Xboxaddict.com Article
Sleeping Dogs Nightmare in North Point DLC
by Brent RobertsHave you ever gone out trick or treating as a young child and dreaded going up to that one particular house because instead of giant candy bars, you got an apple or instead of sugar enriched goodies, you get wheat grass juice? This is the premise behind Sleeping Dogs' Halloween DLC treat, Nightmare in North point. When you try to comically combine a very good sandbox game with a lot of amazing qualities with vintage 80's B-roll horror movies, you would think that you would get some demented and twisted joke of a horror movie, and well, you'd be right, well, somewhat.
To start things off, the main character Wei Shen was out on a date with his girlfriend and as they were walking out the topic of Jiang Shi ghosts gets brought up which causes Wei Shen to do what some would call, disrespect the Jian Shi ghosts. This turns out to be a horrible idea as one materializes right in front of him. During the oncoming confrontation, will witness his girlfriend be kidnapped. Now Wei Shen must fight off the spirits by learning ancient Chinese magic in an attempt to uncover who is behind all of this and save his girlfriend. While the overall story of this DLC doesn't stack anywhere close to the main game, the attempt at an almost bad humor horror film really doesn't do Sleeping Dogs any justice.
Get ready to run as the majority of the time in Nightmare in North Point you will find yourself chasing and going after something or someone or fighting off hordes of Jian Shi ghosts in quite cumbersome action sequences. This is the unfortunate circumstance of having ghosts who act like zombies, yet have blood sucking abilities of a vampire. While you may be focused on one ghost, another can very easily come from the side and since they will be unseen, they will latch onto you and drain your health until you shake the sticks so hard you think they will snap from your controller. Now repeat this experience over and over again throughout the whole DLC and you will get a taste of just what real Hell would possibly be like.
With so many inspirations to draw from, when you go through the Nightmare in North Point DLC, you get the feeling that the company is walking a fine line between paying artistic tribute to other games, and failing to produce even a decent knock off of what we have already seen from games such as Red Dead Redemption and more. This is such a shame to because Sleeping Dogs is without question a very good game and this DLC seems to take a step back from the quality that we already know is there. There are some high points though in the DLC but only for those who have finished Sleeping Dogs. Unfortunately there is very little here that would warrant a 560MS price point unless you felt you absolutely had to experience something that other games have already done a better job of doing.
