Sleeping Dogs has had a long, difficult development cycle, starting life as an original game, being morphed into an entry in the True Crime series, and then going through another transition as it made its way back to stand-alone IP. Many games wouldn’t have survived one shift, let alone two, but developer United Front Games wasn’t going to let a little thing like that get in the way of its unbridled ambition.

We recently had a chance to go hands-on for an extended period with the game, and came out not only impressed, but convinced that it has a shot to be one of the coolest, most entertaining games of 2012.

We’ve played dozens of games set in New York and a handful set in San Francisco. London? Been there, done that. Hong Kong is a relatively new space for open-world games, and from our time exploring the streets we definitely felt like we were exploring an area we had never set foot in, which is more than we expect from Grand Theft Auto V.

It’s also a different society, which makes for a unique vibe. One mission we tried out, for instance, had us bashing up a van transporting people from one location to another and then stealing their passengers. Apparently, the van services around Hong Kong are actually run by the Triad, and the different groups will sometimes clash over popular routes. It’s a somewhat silly thing, but it’s unlike anything we’ve experienced in other open-world games, for better or worse.

We’d already seen the beginning of the game when we checked out Sleeping Dogs a few months ago, but seeing a later section of the game gave us a better idea of how Shen needs to juggle his Triad duties with his police work. Players will earn points for either their police or Triad sides for decision made during missions, letting them play the undercover role in any way they want.

We also saw some side missions, including the ability to beat up a bunch of drug dealers and then tap into a nearby security camera. After a quick mini-game, Shen could return home to watch the camera, alerting police when a criminal activity was taking place there and watching them swoop in for the arrest. It’s minor, but neat, and should flesh out the idea of being an undercover cop outside of the cutscenes.

Originally, Sleeping Dogs wasn’t going to have any ranged weapons at all - Hong Kong, the game’s setting, isn’t filled with automatic weapons, and the Triad isn’t known for kicking down doors and littering their rival’s corpses with bullets. With that in mind, the game’s development started with the intent to keep every combat interaction a personal one, so it’s no wonder that the melee system is outstanding.

Anyone who has played a recent Batman game will know exactly what to do one the tutorial kicks in. Protagonist Wei Shen can execute strong and light attacks, beating his enemies into submission, but more important is his ability to counter attacks. Just like in the Arkham games, a small notification over the head of an opponent signals the start of their attack, and a quick counter will send Shen into action, countering the ability and taking his enemy down.

Besides simply beating foes into submission, Shen can upgrade his melee skills as well, learning new techniques throughout the game. When we played we opted to choose an arm-breaking maneuver, which let us grapple an enemy and… well, break his arm.

It’s more complex than that, though. Doing missions for the police or for the Triad will raise their respective levels, opening up takedowns for the police side and brutal, unforgiving maneuvers for the Triad’s.

Adding another layer to the melee is the ability to use environmental objects to finish off foes. These, too, are marked, and it’s easy enough to grab an enemy, drag them over to a dumpster, and throw them inside. That’s light when compared to the other attacks we saw, though – Shen can also throw enemies into incinerators, toss them onto meat hooks, or smash their faces into fan blades.

Whenever you do this, it actually has a chance to intimidate opponents, which will send Shen into a frenzy and have a chance to scare off enemies. Which, obviously, makes sense, since there’s no better deterrent to fight than seeing someone toss your buddy onto a meat hook.

That’s not to say that there isn’t gunplay, however. Guns do play a role in Sleeping Dogs’ combat, and it’s an extremely fun one. Enemies will sometimes have guns, and since they hurt a lot – as guns often do – the player should make a b-line towards the opponent to disarm him. Once the gun is in Shen’s hand, the gameplay shifts to that of a typical third-person shooter, with cover, aiming, blind-fire, and all of the other things you expect.

But what makes it interesting is the slow-motion. Whenever Shen jumps over an object and aims, the action slows down a crawl, letting the player clear out a room before hitting the ground. Weapons don’t have a ton of ammo in them, so it’s almost more like a cool power-up than an actual gun, but it elicits more of a powerful feeling than guns usually do in other shooters.

Also on the “unrealistic but really fun” side is the ability to bash other cars while driving. This goes well beyond simply swiping from side to side to attempt to run a vehicle off the road – you’re actually able to execute a smash move that treats your vehicle like a weapon, whipping it towards another car violently and smashing them. A few hits and they’re knocked out.

This, too, was extremely fun, even if it didn’t make a lick of physical sense. It also provided an alternate way to take care of cop cars that were chasing us down, letting us disable the vehicles without murdering the officers behind the wheel. Which is good, because…

Driving cars through the streets of Hong Kong was plenty fun, even if learning to drive on the other side of the road was a bit jarring at first, though the coolest element of the vehicular side was the ability to leap from car to car, Just Cause 2 style.

It’s hilariously unrealistic, but we really don’t care. It’s incredibly fun, and we ended up jumping between cars whenever our vehicle would take damage, or… just because we felt like it. Seriously, jumping between cars is cool – we didn’t need an excuse to do it.

Every time we see Sleeping Dogs we're amazed. In many ways, it reminds us of Just Cause 2 - another game published by Square Enix that blew past our expectations and ended up being one of the best open-world games of the generation.

Will it live up to that legacy? Will it be even better? Only time will tell, and we'll hopefully find out more at E3.

And if you're interested in more games we're going to see at E3, check out our 51 most anticipated games of E3 and our XCOM Enemy Unknown preview.