written by owen, published 2026-Jul-18, comment
Play through
First impression the menu is simple and neat, nothing too flashy. The game is combat heavy, cars are easy to drive and the objectives are clear and easy to toggle. Game runs smooth for the most part.
The combat feels like batman arkam but its not as sticky. I like the flow if the game and the voice acting. The combat is a bit finicky but I am getting accustomed to it as I get upgrades. The cars are fun to drive. I am sinking into this game, likely just as I got sunk into Watch Dogs. The music is different which is plus as I get sick of common EA listened popular music.
I spent far too much time in fightclubs beating guys up trying to learn the fighting engine of the game. It's addictive to just roll up on some gangs, minding their own business then proceeding to beat them up. A one man ass kicking kungfu machine like jet lee. Fun times.
As the game progresses you gain useful skills that make the fights easier and allow for some unique bullet time effects. Its a good game. I am surprised people do not talk about this game as often as they do about GTA. Driving is fun but if you walk around you will find more stuff and drug busts.
I am not sure if sleeping dogs is better than watch dogs or gta 3. But eitherway its a good game, good vibes, the Asian gangster culture is just different. Different music, different noises on the street. Between buying street food, doing drug busts and visiting massage parlors - the game gives you a few things to do with enhance the fight club vibe. Its like you are living in Streets of Rage from the Sega Genesis era. The focus on fist fights and kungfu gets fun after you unlock a few skills in the linear skill tree.
I am 11 hours into the game and already done 50% of the story missions. I just realized that there are people in my phone contacts that I can call for sidequests at any time. I should do those now before the main quest line ends.
At this point in the game I am pretty much unstoppable in fights. Sometimes I just ram groups of guys with cars to save time. I am really slowing down with this game because I am more than 80% complete and I do not want it to end.
How it ended
A some point in the game you reach a level of flow where you can jump in, do a few missions with no hitch or struggle. All the systems just work and there is not enough time to listen to the music on the radio before you reach your destination. The game is good once you get a hang of the counter system. The end does not over stay its welcome and doesnt try to over stay its welcome.
Conclusion
My rating 9/10. This game is an awesome, open world game set in an unsual city. I wish I could spend more time in the car listening to the sound track. Must play. More fighting than shooting. its like a modern brawl brothers.
Strategy
Playing on easy I find that if I drive up to a drug bust or a group of gangsters I can pretty much kill them all with my car if they are standing on street level. lol, fun times. In another drug bust I drove up and everyone is packing heat and it did not end well. However I did figure out that if you agro the cops they will jump in and kill the gangsters for you if you can create a choke point with cars. Remember to check your phone contacts and call them for sidequests and sex.
Some of the best music that is played inside missions; I had to park the car at some points in order to listen to the music because there is practically no other chance to hear it because you spend so little time in a car and the missions end quickly.
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written by owen, published 2026-Jun-08, comment
Play through
I am not sure if I am fighting snow pirates or jungle pirates. Its pirates everywhere and shooty shooty. The game feels super generic as if it was designed to be an online co-op shooter. The levels are short with repetitive activities; activate 2 switches here then run to the other side, repeat. There seems to be no point to it all except to shoot the next next thing that pops up out of the ground.
Not sure if it worth playing this any further. I skipped it twice so far in the play loop. No real urge to jump back into these basic missions. Even with the creature designs.
How it ended
The game feels pointless. Like playing fortnight, each new round resets the entire play space and you collect new weapons and you get new objects. The issue is the new objectives are just a re-skin of the old objectives with more annoying enemies.
Conclusion
My rating 4/10. Its a pointless looter shooter. This is the lowest score I have given to a game so far. I think it was designed to be a co-op shooter. There is not much to playing by yourself. There is some story but it lost my interest really quickly. I uninstalled the disk but did not realize until I heard the diskdrive buzzing like a chainsaw.
Strategy
I just make a b-line to the next objective. Nothing seems to be really stop you. You are surrounded by stuff that exists only to waste your ammo.
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written by owen, published 2026-May-27, comment
Not sure how long since I finished DS2, now its time to dive into DS1 even though I had abandoned it because of the bad frame rate. I had so much fun with DS2 that I had to give DS1 a second shot. Hopefully this game doesn't take 90 hours.
Yes, back into this, the frame rate is still terrible. Terrible in a 20 fps kinda way. Terrible everywhere, even the smallest areas. It got so bad that I started buying fire bombs from the first vender I found because I could not time the parry on faster enemies. I was never a parry king but this did not help my progress. Now I have resorted to cheesing the quicker enemies that have lots of reach. Dark-Dark Souls is 20fps Slideshow on 360. At least in the first areas. You get accustomed to it after 20 hours. lol
The interface is a backward step, of course, that is to be expected when I play games in the wrong order. I find it hard to tell if I am encumbered. Most of the stats are the same but if you go back to the bonfire all the enemies reset but without the limit. Managing weapons is more annoying.
I headed down to the catacombs and died about 500 times. I had to run in diagonal lines to avoid skeletons that never die then turn into wheels of death. After I beat the boss by hacking at it with a very long sword wrapped in lightning I died and lost all 18k souls by being careless - dont be careless.
I am 38 hours deep into the game and I can say that the worse part is deep in the sewers with the poison water - thank god I got out of that alive.
60 hours in and I am at the 4 kings with 40 strength and I think I might have to grind another 6 levels in order to be able to take down this boss. I eventually left the 4 kings, no way I was going to take down those guys with my current level. I headed toward Andor Lando to what I would later find to be the 2 most annoying bosses in the entire game.
80 hours in and I am in the end game now. These final set of bosses are a train wreck. Even though I am strength 44 I can still get wrecked by a enemies hiding in the dark and the good awful catacombs. I am trying my best to push through.
88 hours in and I am in the crystal caves walking over invisible bridges. This game is some kind of self inflicted torture. Darks souls 2 was never this hard. I made it through the archives, down to the crystal caves. I am not even sure how these areas are connected anymore. Maybe I do the dark cave of the giants next.
After the crystal cave I hit up the fire levels and steamed through 2 bosses in one sitting. I put on all the fire protection I could find and tanked my way through.
Its a good thing that I donot play this game exclusively because it would most likely drive me mad. After 90 hours into the game and still finding new areas and dying in new ways. When the game comes back around in the rotation my brain literally blanks on the last thing I did because the game world is so huge and stressful that my brain just dumps it all. Right now I am in the Tomb of the giants getting my ass kicked.
Now I am stuck at the four kings and my leveling seems to have stalled at 83. I will have to look up a good strat to beat this boss. The run back is tricky but doable as long as I maximize my run speed.
The four kings is kicking my ass all over the place. I am nearing 100 hours in this game since I started playing it in Aug2025. The last 20 hours are probably be cause of this one boss. Should I give up? I have started roaming other areas of the game looking for things that might help in the fight but I am already at level 89. Leveling up requires nearly 50k souls and does not add much to the stats.
I finally beat the 4 kings after about 20 retries. I used the Dragon Tooth my slowest but highest damage weapon. This boss fight is a damage race. I also equipped the stone armor then precoded to play wack a mole with the boss until it died. I had to also warp to a bonfire that gave me 10 health flasks. The extra flasks helped me tank the battle to the end. Where to next? Not sure.
How it ended
After 114 hours I finally beat Gwyn by hiding behind a small mound in the level. Same strategy I used with the gold twins. With patience and some amount of luck I finally completed this dang game. What a journey! I am not even sure how long it took. Got the games in Jan 2025. Started writing this review in Aug 2025. Now is May 2026. That is roughly 9 months of on and off play to reach to the end. Considering that I was stuck for a bit in some areas and had some terrible experiences figuring out the harder bosses.
Conclusion
This is the worst version of the game to play right now because of the terrible framerate. But guess what? Its all apart of the struggle. And in the end I can say I played the game in the original formate - how it was ment to be played, lol. 8/10. Dark-Dark Souls Slideshow. So with this game I have finally completed both Souls games on the 360. If you have a choice play DS2. DS1 is harder and more annoying.
Strategy
A easy way to test if you are encumbered (carrying too heavy a weapon making you roll slow) is to remove all your gear then roll around. Do this so that you can see the difference in the roll animation.
In the early game I spent alot of souls on fire bombs. Firebombs are cheap and pretty much infinite so I can do cheap damage from a distance especially on those faster enemies. Always homeward bone after a boss fight. In the late game you really have to ensure that you level up consistently because the enemies do not play around, if you have alot of souls be extra careful not to lose them recklessly because you will need everyone.
Another late game strat is to avoid fighting certain enemies in new areas until you find a bond fire that you can safety run back to. No sense gaining all these souls with no near by bonfire to go back to. Bond fires are elusive and are often right around the corner after you are already dead. Avoid annoying enemies until you figure out the lay of the land.
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