True Crime returns, kinda. Square Enix announces "Sleeping Dogs" or: White people don't have to be in everything, it turns out.

Lost in the furor surrounding the initial wave of Grand Theft Auto clones was the fact that Luxoflex's True Crime: Streets of LA was actually a pretty decent game. It's varied gameplay and branching storyline were enough to forgive its obvious inspiration in Rockstar's opus. True Crime's unique contributions to the open-world genre may be minimal, but I will always appreciate it for its awesome brawling system, the ability to frisk pedestrians for drugs at will, and for bringing some desperately needed slow-mo dives to a sandbox style game.

Its sequel, True Crime: Streets of New York brought predictable advancements and changes to the model of its predecessor, but never cracked "noteworthy" status. The slated third game in the series, True Crime: Hong Kong was cancelled almost exactly a year ago when publisher Activision thought it wasn't up to snuff. They must have been on a significant amount of snuff to have thought that, because the game looked incredible. Square Enix obviously thought so, and copped the rights to the game a few months after its shelving.

Now, Square Enix is giving True Crime: Hong Kong a second chance under the new title Sleeping Dogs, a title originally thought to be reserved for a third Kane & Lynch game. While it's sad to see Kane & Lynch go, Sleeping Dogs' proof-of-concept short film looks promising.

Man, Joysitq got linked to like ten times above. Hit the jump for the short and a brief commentary on how racist everyone secretly is.



The first thing you should notice is that there is not a single white person in the entire teaser. In an age where it is next to impossible to make a movie without a white male in the lead role, video games continue to prove that they are one of the more progressive mediums around. In fact, True Crime has yet to have a white male protagonist, unless you count Streets of LA's Nick Kang, but he was half Chinese, half douche, so I'm not sure that counts.

As troubling as the trailer's refusal to show any in-game assets is, the live-action short seems to showcase the game's purported gameplay stylings. Hong Kong is an incredible setting regardless of medium, and hopefully the trailer's promised blend of shooting, fighting and driving will allow players to adequately explore it. Not to mention the obvious John Woo implications of setting an action game in the Triad underworld. Color me excited.