Sleeping Dogs

- A huge ton of moves can be cancelled into a Counter. If you see someone flash red, even if you're in the middle of a punch, press Counter anyway and you'll probably be fine.

- Your xp per mission is limited; you'll see red triangles fill up as you go through a mission (Triad XP, for brutal takedowns) and blue shields empty (Cop XP, for breaking shit). You can replay the mission from the social centre to try to earn a better score and thus more xp out of it.

- When you get a girl's number, be sure to go out with her. Eelationships are just an extra side mission, and the end reward is getting to see one of the types of collectible on your world map.

- Enemies come in four main types: Normal guys - Do whatever to them. Taller guys, often with boxing gloves - Love blocking. Grapples nearly always work. Fat guys - Don't try to grab them. They can't block worth a damn. Weapon guys - Don't try to grab them. Stuns work pretty well here?

- The best moves I've found to get early on: Slim Jim is one of the first Cop upgrades, and lets you into any car, no alarms, no questions asked. Charge Knee Stun is one of the first Melee upgrades, and punches through blocks like paper. Right after getting it you can get a pretty great followup attack for it, too.

- Contrary to what the game implies, you don't need to go back to your apartment after hacking every single camera. The other camera icons do disappear, but they'll return once you travel a little. Then you can go finish off several of them at once.

- There is no reason not to be buffed pretty much all the time; Food buffs health regeneration, Herbal tea buffs toughness, a massage buffs how fast your "face" bar rises, and energy drinks buff melee damage. They aren't essential but they are all fairly cheap.

- You are given guns in missions that require them, sometimes you'll keep the gun after the mission, but most of the time you'll be unarmed. If you want a gun you can disarm a cop when they are shooting at you (wanted level 2 or above I think).

- After a woman gives you her phone number it'll be in your phone. Calling them will go on a date, when you get a reward then thats their missions finished.

- Visit the gym (when it unlocks) for fight practice on each type of enemy. Big fat guys cant be grappled but never block strikes, some guys block strikes but are easy to grapple and so on. Doing this once can really help you get to grips with the combat and recognise enemy types.

- When you unlock the flunky who delivers you a car, you can change what vehicle it is on the garage screen. Stolen cars dont get added to your garage, only cars you buy.

- There are vendors who will sell you furniture for your apartments, they arent marked on the map and you have to find them in the city. The furniture has no in game effect but looks nice.

- Environmental kills look good and immediately eliminate an opponent, so if you are being overwhelmed by numbers grab someone and push their face through an extractor fan.

- The fastest way to escape a police chase is to destroy the cars chasing you either by running them off the road or by shooting out their tires. Tires are faster, if you're a decent shot while driving.

- Taxis are remarkably affordable, the fee seems to cap at $310 for a 2500m+ drive, and considering most lockboxes contain at least $5,000...

- When you load a game you always load in to Wei's nearest home base; some missions ask you to sleep, so save & load to warp to the nearest bed.

- XP-increasing clothing isn't really worth it; if you do all the missions and don't drive into everything for negative cop XP you should get pretty close to maxing both branches in a normal playthrough without the XP boost. The +damage sets are great though, at the top end you can KO basic thugs with one flurry of quick strikes and a strong strike vs. needing two or three combos.

- Collect jade statues whenever you can; a fair few of them are locked within building interiors that are only available during certain missions.