This is a game I've meant to play since it came out on the 360, but for some reason never did. Damn, was I missing out! Sure you can call it a GTA clone, but if you are tired of the same western-style cities (oh, NY again? Greaaaaat) and love HK movies, then this game is awesome. Sure it's a little dated, but so what? If you go to Nexus mods and run a bunch of moderizers on it, it not only looks great (oooh, ray tracing!), but it runs silky smooth and is so much fun. On the other hand if you can't stand all that "foreign stuff" and don't care about story or voice acting (James Hong plays the triad head), this isn't going be for you. My only gripe is that the side missions don't have enough variety and can get a bit repetitive. Other than that, it's a stone classic.
After the (imho) unplayable messes that were BS 3 & 4 this is a fine return to form. The animation and art are fantastic and I really enjoyed the story as well. The characters were all entertaining, the dialogue is well scripted and the voice acting is perfect. Some of the puzzles are easy for sure, but some are challenging. Most importantly none are absurd things that you would have to stumble onto by accident because they don't make any logical sense. In BS4 one of the solutions to a puzzle included barring a door then kicking down a brick wall to make a bridge. Who would think that you could kick down a brick wall and it would make a bridge? I'm surprised at all of the swings people are taking at it. It's great to see such a well made point-and-click adventure game in this day and age, and the fact that it pretty much plays like a sequel to BS2 is all the better. Sure there are some indy games trying to emulate 8 and 16 bit graphics that are good, but when was the last time you saw a slickly produced, fun and fast paced Pn'C in the past few decades. Not often.
This is easily one of my all time favorite PC games. I remember being in love with Diablo and then Diablo II came along and blew my mind. After that everyone was talking about what game would be the "Diablo Killer". This is it. I still own the original discs and have played through the game numerous times over the years. If you've ever played it you know that playing it trough doesn't mean just beating the game once. There are three levels of difficulty and each one adds more monsters, mini-bosses, major bosses, rare equipment, craftables and pretty much everything that makes it so much fun. That said, I still bought the Anniversary Edition because it now has more stuff! And more is always better, right? The best part of the deal is that your old saves from the original discs are compatible! You can pick up right where you left off. Too bad we never got a chance to see a sequel. No, Grim Dawn doesn't count.
For the price it's pretty cool, but it's just a handful of maps with only a voice-over narrator linking them together into any kind of story. Also, to stretch out the limited gameplay, there is no save feature and it is really easy to die. It feels like a protracted demo than a full game. The play mechanics and the graphics are good and there is a ton of potential for an amazing game. I hope there is a sequel that realizes that potential.
As a straight up comparison to Dragonfall, I think Hong Kong falls a little short. The tactical elements have been nicely refined with more options, upgrades and combat maps, but the storyline is not up to par. That's not to say it isn't a great game for $20, it absolutely is. The HK hub is nowhere near as engaging or elaborate as Berlin was. The ending is somewhat anti-climactic and feels rushed and abrupt and feels a bit short. That said, it's still a hell of a lot of fun and well worth every penny of twenty bucks.
