kane and lynch: Dead men
Matthew Cash
In the midst of the gunfire, you hear the constant bitching of Lynch.
"Shut the fuck up, goddammit!" you yell to your partner.
"Hey, fuck you, you little shit," he calmly replies.
"I don't need to hear your bitching, you stupid motherfucker! I need you to fucking concentrate! And stop killing the fucking hostages!" you command.
As you escape the scene, Lynch starts breaking down.
"Oh, God, Kane... What've I done? How many have I killed?!" he frantically asks.
"Lynch, you don't even want to know..." You both stay quiet. You silently shoot for several minutes until Lynch breaks in.
"I need my fucking pills, goddammit."
Such as the way the game is. Foul mouths included. IO Interactive's first game in the Kane in Lynch series is much like Lynch. It can't control what it does wrong and you have to deal with the fragmented gameplay, just as much as Kane has to deal with Lynch's fragmented personality.
The game starts out quite climatically. You watch as Kane gets thrown into the police van. You hear his thoughts, his regrets. Out of the blue, Lynch tells you to cover your head as the vehicle veers off the road. You wake up with Lynch standing over you. As he helps you up, you realize thee carnage that's ensued from the escape attempt. Many masked figures are firing back at officers, while you try to piece together what's going on. This is the tutorial. This is where you first get a taste of the mixed gameplay that Kane and Lynch has to offer.
The first thing I thought was broken was the cover system. You have to be on a corner of a wall and nowhere else for the cover to work. If that isn't bad enough, it doesn't work 32.33% (repeating, of course) of the time. Most of the shooting you do is in the typical "crouch behind the random object" affair. Then you start seeing another issue, the controls. They deviate from genre conventions a lot, though getting used to the controls is easy (unless you play the second one, then immediately stick in this one) and doesn't become much of a problem. The second part of the tutorial tells you how to command your allies. In this part, I quickly realized that I sometimes would have to press a button twice for Lynch to do what he was told. Fucking retard.
Also, there's some clipping in the game of weapons and objects, some headshots may not register (though this was the exception rather than the rule), some enemies stand out in the open like only a moron would do. You can also be shot behind cover, and I heard 4 or 5 sound glitches in my runthrough.
No, it really isn't sounding too good for this game. But there's always a silver lining. Level designs and objectives vary (The first part in Havana is one of gaming greatest action scenes ever and also one of the hardest), offering a lot of variety. There's a great story of Kane trying to get his daughter back from a group of mercenaries he used to work for named "The 7" (reminds me of Killer7 by Suda 51) and the plot is really well fleshed out. It is definitely better than the second game's story (though the second game's was great as well), and remains one of the greatest game plots I've ever experienced.
The presentation is no real slouch with graphics that still look pretty today, a nice musical score, superb voice acting, and great sound effects. The voice acting is seriously some of the best in gaming. Seriously. You have to listen to these two cuss their way through the 8-9 hour campaign. Not only is it fun to hear them bicker, but it also hurts your feelings when Kane's wife gets pissed at him or his daughter freaks out on him. The game makes you feel like you're the character, so much that I would jolt when I heard my name called. It was really jarring to be pulled out of the experience like that.
The game packs a stiff challenge. Sure you can get downed once, but do it twice in a minute or so and you'll overdose on adrenaline and flatline. The enemies are great shots and like to swarm, plus you have to manage your buddies to keep them alive to use them to your tactical advantage. Noobs to gaming might want to hold off for a few action games before jumping into this.
Kane and Lynch has a lot of great things going for it. Unfortunately, broken gameplay bogs it down to levels it shouldn't have had. Still, this is a very enjoyable experience. To be fair, this was a new IP for IO Interactive and they started experimenting with all-out action that they didn't do in Hitman. As with the first Hitman game, this one is buggy and a bit broken. Though, the vast majority of issues this game had was fixed in the sequel, just like IO's fashion. I'm happily awaiting the third installment of one of my favorite series. This is just one game that can't be missed by gamers that are semi forgiving and above. Trust me, those great action sequences and the great story with interesting characters is something you'll love.
Score: 6.75
In the midst of the gunfire, you hear the constant bitching of Lynch.
"Shut the fuck up, goddammit!" you yell to your partner.
"Hey, fuck you, you little shit," he calmly replies.
"I don't need to hear your bitching, you stupid motherfucker! I need you to fucking concentrate! And stop killing the fucking hostages!" you command.
As you escape the scene, Lynch starts breaking down.
"Oh, God, Kane... What've I done? How many have I killed?!" he frantically asks.
"Lynch, you don't even want to know..." You both stay quiet. You silently shoot for several minutes until Lynch breaks in.
"I need my fucking pills, goddammit."
Such as the way the game is. Foul mouths included. IO Interactive's first game in the Kane in Lynch series is much like Lynch. It can't control what it does wrong and you have to deal with the fragmented gameplay, just as much as Kane has to deal with Lynch's fragmented personality.
The game starts out quite climatically. You watch as Kane gets thrown into the police van. You hear his thoughts, his regrets. Out of the blue, Lynch tells you to cover your head as the vehicle veers off the road. You wake up with Lynch standing over you. As he helps you up, you realize thee carnage that's ensued from the escape attempt. Many masked figures are firing back at officers, while you try to piece together what's going on. This is the tutorial. This is where you first get a taste of the mixed gameplay that Kane and Lynch has to offer.
The first thing I thought was broken was the cover system. You have to be on a corner of a wall and nowhere else for the cover to work. If that isn't bad enough, it doesn't work 32.33% (repeating, of course) of the time. Most of the shooting you do is in the typical "crouch behind the random object" affair. Then you start seeing another issue, the controls. They deviate from genre conventions a lot, though getting used to the controls is easy (unless you play the second one, then immediately stick in this one) and doesn't become much of a problem. The second part of the tutorial tells you how to command your allies. In this part, I quickly realized that I sometimes would have to press a button twice for Lynch to do what he was told. Fucking retard.
Also, there's some clipping in the game of weapons and objects, some headshots may not register (though this was the exception rather than the rule), some enemies stand out in the open like only a moron would do. You can also be shot behind cover, and I heard 4 or 5 sound glitches in my runthrough.
No, it really isn't sounding too good for this game. But there's always a silver lining. Level designs and objectives vary (The first part in Havana is one of gaming greatest action scenes ever and also one of the hardest), offering a lot of variety. There's a great story of Kane trying to get his daughter back from a group of mercenaries he used to work for named "The 7" (reminds me of Killer7 by Suda 51) and the plot is really well fleshed out. It is definitely better than the second game's story (though the second game's was great as well), and remains one of the greatest game plots I've ever experienced.
The presentation is no real slouch with graphics that still look pretty today, a nice musical score, superb voice acting, and great sound effects. The voice acting is seriously some of the best in gaming. Seriously. You have to listen to these two cuss their way through the 8-9 hour campaign. Not only is it fun to hear them bicker, but it also hurts your feelings when Kane's wife gets pissed at him or his daughter freaks out on him. The game makes you feel like you're the character, so much that I would jolt when I heard my name called. It was really jarring to be pulled out of the experience like that.
The game packs a stiff challenge. Sure you can get downed once, but do it twice in a minute or so and you'll overdose on adrenaline and flatline. The enemies are great shots and like to swarm, plus you have to manage your buddies to keep them alive to use them to your tactical advantage. Noobs to gaming might want to hold off for a few action games before jumping into this.
Kane and Lynch has a lot of great things going for it. Unfortunately, broken gameplay bogs it down to levels it shouldn't have had. Still, this is a very enjoyable experience. To be fair, this was a new IP for IO Interactive and they started experimenting with all-out action that they didn't do in Hitman. As with the first Hitman game, this one is buggy and a bit broken. Though, the vast majority of issues this game had was fixed in the sequel, just like IO's fashion. I'm happily awaiting the third installment of one of my favorite series. This is just one game that can't be missed by gamers that are semi forgiving and above. Trust me, those great action sequences and the great story with interesting characters is something you'll love.
Score: 6.75