Kane & Lynch: Dead Men - 9/10
Anyone who is familiar with blood drenched murder games such as the Hitman series will have a fair idea on how Kane & Lynch will play & to some extent, how it will look. Its starting to become a habit with the guys at IO Interactive making vicious bad asses, firstly their was the chrome domed badly hired killer, agent 47, he was a sinister brooding murderer who had a fetish for choking innocents with fibre wire, dumping their carcasses in a nearby safe spot and resuming his mission in another disguise whilst people in his wake were oblivious of the silver twin ballers he had stowed away in his platnium briefcase.
Decked out in a clean sharp black suit and tie, Mr 47 was not attending any wedding or funeral, and if he was, it was for the wrong reasons. The gritty duo, Kane & lynch are sure proof that this game is made by the same fellas that made the Hitman games. These two are sheer brute force to handle, and look like common mongrels, and when you see the sick and dirty acts they commit in Kane and Lynch, you will either love them or hate them, love them because they're so merciless but hate them because what they're doing is cruel in clearly disturbed. Which i suppose explains the game of Kane & lynch, its brutal, seedy, dirty and turns up the gore meter to maximum heights, if thats the aim, it certainly has worked for this centric crim sim.
First, lets talk about our duo in suits, these guys are ruthless bastards that clearly dont give a hoot about life or any innocents, There is Kane, who has a scar across his face and a bandage over his broken nose, the guys face looks busted, he doesnt seem to care and he certainly doesnt mind decorating peoples faces with knives either. Then their is Lynch, this guy is somewhat worse, he aint a big cuddly bear, he is far from it, and if his mullet and bikie beard doesnt tell you otherwise, than the medication he is on most certainly will. When this ruthless pair aint popping pills and savagely swearing like there is no tomorrow they are killing people, building the body count in a never ending crimson spitter spree of brutality, heists, assaults, empty magazine clips, enough foul mouthed words to make its own mantle, and puddles of red. In fact im quite surprised Kane & lynch wasnt inspired by Quentin Tarantino, they're incredibly sick and twisted and im sure there resume's would be clocked up by so much grisly background that they would be a success in any violent film that demanded them.
Both Kane & lynch have a reason to be pissed, there motives are quite clear. Kane for example, used to be a proud happy family man but has been driven to the brink of murder when his son was involved in a sick accident claiming his life and resulting in the aged mercenary Kane to go hay wire in the brain, and one too many failed heists result in Kane spending his days behind bars, that is until the criminal group named as " The 7" sends in Lynch whose goal is to break kane out of jail and score back the loot cache that was taken away from them all in a bid for Kane to get his kidnapped wife and daughter back. Its a pretty cliched storyline, win back your cold hard cash, rescue you your soon to be killed family and go trigger happy on the crims responsible, but wether you will care about the substandard plot is optional, i certainly didnt, because the action and blood spill is what this game is all about.
What really adds to Kane & Lynch is the constant banter between Kane and Lynch themselves, whether it be endless swearing bouts with enough f word vocabulary to fill a whole dictionary, harsh threats or abuse between each other, and it only gets more worse when your pill popping partner Lynch has schizophrenic attacks and constant acts of paranoia. These guys fight like two seagulls over a chip. It certainly adds to the dark dread of the game but can feel abit try hard after a while, almost the extent that you think the developers themselves probably thought it was cool. Having said this, it is not a game for kids, in fact i'd say it is easily the most brutal game to have been released this year by far.
Now for the red juicy meat of the game, the gameplay, like most action games these days, their is nothing entirely different in design and control interface, most of the gun toting action will force you to duck for cover, lean against walls and so on, the gameplay mechanics are pretty basic, but not alot needs to be different when the games intention is to ram action down your throat and thats what it does so well. You will smile from ear to ear when you get your glove covered mitts on a sleek shiney AK or shell emptying shotgun, in fact you will forget about doing proceedings the stealth way and instead rave through the levels going trigger happy on every goon in the room and wasting your ammo like tomorrow isnt coming. This is a fun and optional way of approaching missions but also very wasteful, you do not want to be rushing through this game, not only will it end rather quickly and dim any potential fun you will have with it but its just not worth it, take your time and take every havoc filled level of madness in your stride, its worth it, especially when you're playing co op mode.
The missions really open up your options in the way you go about your missions, i've always loved the expansive variety packed nature of the levels that developers IO Interactive inject into their games, and Kane and Lynch is no exception. Whether its storming a city bank to rammage a vault and taking off with the loot in a van heist across the city, dropping anything that moves in a neon lit Tokyo nightclub complete with hot asian dancers and smooth swift Yakuza guards in suits, a shootout in the city streets populated by police vehicles, SWAT officers and sprawling pedestrians, driving a merc through the a prison complex, forming kevlar packed rebels on the war torn streets before going in for the assault on a small country and its inhabitants, then there is the trek through the steamy jungle. All levels are fantastic and look as though they have been taken out of a variety of action movie sequences. The big stand-out mission for me has Kane and Lynch infiltrating a huge towering building in the middle of the city, you guys are supposed to be cleaners decked out in yellow overalls, but kane and co arent here to wash windows, but instead to spy out some VIP goons and secure that briefcase full of rolled up $$$ notes. Make no mistake, each mission isnt a boring slog from A to B, all missions offer fun in unique ways that match the surroundings and are very worth replaying through.
Visually the game is a fireworks display, it looks pretty at times but can get messy at times as well, poor generic backgrounds can be diguised by blurry textures. The game looks magic in parts, the colour crazy club is a marvel in lighting and with so many people stuffed into the one room, its quite a treat for the eyes, almost eye bleeding good at times, but then it drops off, and is replaced by levels that would look A grade in PS2 games. For example from a distance, the Tokyo club looks amazing with so many people onscreen at once, but on close inspection of these people, they resemble blocky faceless characters that look best left in the distance. Its not entirely ugly to look at, but its far from PS3's best and in this generation, below par graphics are simply acceptable. Both Kane & Lynch look awesome and some levels scream brilliance, especially the city shoot outs which have pedestrians and a whole lot going on all at once. But still, the game overall still needs another layer of paint to truly look awesome, and sadly it doesnt quite do that.
Overall, Kane & Lynch is an absolute rip snorter of an action game, visually it could have looked nicer but IO Interactive have seemed to take the gameplay side of things over the graphic sides, which by no means is a bad option, but why not take the extra time and succeed in both areas? It seems abit lazy when the gameplay is so god damn good but the visuals drop abit below. Slight gripes and quibbles aside, you will know doubt want to wade through K & L's river of crimson and embrace its brazenly clear message of violence and insanity that it breeds. If you're after a cinematic edgy action experience with a dab of Tarantino flavour & a syringe drop of Hitman vibe than nothing will keep you more entertained and thrillingly satisfied than IO's killer duo.
Submitted by callan5
03/12/2007
13
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