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I finished Sleeping Dogs today, and I'm here to tell you that you should probably go out and buy it. If you ever wondered how Shenmue 3 would pan out, this is pretty much it assuming Ryo turned into Jackie Chan: Supercop and started mashing heads into freezers. As someone who has spent a reasonable amount of time wandering around Hong Kong (and also wrote an altogether too long dissertation on the politics and symbolic imagery of 90s HK cinema back in Uni) I was dying to see how this would pan out. After an hour or so of playtime, I was close to being overwhelmed at how damned Hong Kongy everything was. That first walk around the market? INCREDIBLE. I think the devs went for trips to HK to record the sound and capture general observations, and it shows - everything from the ding ding the shops make when you walk in / out to the perfectly replicated noise of the pedestrian crossings is all here. My opening game highpoint was jumping up onto some rooftops and suddenly hearing a...

No trip to Hong Kong would be complete without a visit to the below locations. Here's a handy diorama, or whatever you call them. No idea. The big round object is the Hong Kong Space Museum. The large building south of that is the Art Museum, and the triangle shaped thing that is clearly a Star Trek vessel in disguise is the Cultural Centre with a gallery, music events and a shop that has a book where Bruce Lee sports the hair of a Werewolf. On the left hand side is the place where you get the ferry - OH MY UPCOMING BLOG ENTRY FORESHADOWING - but today is all about the arty stuff. So hey, the Hong Kong Museum of Art. It's ludicrously cheap to get in, and there's some amazing things on display - all manner of statues, paintings, clothing, calligraphy and more besides. Unfortunately, I can't show you any pictures from inside the building because there are signs everywhere demanding "no photos due to copyright". I'm pretty sure Han Dynas...

Given the choice of staying in Chungking Mansions or Mirador Mansion , the clear winner was Mirador due to it not popping up as often in the "something horrible has happened" news report stakes. Mirador is a huge slab of apartments all looped around a building that's seen better days. Slap bang in the most interesting part of Tsim Sha Tsui , dodging people selling fake watches and working out where the lifts are is your first port of call. Going inside, you'll see security guards everywhere and about three floors worth of shops selling electronics and slightly terrible clothing. Of course, all of that pales in insignificance when placed next to posters telling you a window fell out. Enjoy reenacting The Omen, kids! You're probably bored of looking at storefronts now, so here's a picture of the security screens for the elevators. If you ever watched Chungking Express - and HOW COULD YOU NOT HAVE - the little monitor thing will be...

Recently I went to Hong Kong, and a fun time was had by all (apart from the bit where it was freezing up a mountain, that sucked). Here are some random shots of Istanbul airport, because look at this guy. Every now and again he took out a big metal stick thing and did something to the ice cream with it. I'd suggest "stir", but it all looked a bit more complicated than that. Elsewhere, I stumbled upon a bookshop selling endless copies of a book with gun kicking action adorning the cover: If you're wondering who he is, Wikipedia will enlighten you because I haven't got a clue. Nice threads though. After leaving the bookshop (and I really had to, because everything was in Turkish) I thought I'd wandered onto the set of Mass Effect when I saw this amazing hologram woman rambling on about all the planes I could be missing: As it turns out, she's just a projection on a bit of board so that was a little bit of a let down. Directly opposite lot...