Barking Up The Right Tree: Sleeping Dogs' PC Features
To be perfectly honest, Sleeping Dogs wasn't really on my radar until very recently. I've been burnt-out on sweeping crime epics since GTA IV failed to really hook me, and my opinion of it ended up sleeping with the fishes. But I'm also a sucker for fully realized worlds, and Sleeping Dogs seems to have that in spades. The Hong Kong setting seems rife with detail, and I'm pretty excited about just walking around and seeing the sights. Or parkouring around and kung-fu kicking the sights right in their immaculately rendered faces. Regardless, it'll all look and feel quite nice - at least, if a new trailer outlining Sleeping Dogs' PC features is anything to go on.
In short, we're looking at all the usual DX 11 suspects: ambient occlusion, anti-aliasing, better shadows, high-res textures, etc, etc, etc. And all of this comes in addition to recently announced TF2 bonus items on Steam. The end result looks quite attractive. Also, wet. And rainy. Now I'm really worried that Wei will catch a cold while in prison. And that'd be just the worst.
It definitely looks pretty great, but I do wish we lived in a world where "PC features" weren't, well, features. I'd like to think we're just about past the day and age where it was shocking, daring, and edgy to actually pay attention to PC gamers, but - even when throwing us a bone - publishers continue perpetuating the mentality that we're second-class citizens. That leaves the door open for others to stay mired in old ways of thinking - to delay releases and saddle us with online requirements because we're apparently just a slightly reformed den of thieves. I'll never stop championing folks who give our platform proper love, but I hope it'll come from a place of pride someday. I'm tired of being game publishers' PR-bolstering equivalent of a pity date.