone near you. It adds up to making your heart rate race through the roof and have you literally shaking everytime you even think you see someone in the far distance.

Yes. It is DayZ. There are glitches and bugs which make the game unfair, and now and then, make it unenjoyable at times, but for some reason i never ever found these taking away from my experience. It never took out of my immersion into the game... but... made it even better, the bugs and glitches to how the game is just added to my growing experience of this game, making me want to play more, and want to support the game to hopefully see it in a truly wonderful state. It will take time. But it's worth it.

A lot of people may not recommend it, but i do, in the current state there isn't a lot to do, and it is Alpha, so you're not buying a finished product and don't expect it to be one soon (From the time of writing). But it will be something of beauty.

Buy it now. Place it aside for a rainy day. If you want it later, and dont want to particpate in Alpha, just buy it now and keep it ready for when it becomes the amazing game it is. This is truly one of a kind and i can only help to explain how so through some of my own experiences.

On one day my friend and i were running through one of the major cities, we eventually reached the SW airfield just near Elektro. We went on, knowing a lot of people were around, and found ourselves in trouble, under fire with no idea who was shooting. Paranioia kicked in and we all ran to the nearest military base, i was bleeding from a zombie and had to be bandaged by my friend. My other friend came out and was down the road, communication was bad and we saw him, mistaking him for a foe, my friend aimed his rifle and fired nearly killing our own friend in a paranoid state. We managed to save him and bring him back to saftey, but, we lost more gear than we found.

Another experience was being on the NE airfield, we went into one of the military buildings on the side oppisite the radio tower, we went inside, me and another friend, and killed the person inside... not realising his 4 friends were nearby. We closed the doors and watched the front door, knowing it was the only way in for them. 30 minuets went by, speaking and taunting one another until we all got killed, someone on their team glitched into the back wall and killed us. It was a bad way to go, but still we died and lost.

The last experience i will always remember. I was being trapped into the NE Airfield radio tower with 4 friends, we were wounded, hungry and low on ammo. A standoff occured where slowly we were being killed. I was laid down underneath the stairs. My Blaze rifle in my hand with both shots loaded. Two of them walked in the front, he shot me a few times and then i fired. My shot went into his head and killed him instantly ... BUT ... the bullet continued through him, hit the barrel behind him and ricoched off it, hitting his friend in his legs, breaking them and knocking him out, allowing for my friend to kill him. I died. But with one bullet i killed and heavily wounded another from a bullet ricoche. Something i will always remember.

This game is a true game experience, which can keep you on edge, give you an amazing experience, make you feel scared to the point you're wanting to hide under the desk, and even, as has to me, make me physically shake in situations with other players.

As of Alpha the game is in a very buggy and glitchy state, of which, can make peoples experiences lessen, and most just hate due to this simple reason, and due to the lag issues with the rendering of the game engine. I say ignore these. Deal with the issues, push past them, and you'll see the true beauty of a game which has given me more experience in less than 20 hours, than any other game ever has done.

If you are wanting to buy it, but not one to deal with issues, bugs or whatever, just leave it aside and wait until all those are sorted. To those veterans, it is missing tones of the mod version in the current state, but will be better than the mod itself gauranteed. And to those who want to push past those, and help developement... then get it bought a play now.

10/10 a true game experience which changes how a zombie survival game is, and shows others, how it should be.

A friend got me this game saying it was rather decent. The sale was on and well i decided to say yes, from what i had seen, the game didn't look to bad, looked fun but also looked a little boring, which left me a little unwanting to play it. The steam sale was on when my friend got it me, so i had all of the DLC along with the game, which being honest, is a lot, from two extra DLC missions which add on, to ones which add to your triad and police level, to cars and clothes. There's plenty given from this to help gain your interest within the game.

So, from that being said, lets start from the beginning. From my own slight worries and fears for the game, the opening looked promising, controls are standard and decent but felt a little clunky at first, i played more and got past the opening. The story showed it's inital idea and the concept was rather interesting but was... slow to really push this idea until much later on in the game.

Once the story had been laid out and i had done the starting missions i found myself sitting there for 15 minuets as it showed me all of the DLC, what it had given me, and all the bonuses.. Which is great and all.. But it meant that my Triad and police levels shot to level 8, same with face meter, meaning by a quater way in i was max leveled on triad and police. It meant i could do more fun earlier on, but made the game a little "to" easy as it clearly laid out missions with mind off you gradually gaining upgrades, but, it was still fun to be kicking the ♥♥♥♥ out of enemies from the start and feeling like a Kung Fu master.

After a few hours into the game the story had been slow. Wasn't gaining my interest and the side missions were fun up to a certain amount of time, even with all the extra content given out to me. So, i ended up leaving this on the side, in my libary for a time.

I eventually came back after a few weeks and decided to have another go, i had an issue with the game crashing, easily fixed by validating the files but still was a pain. I opened my save and didn't remember anything, nothing suck in or stuck with me for the weeks, but, determined from reviews and some walkthroughs i started another new game and worked my way up to the place i was. But this time, i found myself more involved into the story when i started to understand the situation the player is in, what you're doing, and why the story is so evidently slow from the go.

I managed to start to work my way through and found myself becoming more and more engrossed into the storyline, but not just that, i found myself starting to have conflict between being a traid and being an undercover police officer, something, that isn't easy to do, question a player: Are you a traid? Or are you still an officer? Especially when you can just run down people without stress, kill police officers, break speeding limits and more. Depending on this it kinda made me think well where do i go. I moved into the police cases aspect to the game then.

The cases are a welcome additon, technically, a side mission spanning through the game the police cases are truly interesting and allow for you to keep to your roots as an officer while being drawn more and more into the crazy, murdering world of the traids. The missions slowly unlock as you play through the main missions, all cases being diverse into what you look into and some even being rather shocking from the final result. But in the end, you still feel like you've made an achievement into solving them and trying to stick to being a cop. Especially when you go from missions stealing/Killing and all this, to doing something for the better.

From being more into the game now i took a look at the aspects of gameplay. Fighting was solid, guns felt powerful and fun to use and even driving on a keyboard and mouse was very enjoyable and responsive. Fighting is similar to that of Batman: Arkham series where you hit people with combos and then counter attacks as they start to come in landing on you. Despite feeling like a kung-fu god, going more and more in lead me to being killed and defeated easily by larger eneimes and more in groups. So i explored, found health shrines to take more hits, and went and found the statues to learn more moves as well, it made it interesting but, the statues are all generally in the way in missions, making searching for them kinda irrelivent, it's almost like they put them in the way in missions so you pick them up anyway and learn the moves, not like you have to go looking to truly gain an upper hand, just a way of slowly keeping your fighting up to par with the rest. Despite that, it was still very, very fun and the fighting never really got repetative when you're breaking someones leg and then flying kicking someone else in the head.

So i had gotten later in. SPOILER To the point where Wei had become a red pole, moving up the ranks, working for uncle Poe and managing to learn more about the higher ranks of the triads And i found myself being more and more drawn in, especially to the traid side, beggining more to forget about my police side and loose myself in order to gain more into the traids. It was around here i found that sleeping dogs wasn't afraid to deal with much more horrid situations. The game had been very tame, not a lot of blood, some decent fighting but nothing counting as shocking.

Until...

The wedding... Boy, did the game soon show me is was taking it more seriously, and was not afraid to show much more graphical violence, showing me the world of which i was trying to get into. It showed the horror of what can happen inside of this world and the danger i was in. Especially when you see Wei in a blood stained suit, trying to comfort a dying Winston It showed me it was prepared to shock me and show me more of the horrors of the world, making it show, sleeping dogs was able to remain serious and deal with these situations in a decent way.

Past that the game toned down a little but the story, REALLY, picked up for me. It moved up more and more, making it even more interesting and getting me even more into it, so much so, i found myself playing it late at night as the battle between being with the triads and being a police officer forever was nagging there, and was clearly showing for Wei as well.

Much later in and near the end a lot happened, a lot had to be taken in, the game had built up this tension that just.... fell short. The ending felt like all this tension and hard work into getting me to think of either being a triad or police just wasn't brought to a full conclusion. For those who have finished. The ending felt like you either kill big Smile Lee as either an officer of the law, or as revenge for him killing your triad friends . For those who haven't, the ending only makes you feel like you've done it for one side or the other... and nothing else than that, which was a damn shame to all that hard work going into it. Regardless, it was still fun and enjoyable.

Before the ending there is also another bloody scene, which i warn, those who cannot stand blood or worse, look away when it happens, and trust me, you know when it will.

Overall sleeping dogs truly got me into it, got me to battle how i felt with being an undercover cop and got me to see the grousome side of everything which happened and could happen in such a game. I look forward to the DLC and would recommend this to anyone. It is slow to get into, but damn fun and interesting once you do get into it. I would say buy with all the DLC as well, as it's more worth it that way, but either way, sleeping dogs is a damn good game and i would rate it 9/10 from everything i've played. Just make sure that during some scenes you're prepared, as much as the game seems a little goofy, it handles some truly horrifying moments seriously and well.