Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days

Review from Luke - Thursday, 26 August 2010 @ 8:01am

With Lynch now trying to live a new life in Shanghai after the events of the previous game Dog Days, Kane makes the trip across to help his buddy with one last job that will set the pair up for retirement. Surprisingly the plan doesn't go too well which then puts them up against one of the baddest crime lords in the country. What this means is they need to get the fuck out of the China ASAP. Now after a sweet opening cinematic of what can be expected later in the story, things just start to go downhill.

Let’s just get straight to it, the campaign took me a little over 4 hours to finish. But honestly, I don’t blame them for making it that short, they couldn’t keep dishing out the same thing over and over again… There isn’t really a change in game play mechanic from the start to finish. You find some cover, clear the room of enemies, and then proceed forward. Actually there’s a scene in a moving helicopter where you’re hiding behind the interior walls and shooting outside...oh wait, THAT'S THE SAME THING!

There is nothing new introduced to the whole game, that’s it, you just shoot stuff. Don’t get me wrong, I like shooting stuff in games. But it usually helps when the stuff you are shooting isn’t so freaking hard to kill. All the cops in Shanghai have some sort of crazy adamantium body armour that you can’t see. The hit detection system on the screen shows you exactly when and where you have hit an enemy. This makes it blatantly obvious when you nail a dude a few times in the head, yet like straight out of a horror movie, they just keep on coming at you. Don’t even get me started on the guys that later show up with actual full on body Kevlar, its ridiculous the amount of damage they can take. Now I know that okay, it’s a video game, maybe they were aiming for an arcade style – but to me, the rest of the game screams realism.

The visual aesthetic is by far the best thing about Kane & Lynch 2; the look is very unique, giving it the gritty vibe they were aiming for. The invisible man behind the camera that follows you around seems to have had somewhat of a big night down at the local pub. The camera sways when walking, even more violently when running – this can be turned off however in the options by activating steady-cam. Compression artifcats lower the quality of the of the screen as if watching a video on YouTube, lens flares and streaking lights straight out of J.J Abrams Star Trek movie also make a notable appearance. Then you have pixelated heads after you've killed someone with a decent shot to the face. These effects may annoy some people, but I found them to be very interesting.

Kane and Lynch have really entertaining dialogue with each other during gunfights, they will be yelling and swearing at each other as they are getting sprayed with bullets. There were also some cool moments where you see the crazy side of Lynch, he will just start rambling on and talking to himself which gives more depth to his character.

The multiplayer does also offer some great ideas and interesting game types, however execution is once again the downfall. Fragile Alliance sees your team of robbers stealing money from a location and then making an escape from the cops. If you do get away, you'll be able to use the money you stole to buy better weapons for the next round. The twist is that the other players on your team can kill you, stealing the money you collected - this then marks them as a traitor notifying everyone else. A slightly different take on this is Undercover Cop, where one player on the robbers team is a sneaky cop and must take out each member one by one without being caught out. Then there is Cops and Robbers, this time players are able to take control of the police to stop the opposing forces. Now the issue with all of this is the AI controlled enemies, they are always in the same spot so the challenge starts to wear off after you figure out where they are all going to be. The small selection of maps is also another downer, it would have been nice to have a bit more variety to make the experience last longer.

Pros

- Unique visual style

- Kane & Lynch are entertaining characters

Cons

- Very short campaign

- Generic gameplay mechanic

- Lack of multiplayer maps

- Enemies are more like Terminators