Undercover cop Wei Shen returns to Hong Kong to infiltrate and bust triad gangs. It’s Grand Theft China.
Genre: Open-world action adventure.
What it's about: Undercover cop Wei Shen returns to Hong Kong to infiltrate and bust triad gangs. It's Grand Theft China.
Why we should care: It's a remastered version for next-generation consoles of the 2012 game. It also comes bundled with several new chapters, originally offered as additional downloads.
What happens in the first hour: A drug deal is going down in rainy Hong Kong, but things quickly go sideways. Suddenly, we're chasing our target through a junk-boat-filled harbour.
It's as thrilling a game intro as there is, since Wei Shen appears to be a parkour master. The hustle and bustle of the city flashes by as we hop over counters in make-shift seafood restaurants and duck through people's house boats.
The chase ends in a bust and Shen winds up in jail, where he meets an old accomplice who tries to recruit him back into the triad fold.
It's exposition time. We learn that Shen is also an undercover cop, so this new "in" with the triads is actually just what he's looking for.
It's Star Wars meets John Woo. Shen is the Jedi who must choose between the forces of light and dark, except with Chinese gangsters playing the role of the Sith.
Now it's time for triad initiation, which involves a bunch of goons beating on Shen. Except Shen is also a kung fu master. Okay, so now this is more like John Woo meets Bruce Lee.
The fighting is very much like the Batman Arkham games, so perhaps it's like John Woo meets Batman… okay, okay, enough with the analogies.
What's different here is that Shen can use his environment for particularly brutal finishers. A slam of a thug's head into a phone booth or a mashing of one's face into an air conditioner fan. It's not pretty, but it's a hoot.
Up next, we get to wander around a Hong Kong night market. It's all colour and noise with cheap suit and pirate DVD vendors. There's just enough Cantonese being used to make it feel legit. This virtual Hong Kong has a real life to it, and it looks even sharper on the Xbox One than it did on the Xbox 360.
We meet Shen's superior, a British dude who gives him crap the way police lieutenants always do on cop shows. If you've seen any Hong Kong action movie, you know he's going to end up being the corrupt bad guy at the end.
Fifty minutes in and we finally get to the full open world of Hong Kong. Shen's apartment is ghetto but spacious, but he does own a motorcyle so he's free to explore.
The city itself is magnificent, a ticking and whirring beehive of activity that's faithful to the energy of the real thing. There's even a radio channel that plays Beijing opera music. How awesome is that?
Highlights: Parkour chases and timing-based kung fu combat, along with the thrilling environmental finishers provide a solid base to the action. The setting is also phenomenally well done and looks even better on next-gen.
Lowlights: The storyline is trite, but that's actually a strength to anyone looking for an homage to Hong Kong action movies.
Time suck factor: It's an open-world game, so expect it to take a long time, especially with side missions and the extra included downloadable content.
Worth more than an hour: Absolutely if you like Grand Theft Auto and/or Hong Kong cinema, or if you missed Sleeping Dogs the first time around.