Max Payne vs. Wei Shen: The Edges

Weapons

Long Range: Heckler and Koch G36 Assault Rifle vs. Enfield SA80 L85A2 Assault Rifle w/Heckler & Koch AG36 Grenade Launcher

First up, a dual between both of these warriors’ long range weapons. These guns are in many ways remarkably similar; they have the same caliber round (5.56x45mm NATO), have the same ammo capacity (30), and almost the same rate of fire (750 vs. 755). Both assault rifles are noted to be lightweight and easily maneuverable for urban combat situations, with the G36 having a slight advantage in weight, (8 lbs to roughly 11 lbs), but being longer than the Enfield (39.33 in vs. 30.91 in). In terms of maneuverability I would give a slight advantage to the Enfield, seeing the greater difference in length (roughly 9 inches) versus the much smaller difference in weight (a 3 pound difference). However, these weapons are designed to be long ranged, and their overall effective firing range is one of the most important factors here. And effective range is where the G36 dominates, having more than twice the distance of its Enfield counterpart.

But Wei’s rifle has one final trick up its sleeve, its underbarrel grenade launcher. With it Wei can destroy potential cover for Max, flush him out of hiding, or just simply blow him away. While Max is very durable, a direct hit from a grenade is beyond his ability to survive, and even non-direct hit still has a chance to tear up his insides with shrapnel. However using the grenade launcher against Max poses one giant risk for Wei, that can be seen at around 3:30 in the video below.

That is Max is accurate enough to shoot grenades out of the air when in bullet time. As Becker found out the hard way, this can cause the grenade to blow up right in your damn face. If this happens to Wei, there won’t be much left of him but a bloody smear. Worst of all, Wei won’t know to anticipate this and may end up pushing the attack with his grenade launcher when it would have been wiser to back off. The way I see it is this; if Wei decides to use his grenade launcher against Max, he better well kill him with the first shot, otherwise he runs the risk of Max’s bullet time turning his own weapon against him. For this large risk/reward factor, I’m giving the edge to the “safer” gun, the G36.

Edge: Max Payne

       

Mid-Range: Dual Taurus PT92 Pistols & Taurus MT-40 Submachine Gun vs. IMI Desert Eagle Mk. 1 Pistol & Heckler and Koch UMP45 Submachine Gun

A two weapon comparison this time, let’s start with each sides pistols first. If these were two real world gunmen, I would give the edge to the PT92 easily. It’s a lighter, more accurate, and simply more practical combat weapon. While it doesn't have the ridiculous stopping power of the DE, it does hold more than twice the number of rounds, allowing it user to put a greater amount of lead downrange both quicker and more accurately. So why is this even a debate you may ask?

Because neither of these two are real world gunmen and regularly display feats of firearm skill that would probably make Chun Yow-fat green with envy. Wei can fire the notoriously powerful DE with one hand for goodness sakes. How he does this without dislocating his wrist is beyond me…but enough with questioning videogame logic. Max on the other hand can dualwield his PT92s without any real loss of accuracy, which is equally insane. So we have two guys who can pull off feats of inhumanly good aiming with their weapons. Accuracy wise it’s essentially a wash, although with bullet time in effect Max would likely edge this out slightly. However what I think pushes the pistols the furthest in Max’s favor is his ability to dualwield. While this does offer some disadvantages, namely that he loses whatever larger weapon he’s carrying at the time, it does give him a considerable firepower advantage over Wei (regardless of the DE’s .50  round). While dualwielding, Max can fire 34 rounds before even having to reload versus Wei’s 8. So more than four times the number of bullets flying through the air (and even is he only uses one at a time still twice as many). So for the advantage of dualwielding and having a lighter and more compact gun, Max bests Wei in pistols.

But the comparison doesn't end there, because to decide who rules mid-range we also have to look at submachine guns. Wei’s UMP45 has a slight advantage in stopping power over Max’s MT-40 (.45 vs. .40), but the MT-40 in turn has a MASSIVE range advantage (164 feet vs. 492 feet). That combined with its superior rate of fire (twice the amount of the UMP45 with 1,200 rpm to 600), tilts the edge of submachine guns into Max’s favor.

Taking the advantage of both pistols and submachine guns nets Max the overall edge here.

Edge: Max Payne

                       

Short Range: Franchi SPAS-15 Shotgun vs. Hawk Semi-Auto Shotgun

Both shotguns are twelve gauge, meaning they’ll hit with roughly the same amount of power. Size wise, the Franchi is both slightly heavier and longer, but that's not enough to take away from the Franchi’s main advantage of having slightly greater ammo capacity than the Hawk (8 rounds to 5). A very slight advantage, but one that I feel gives the SPAS-15 a leg up on its competition.

Edge: Max Payne

Special 1: Melee Combat vs. Kung Fu

While Max is doubtlessly a skilled hand to hand combatant, Wei would in all likelihood wreck him in melee. He has superior technique, training, and experience fighting in hand to hand, and is in overall better physical condition than his opponent. Max only occasionally engages in melee fights, often only after he’s been disarmed and has no other choice but to do so. Even if Max is armed he should be cautious of getting too close to Wei, as Wei has shown to be very skilled at disarming gun wielding opponents.

Edge: Wei Shen

  

Special 2: Bullet Time vs. Vault Shooting

Two different versions of bullet time face off! Max’s may be one of the originals in gaming, but can it handle the kind used by this up and comer? Looking at the easiest advantages right off the bat: Max’s bullet time is more easily spammable than Wei’s, which needs to be set up through the environment first, while Max only needs to have adrenaline available to use his. His ability to shootdodge in addition to using his standard bullet time also gives him greater versatility than Wei, who is mostly limited to only being able to do one thing with his bullet time (vault over cover). Max on the other hand can catch Wei off-guard by attacking from a variety of different angles (such as diving over whatever Wei is using for cover), and shootdodging is very unpredictable and could easily be used to throw Wei off balance.

On the other hand though, shootdodging can also be a risky technique to use. If not done with some tactical planning (which Max is frankly pretty bad at), he may accidentally find himself leaping into a wall, or worse, right into Wei’s line of fire. While vault shooting is fairly simplistic, there is also very little risk to using it, and if Wei actually decides to use tactics he can use this technique to quickly transition from cover to cover, while Max has to recover after every shootdodge.

A fairly close edge, but I’m giving this to Max. He can use his own bullet time much more easily than Wei, has a greater number of options in using it (ranging from simply improving his accuracy to shootdodging), and frankly seems to incorporate shootdodging much more in his combat style than Wei does with vault shooting.

Edge: Max Payne

Defense: Both of these fighters can take a punch…or fifty. Seriously both of these guys have blatantly superhuman toughness, with Max able to survive being shot in the back, fall multiple stories, and then be in fighting shape a few hours later. Wei on the other hand survived being tortured, shot point-blank in the chest with a shotgun, and being in the midst of a fairly large explosion all in short order. While neither are bulletproof, it’s going to take some serious firepower for either to die. In terms up durability feats, I think Wei barely edges out Max here. He’s younger and is in better shape, meaning he’ll have overall better stamina. And while Max’s durability feats may sound better at first glance, it’s important to note that being shot in the head or surviving that multiple story fall put him out of commission for a considerable amount of time, while Wei was still in fighting shape following his injuries. The main factor that makes this edge difficult to decide is the presence of Max’s painkillers. It is important to note that painkillers will NOT auto-heal Max as they do in the games, as that’s edging too close to gameplay mechanics for me. They will serve the purpose that they do in the story, which is to well…kill Max’s pain (hardy har har). Wei still gets the edge for superior durability feats, although painkillers even this one out a little.

Edge: Wei Shen

X-Factors

Tactics: No Sun Tzus here. Both are mediocre tacticians with little in the way of combat strategy beyond running and gunning. Although both are competent at using the environment around them, neither are perfect, with Max’s shootdodging technique allowing for more tactical versatility but also putting him at risk being riddled with gunfire, while Wei’s vault shooting is tactically safer but more limited in its uses. Looking more carefully though at the times they actually used other tactics besides mindlessly spraying bullets though, I would give the edge to Wei here. He has shown to use stealth much more often than Max (sneaking into buildings to plant bugs) and is more inclined to think on his feet (turning Winston against Ming, managing to sneak past someone by pretending to drunk) than Max is.

Edge: Wei Shen

Training: Both have standard police training, with Wei having trained with both the San Francisco and Hong Kong police, and Max having received training with the NYPD and the DEA. Unfortunately, finding specifics about each departments training methods is difficult, as their websites are annoyingly vague, but both should be roughly even here.

Edge: Even          

Morale/Motivation: Both are very strong willed individuals, known for pursuing vendettas to the point of recklessness. Neither really have the edge over the other here, nor is there anything about their opponents or this particular battle scenario that will make either of them fight harder.

Edge: Even

Experience: This is unfortunately a bit of a lopsided comparison, as Max has three games to Wei’s one. This means that Max has a much greater breadth of experience than his opponent, having faced both a much wider variety of enemies, and higher quality ones at that. While Wei almost exclusively takes on the members of rival triads, and in rarer cases the police, Max has gone up against two different Mafioso families, the Russian mob, essentially the entire elite police force of Brazil and won! While Wei is very experienced, he simply can’t match Max here.

Edge: Max Payne

Weaknesses: Both are psychologically messed up beyond belief and would probably leave most therapists sobbing in a corner listening to their life stories. On one hand Max’s trauma seems to run deeper and affect him more on a regular basis, but he actually managed to find some degree of peace with himself by the end of the third game, something that Wei was unable to do. Honestly though, neither are particularly skilled enough in psychological warfare to mess with the other during the fight, so it really comes down to physical weaknesses, that’s where Wei beats out Max. He’s more than 10 years younger, is in much better physical condition, and doesn’t have the physical drawbacks of being an addict.

Edge: Wei Shen

            

Now with the edges totaled up, who will prove deadliest? Will Max's greater experience allow him to triumph over this newcomer, or will Wei send Max into a early retirement? You'll soon find out...or at least as soon as my time for writing stuff like this frees back up.

Max Payne

"I felt like the avenging angel. I looked like a fat bald dude with a temper."

-Max Payne

Age: 43

Occupation: Former NYPD Dectective/DEA Agent/Bodyguard

Bio

Max Payne's life has been one of largely misery and regret. His wife and daughter murdered. His body and mind slowly withered away by years of drugs and booze. Played by Mark Wahlberg in yet another shitty videogame movie.

At least it wasn't directed by Uwe Boll

Max Payne was a happy family man and successful homicide detective working in NYC until the day crazed test subjects of a dangerous new designer drug called valkyr broke into his house and killed his wife Michelle, and their baby daughter, Rose. Their murders would be the catalyst for Max's deeply cynical change in personality, as well as his quest for vengeance against those who were creating and distributing the drug. Joining the DEA, Max began to trace the distribution of valkyr to the local Punchinello crime family, whom Max believed was responsible for the ordering the murder of his family. Going undercover in their mob, Max worked his way through their ranks, but was never able to reach the chief distributor of drugs. Max's investigation didn't go completely unnoticed though, and a traitor within the DEA framed him for murder, leaving Max to go on the run to clear his name and continue his quest for vengeance. In typical action hero fashion, Max murdered his way up the mob food chain before it was finally revealed to him that the Punchinellos were simply being used to the distribute the drugs by the pharmaceutical corporation Aseir and its ruthless CEO, Nicole Horne. Horne had been the one who ordered the murder of Max's wife when Michelle had been given information regarding Asesir's production of valkyr by Alfred Woden, head of the secret society known as Inner Circle, who controlled all of the organized crime in New York City. Woden contacted Max with a proposition, eliminate Horne and her organization, and Woden would use his political influence to clear Max's name. Max needed little provocation to get his revenge on Horne. Attacking Asesir's headquarters, Max fought his way through Horne's security forces and killed her.

Returning to the NYPD following Woden exonerating him, Max quickly became involved in another criminal conspiracy, this time involving a gang war between the Punchinello mob and the Russian mafia. Finding out that a price had but put out on his and his ally Mona Sax's head, Max and Mona found themselves continuously attacked by a group of hitmen known as the Cleaners. Max first turned to his friend in the Russian mafia, Vladimir Lem for help, as Vlad had aided him in his conflict against Horne. It turned out that Vlad was the one that was sending the Cleaners after Mona and Max, trying to wipe out all possible threats to his mob empire. Max also learned that Lem was a member of the Inner Circle, and was plotting to overthrow Woden as the chief power within the organization. Max and Mona arrived at Woden's mansion as Vlad carried out his attack on his former mentor. Max was unable to save Woden, and even more tragically, Mona, the first person he had truly loved since the death of his wife, was shot in the back by Vlad. As the NYPD closed in around him, Vlad tried to escape, but was killed by Max in the process.

Sinking further into a cycle of depression and self loathing after Mona's death, Max left the NYPD and began to drink and abuse his painkillers. It looked as if his end was going to meet him much earlier than expected, only with a bottle in his hand instead of a gun, when an old friend of his from the Police Academy, Raul Passos, offered him a job working as a bodyguard for a wealthy Brazilian family. Max, not really having much elsewhere to go after starting a feud with the New Jersey mob, accepted. Although typically a cushy job, the easy life that Max was now experiencing was shattered when the wife of the man he was supposed to be protecting was kidnapped by a street gang called the Comando Sombra. Max once again found himself dragged into yet another criminal conspiracy that would grow to involve the crackdown on the gangs in the Brazilian favelas, the trafficking of human organs, and corruption in the Brazilian government. Realizing that he had been manipulated to serve as the fall guy for the schemes of Victor Branco, the jealous younger brother of Max's boss, Max vowed to take him and everyone around him down. Killing his way through Victor's associates, which included the paramilitary group the Crachá Preto, and the corrupt Brazilian police force, the UFE, Max succeeded, and although he had left many more bodies in his wake, he was able to obtain some measure of peace with himself in the process. He's managed to kick his alcoholism for the time being, and where he'll end up next no one can say for sure...probably because the branch of Rockstar that developed the last game was shut down, and there are sadly no plans for a fourth one.          

Weapons

  *Note*: Like Wei, Max will have four weapons. An assault rifle, submachine gun, handgun(s), and shotgun. Unlike Wei however, Max's experience with firearms has given him the skill to carry three guns on him at once as opposed to his opponents' two. He can carry two smaller weapons (so two handguns), and one larger weapon on him at the same time. If he chooses to dualwield both of his smaller guns at the same time though, he will be forced to drop the larger one. The Max featured here will be the one from MP3, so the weapons will be from that game.

Long Range-Heckler and Koch G36 Assault Rifle

Range: 2,853 feet/870 meters
Caliber: 5.56x45mm NATO
Weight: 8 lbs/ 3.63 kg
Length: 39.33 in/999 mm
Barrel Length: 18.9 in/480 mm
Ammo Capacity: 30 rounds
Rate of Fire: 750 rpm
Action: Semi-Auto or Full Auto

Designed by Heckler and Koch to replace the older HK G3 models as the German army's signature battlerifle, the G36 has seen its popularity grow worldwide, used by not only the German army, but by many police departments around the world. Heckler and Koch gave the rifle a very modern design, constructing it largely out of polymers for a lighter and more maneuverable weapon. The G36 is gas operated and features the rotating bolt action that is now common for most modern assault rifles. In its 19 year service record so far it has generally received praise as an accurate, reliable and easy to maintain weapon. The only downsides to be found with this gun is that it has a tendency to overheat at the handguards during sustained fire. The standard sighting system used the German army also has a tendency to fog up during poor weather conditions, although the G36 used by Max may not have this issue.

(Carbine version of the G36, but still a good showing)

Mid Range-Dual Taurus PT92 Pistols & Taurus MT-40 Submachine Gun

PT92-

Cailber: 9x19 mm

Weight: 2.12 lbs/.96 kg

Length: 8.5 in/216 mm

Barrel Length: 5 in/127 mm

Ammo Capacity: 17 rounds

Action: Semi-Auto

Although Max primarily wielded dual Beretta's in his younger days, during his time working as a bodyguard in Brazil he took up their Brazilian counterpart instead: the Taurus PT92. The PT92 was initially manufactured from a Beretta factory purchased by Taurus. Initially keeping much of the Beretta's design features, the PT92 has since broken off and become its own unique weapon. Despite it's relatively low stopping power, it's a large gun, used primarily by military and police forces rather than your average civilian shooter. It is an accurate and reliable pistol, and Max's primary weapon of choice when he needs to put down some firepower at mid range. Max's skill with these guns is good enough to the point where he is able to dualwield and fire them both at the same time with little loss of accuracy. While a real world shooter would find this nearly impossible to do, Max has superhuman skill when it comes to handling firearms.

              

MT-40-

Range: 492 feet/150 meters

Caliber: .40 S&W
Weight: 6.61 lbs/3 kg
Length: 26.65 in/677 mm
Barrel Length: 7.87 in/200 mm
Ammo Capacity: 30 rounds
Rate of Fire: 1,200 rpm
Action: Single Shot, 3 Round Burst, or Full Auto

Another Taurus weapon, the MT-40 was the made from the FAMAE SE design. Also a key design inspiration was the Swiss SG-540 assault rifle, which was used to model the MT-40's receiver and trigger group. The receiver was shortened to allow for the MT-40's smaller rounds, and the typical gas operated action for most assault rifles replaced with a blowback operated action.

(The MT-40, or as it's called in game, the SAF .40, is at :14) 

Short Range-Franchi SPAS-15 Shotgun

   

Range: 130 feet/40 meters

Caliber: 12 gauge

Weight: 8.60 lbs/3.90 kg

Length: 39.37 in/1000 mm

Barrel Length: 17.72 in/450 mm

Ammo Capacity: 8 rounds

Rate of Fire: 4 rpm

Action: Semi-Auto or Pump Action

One of the worlds first truly semi-automatic shotguns, the SPAS-15 was designed for use by law enforcement and military personnel, requiring it to be reliable and powerful. That fact that it employs a box magazine instead of the more traditional tubular magazine used for shotguns allows its users to fire off rounds at a much quicker rate without needing to manually pump (although it can be operated via pump action as well) a new shell into the firing chamber. The box magazine ensures that its user can reload their weapon very quickly. The SPAS-15 is a well regarded weapon, used as the primary combat shotgun for the Italian army.

(the SPAS-15 is at :30)

Special 1: Melee Combat

While gunplay is certainly Max's forte, he is also a skilled hand to hand fighter, frequently using his firearms as melee weapons when his enemies get too close, before finishing them with a headshot. He is skilled with improvising weapons from whatever is around him, once managing to take out several mob thugs armed with only a baseball bat. In MP3 he even managed to kill the highly dangerous second in command of the Crachá Preto, Milo Rego, in melee combat.

  

Special 2: Bullet Time

Max's most iconic trait, "bullet time" sees Max's perception of time slow around him while he continues to move, dodge and shoot in real time, although in MP3 his speed while in bullet time seems to only be slightly faster than his enemies. Not simply game mechanics, bullet time is acknowledged by Max in-universe. Bullet time runs on "adrenaline", much like in real life, where a rush of adrenaline might allow someone to experience a greater sense of focus and control. In the case of a professional athlete, this may lead to throwing a better pass; in Max's case, it allows him to gun down everything that moves. Being in bullet time improves Max's already formidable skill with firearms to superhuman levels. He becomes accurate enough to shoot an RPG round out of midair, and fast enough to dodge bullets to a degree, even managing to dodge a pointblank gunshot from a pistol in a particularly impressive display of reflexes.

His primary technique while in bullet time is to "shootdodge". This is exactly what it sounds like, with Max hurling himself away from enemy gunfire, all while pulling off some incredibly acrobatic and accurate shots at his enemies. That tactical advantages to this maneuver is that it allows him to catch his enemies off guard, often diving from unexpected heights, angles or around cover to unexpectedly fill them with lead. The disadvantages to this is that if Max is caught out in the open when he lands from his dive, his enemies have the perfect opportunity to kill him while he recovers.

Couldn't upload the video here, but one of the better displays of Max's bullet timing that I found

  

Defense- Like Wei, Max doesn't really wear any body armor. But also like Wei, Max is one tough SOB. He can survive multiple baseball bat strikes to the skull with little ill effect, being injected with an overdose of valkyr, and has even been been shot in the head before and survived without any apparent medical attention. His most impressive damage tanking feat occurred in the second game, when after being shot in the back and falling several stories (cracking his skull open in the process), he was taken to the hospital, where he was described as being in "trainwreck" condition. A few hours later and without any apparent major surgery, Max is back on his feet and killing his way through dozens of heavily armed hitmen.

Besides his natural ability to soak up damage like a sponge, Max also has access to his standard painkiller drugs. These drugs don't heal Max of his injuries per say, they just allow him to keep pushing on through the pain. Max will not start out with any painkillers in this fight, but can find them scattered throughout the environment.

   

X-Factors/Intangibles

Tactics- Max is not a particularity good tactician, mostly seeming to prefer running and gunning his way through whatever opposition he faces. This sometimes comes back to bite him, such as when he stormed in on the Comando Sombra hideout and got Fabiana Branco killed in the process. He does occasionally show some tactical thinking when he uses his shootdive technique; utilizing it along with clever use of his surroundings to catch his enemies off guard. He has also shown some passable skill at stealth, although being sneaky is not exactly his modus operandi.

Training- Max has been trained by not only the NYPD, but by the DEA as well, giving him high quality training in firearms and combat tactics 

Morale/Motivation- Despite suffering enough mental and psychlogical trauma that leave most people sobbing wrecks, Max always finds a way to push on and persevere. He is driven by a deep sense of justice and won't let innocents being abused or threatened go unpunished. The best example of this is in the third game when he finds out the Crachá Preto have been kidnapping the poor off the street and selling their organs. His response? Kill essentially everyone involved in the operation and blow up their headquarters. Even when he seemingly has nothing left to live for and should just give up, Max always finds a way to keep going and won't stop until the people who have wronged him or the innocent are dead.     

Experience- Max is a killing machine, with a body count easily in the triple digits. The people that Max has faced down aren't always simple street thugs (although these do form a large majority of his kill count); Max has also taken on dangerous paramilitary foes such as the Crachá Preto, a right-wing paramilitary death squad for hire who were armed with top of the line weapons and were very well trained, and the Cleaners, Vladimir Lem's hitmen for hire, who were quick and efficient at their jobs. Even further up on the list of dangerous enemies where Horne's Aseir commandos, armed with military grade weapons and heavily armored in Kevlar. Perhaps the most dangerous of all though were the UFE, the chief special forces unit of the Brazilian police, who were in reality little more than jackbooted thugs, enforcing the authority of the rich over the favelas. Despite being held in disdain by Max, the UFE proved to be extremely dangerous, carrying the most powerful weapons in the game, heavily armored (even wearing ballistic helmets to defend against headshots), and packing equipment such as smoke grenades, and armored police vans that put all of Max's skills to the test.      

Weaknesses- Max is a emotional mess, suffering from an extreme case of survivors guilt, likely stemming from all the death that has surrounded him for most of his life. His behavior can be considered extremely self destructive, and he always seems to throw himself into dangerous situations with little regard to his own safety, often seeming to care little whether he lives or dies. While still athletic, Max is not in the top physical shape that he once was, being slightly overweight, a recovering alcoholic, and still suffering from an addiction to painkillers.      

      

Wei Shen

"You're a cop. I'm an undercover cop. The rules are different" 

-Wei Shen

Age:28

Occupation: Undercover Cop/Professional Badass

Bio

Born in the city of Hong Kong, Wei and his family moved to San Francisco when he was 10. He proved to be an excellent student, and would go on to join the SFPD, graduating from the Police Academy at the top of his class. His intelligence and intimate knowledge of Asian gang culture from his time growing up in Hong Kong quickly got him promoted to the SFPD’s plainclothes anti-Tong division. Wei’s techniques though proved to be heavy handed and aggressive, and were further aggravated by the death of his sister Mimi Shen from a drug overdose and his mother’s following suicide. He gunned down gang member Charles ‘Two Hat’, and later tortured and killed drug dealer Ming Ming Trin for supplying his sister with the fatal dose of drugs.

Wei’s propensity for violence and his skill in undercover work got him noticed by Thomas Pendrew, the superintendent of the Hong Kong police department. Pendrew was trying to bring down the notorious Sun On Yee Traid from the inside, and needed Wei to replace dead undercover agent Charles Ho. Using his old friend and Traid associate, Jackie Ma, Wei managed to infiltrate the Song On Yee, and began his mission to take it down from the inside out. I won’t spoil the rest of the game here for those of you who haven’t played it. Its got an awesome story, and is a great game in general, and I highly encourage anyone who hasn't played it to check it out. Some major and unavoidable spoilers are ahead though.

Weapons

*Note*: Wei cannot realistically have every single weapon in the game, so I'm choosing the best gun from each of the game's four weapon categories: handguns, assault rifles, submachine guns, and shotguns(I'll probably do the same thing for Max as well). Also note that Wei cannot carry four kinds of guns on him at once; only his pistol + one of the other 3.  The environment he and Max will be fighting in will give him available access to the other two, but he'll need time to swap them out, will need to consider which gun is best for each given situation, and ammo for all four will not be universal. All factors to considered for the fight. Weapons from the various DLC packs will not be included, seeing as I haven't played any of them. 

Long Range: Enfield SA80 L85A2 Assault Rifle w/Heckler & Koch AG36 Grenade Launcher 

Wei's fashion sense is almost as scary as that gun.

Range: 1,300 feet/396 meters

Caliber: 5.56x45mm NATO

Weight: 10.98 lbs/4.98 kg (not including the grenade launcher)

Length: 30.91 in/785 mm

Barrel Length: 20.39 in/518 mm 

Ammo Capacity: 30 rounds 

Rate of Fire: 775 rpm
Action: Fully Automatic

The final result of a series of prototypes from the British military in order to build a more modern assault rifle, the original L85 was first distributed to the British army in 1985. The most notable feature of this assault rifle was its "bullpup" configuration. A design that sees most of the internal operating action of the assault rifle located behind the gun's trigger and grip, the bullpup configuration allows the rifle to maintain the same barrel length and accuracy as a standard assault rifle, while having a shorter and therefore easier to maneuver and lighter weapon. Although the bullpup design has its critics, it has become increasingly popular with many of the worlds militaries' citing its improved accuracy and quicker response time when engaging targets as the reasons for its success. The L85 is regarded highly as a weapon and has been seen in conflicts as wide ranging as Sierra Leone, Bosnia, as well as the more recent conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. The only notable flaw I managed to find with this weapon is that it has somewhat poor balance, but this can be counteracted by adding on a underbarrel grenade launcher. Which leads right into...

This bad boy

Range: 1,148.29 ft/350 meters

Caliber: 40x46 mm grenade

Weight: 3.31 lbs/1.5 kg

Length: 13.78 in/350 mm

Barrel Length: 11.02 in/280 mm
Ammo Capacity: 1 grenade

Rate of Fire: 6 rpm

Action: Single shot

Originally designed to be used on new American assault rifles, the AG36 was instead adopted for use by the German army. It fires the low velocity 40x46mm grenade, and is useful for giving the user of the assault rifle multiple options for how they want to approach taking out the enemy. Although it can be chambered for non-lethal options, such as smoke grenades, Wei definitely prefers the high explosive rounds.

(Wei busts out the L85 around 7:05)     

         

Mid-Range: IMI Desert Eagle Mk. 1 Pistol & Heckler and Koch UMP45 Submachine Gun 

Desert Eagle

Fear the bling

Range: 656 feet/200m

Caliber: .50 caliber Action Express 

Weight: 3 lbs/1.36 kg

Length: 10.59 in/269 mm

Barrel Length: 5.98 in/152 mm

Ammo Capacity: 7 rounds

Action: Semi-auto

One of the most powerful semi-auto handguns on the market today, the Desert Eagle was designed and marketed by the company Magnum Research, and manufactured under contract by Israel Military Industries. It's a flashy gun, known for its large size, weight, and the massive stopping power of its .50 round. It's largely favored by (wealthy) sport shooters, or gun collectors, despite being rather impractical for actual combat. Its .50 caliber round, while packing quite the punch, gives the gun a hell of a kick, making it quite inaccurate to say the least. This combined with its size and weight make it awkward to carry around, let alone shoot. It's also very expensive, and even the .50 ammunition can quickly burn a hole through your pocket. All these factors have combine to make it a gun known largely as a "range toy" for rich people, rather than something that would be a sidearm for the worlds' militaries. Despite this, fiction often portrays the gun as incredibly common among various armed forces, and even the expendable mooks in the bad guys employ. Any bad guy that would shell out enough money to arm all their henchmen with Desert Eagles must really care about their henchmen...or really hate them seeing as how impractical the Desert Eagle  actually is as a combat weapon. So at this point you're probably wondering: "Why on earth did you give Wei this gun? It hardly sounds like the best pistol in the game." Well it actually is, given that Wei doesn't really seem to suffer any of the drawbacks that your everyday, regular shooter would. This is mostly justified seeing as Wei has John Woo action movie level skills, and has been even shown to be able to fire this gun accurately with one hand, while sliding out of cover. It has the best stopping power of any pistol in the game, and is even Wei's "standard" weapon that spawns in every one of his safehouses once you beat the game.

(Wei's former boss, Winston, shows off the golden Desert Eagle that Wei later takes as his own)

UMP45

Range: 164 feet/50 meters
Caliber: .45 ACP
Weight: 4.63 lbs/2.1 kg
Length: 27.17 in/690 mm
Barrel Length: 7.87 in/200 mm
Ammo Capacity: 30 rounds
Rate of Fire: 600 rpm
Action: Fully Automatic, Burst Fire, or Single Shot

Designed by Heckler and Koch as a cheap, lightweight, and powerful submachine gun, the UMP45 was marketed primarily to US law enforcement. It has since seen its popularity grow worldwide, and is now used as the primary submachine gun of various special forces groups around the globe.While Wei's UMP seems to bear the closest resemblance to the UMP9, it fires .45 caliber caliber rounds as opposed to the UMP9's 9x19mm round, leading me to believe that the developers intended for it to be an UMP45, be just mixed up the designs. Its design is well regarded for being lightweight (due to the gun being made largely from polymers) and compact thanks to its folding stock, making it ideal for close quarters combat. Although the UMP45 can't quite match the rate of fire of its sister models, the UMP9 and the UMP40, it makes up for it with a slightly longer effective range, giving it a greater amount of versatility, although it does suffer from greater recoil than either of those models as well.

    

Short-Range: Hawk Semi-Auto Shotgun

Caliber: 12 gauge
Weight: 7 lbs/3.2 kg
Length: 35.4 in/900 mm
Ammo Capacity: 5 rounds
Action : Semi-auto

Devolved by the Chinese gun makers, Hawk Industries, the Hawk semi-auto shotgun was designed as a Chinese variant of the Remington 1100. It is gas operated and self loading. It also comes in a bullpup configuration, although Wei seems to use the original design.

Special 1: Kung Fu

Wei is an incredibly talented martial artist, having been trained in kung fu by martial arts instructor Sifu Kwok from a young age. Although giving up this instruction when he left for America, Wei's time fighting organized crime in San Francisco obviously didn't leave him without people to test his skills on, as even returning to Hong Kong many years later he was able to effortlessly beat the crap out of almost a dozen triad thugs. His skills only increase as the game progresses, as he returns to training with Kwok and refining his combat skills.

Kung Fu is one of the most well known martial arts around the world, largely due to how much it has saturated various forms of pop-culture ranging from action movies to videogames. Kung Fu is actually a series of martial art styles, and there is many of them, over 200! The exact origins of the various Kung Fu styles seem to be heavily shrouded in myth and are hard to pin down, but from what I could find, Kung Fu in general can be traced back to the martial training received by soldiers in China's ancient armies, and branched out from there. Unfortunately, I don't have enough knowledge on Kung Fu to say what style or styles Wei may have been using (or if the martial arts used in the game are actually accurate at all).

It does seem obvious though that Wei is employing a variety of styles in fights. Sleeping Dogs often throws a number of multiple enemy types at you, requiring Wei to change up his fighting styles on the fly. Brawlers for example attack with slow, but powerful strikes and are nearly unbeatable on the defense, forcing Wei to rely on counterattacks and grapples to take them down. Their polar opposites,  Grapplers, are immune to grappling and the speed of their attacks makes them difficult to counter, meaning Wei has to adapt and rely on their near complete lack of defense and go on an all out offensive to take them out.

So in short Wei is highly adaptable in hand to hand combat, and is even arguably better at it than he is with guns. His fighting style can vary from leg sweeps to knees to the gut. He frequently makes use of the environment as well, ranging from smashing people in the face with car doors, to impaling them on meat hooks.

(I'm not sure if these videos are canon, but they're a good display of Wei's combat abilities)

                                                              (In game combat)

                        

Special 2: Vault Shooting

Like his upcoming opponent, Wei posses the ability to enter a "bullet time" like state where time seems to slow down for him, allowing him greater accuracy when using his guns. In Wei's case this occurs whenever he vaults over cover and right into the thick of the gunfire. Now before you call "gameplay mechanics" on this, it should be noted that in real life, it is possible for people to have their perception of time slowed when entering a high risk situation, as your brain is working overtime to process information at higher speeds than normal. It seems that Wei has found a Wei to channel this when in the middle of a tough gunfight. Or if you want a less science-y explanation Wei's essentially a John Woo character, and they move in slo-motion all the time :P

Defense- 

Note: Major Spoilers

Despite being a regular human, Wei can take one hell of a beating. This is made most apparent in the final two missions, where after being sold out to rival Triad boss Big Smile-Lee, Wei is captured by Lee's most notorious enforcer, Mr. Tong. Wei endures several hours of torture at the hands of Tong, including have his toes broken with a hammer, and having a drill bit put through his freaking kneecaps. He manages to escape, kills several dozen of Tong's men, and then fights a machete armed Tong  mano-a-mano, killing him with his own weapon (and this was all occurring right after his sustained injuries that would leave any other man hospitalized, if not dead).

Still not stopping to seek medical condition, because things like having all your toes broken and nearly being hacked to death by a maniac with a machete are only deterrents for mortal men, Wei tracked down Lee, killed several dozen more of his Triad thugs, walked off a point blank shotgun blast to the chest, chased down Lee's getaway boat on foot, survived said getaway boat exploding after it crashed into a pier, and then proceed to beat and finally kill Lee by throwing him into an ice chipper, despite barely being able to walk by the time all this was over. And yes I realize that was a massive run-on sentence, but I felt it would be a crime to break up how amazingly over the top Sleeping Dogs last two missions are into multiple sentences.

(The last two missions)

   

Additional Factors

Tactics: Wei is a pretty straightforward tactician. In a gunfight he at least has the common sense to take cover, although his vault shooting may not serve him quite as well in this fight as it would against common Triad street thugs, as his opponent can also bullet time. While Wei displays a decent amount of adaptability in a gunfight, targeting explosive objects for example, he seems to mostly rush into firefights without much forward thinking mainly relying on his natural skill with guns to get him out alive. That said, Wei's intelligence and adaptabilty elsewhere should not be underestimated. He graduated at the top of his class at Police Academy after all, and managed to accomplish some of impressive feats with quick thinking during his time infiltrating the Sun On Yee, including managing to get close enough to their chief drug distributor to gather evidence against him by posing as a harmless drunk, tracking down a surgeon turned serial killer, and slipping generally managing not to get caught gathering evidence against those he was infiltrating. He has also shown to be competent at stealth, slipping into a guarded Triad controlled restaurant, as well as the home of a prominent Sun On Yee boss.

Motivation: Wei is a very driven individual, known for violently pursuing vendettas when working undercover in San Francisco. His primary motivation for infiltrating the Triad being to get revenge on fellow Sun On Yee member Sam "Dog Eyes" Lin in particular, and the Sun On Yee in general for getting his sister hooked on drugs. Although his handlers were initially concerned that this would drive him to recklessly pursue his goals, it turned out it made him the near perfect undercover operative. Over time though Wei found himself growing closer to his "brothers" in the Triad. Wei slowly losing track of whose side he was on, leading him to suffer deeply from doubt and regret concerning the many violent activities he had to participate in as a member of the Sun On Yee. By the end of the game, Wei is a very conflicted person emotionally, and is not really sure what his motivations are. Despite this, you make him angry and he will come after you with a fury you will wish you had never unleashed.

Experience: Wei is a veteran cop, having served in undercover operations in  both San Francisco and later in Hong Kong. He has participated in numerous street brawls, illegal fight clubs, and shootouts against the worst scum rival Triad gangs could bring against him.

Weaknesses- Despite being a brilliant fighter, Wei is as mentioned above, very emotionally and psychologically unstable, suffering from doubts regarding his position as an undercover police officer. He secretly fears that he is morally no better than the criminals that he fights against, and his conflicting loyalties have worn away at him by the end of the game. In addition he can be extremely reckless at times, willing to relentlessly go after Big-Smile Lee no matter the consequences.

Now Wei must face his greatest challenge yet, as he goes up against a fellow psychologically damaged gunman in a battle for supremacy. When the bullets stop flying, and only one of these videogame anti-heroes is left standing, the question will be answered

WHO

IS

Deadliest?!!