The criminal underground is a ruthless and dangerous place to be a part of. Modern day mafias, gangs and deviants rule in this world and wont hesitate to terminate your existence if you cross them. Some deals made in this type of manner can make a man rich. Others can make a man wish he’d never gotten involved. Kane & Lynch 2 Dog Days follows to reluctant criminals on their 48 hour journey through the Shanghai underground.
Game: Kane & Lynch 2 Dog Days (PS3)
Publisher: Square-Enix
Developer: IO Interactive
Genre: Shooter
Price: $60
Verdict: Thrilling take of the Shanghai underground that ends too quickly.
Pros: Unique camera style, aggressive gameplay, intriguing multiplayer
Cons: Inaccurate weapons, bullet sponges, lather/rinse/repeat style gameplay.
Acquired via Publisher
The sequel to the controversial Kane & Lynch takes place a few years after the events of the first game and picks up with Kane’s partner Lynch as he’s trying to get by on the streets of China. Calling upon Kane for one last heist pairs the team up once again in an adventure full of debauchery and bloodshed. From the onset of the story, you quickly realize that there’s no such thing as a simple job as things spiral quickly out of control. Not sure who to trust, you’ll take Lynch and his partner Kane through the angry streets and fend off hordes of angry gang members intent on getting their revenge.
The story sets the game up nicely and immediately gets you in the spirit of this gritty underground. Following the deviant pair is a silent cameraman armed with either a cell phone or camcorder and delivers an interesting visual style that invokes a love it or hate feel for the experience. While I personally thought the shaky amateur style camera added a level of realism to the game, others who viewed the game while I was reviewing it claimed that it lessened the experience and at times made them feel nauseous. This quickly becomes a moot point however when you realize you only have 4 hours of it to endure. Yes, the entire single player campaign was completed by me personally in 2 sittings totaling 4 hours. In a summer lineup that has had a lot of value-to-time-played conversations, it is difficult to see how Kane & Lynch 2 equals $60 worth of content given the short campaign.
Multiplayer adds a bit to the overall appeal, but it too seems to fall short. While I cannot fault the game for its ingenuity in bringing multiplayer content that differs from your standard deathmatch and capture the flag formulas, I can fault it for not following through on a potentially fantastic multiplayer experience. Once online, you can choose from Fragile Alliance, Undercover Cop and Cops and Robbers style gameplay. Fragile Alliance is back from the first game and offers multiplayer gamers the ability to perform a heist as a team all going after a bankroll. At certain parts of the map, a decision can be made to either split the money equally with all the criminals or go rogue and attempt to take the whole stash for yourself. While this mode sounds like good times, there are only two real areas on each map that allows for the betrayal to happen. After playing through the maps a few times, it becomes entirely predictable when the fragile alliance is going to be broken. Cops and Robbers is your typical team deathmatch style of play and Undercover Cop is where I felt the multiplayer had redeeming qualities. Much like Fragile Alliance, a group of criminals set out on a heist. At the beginning of the game, a random gamer is set as the undercover cop. At any point in the game, the cop needs to dispatch all of the criminals before they make off with the money without being exposed. This leads to creative ways to kill your teammates in secrecy without the others finding out who you really are.
The one major flaw that I found in the game is unfortunately what the meat of the game is. The cover system, while it works well, is all that is there. Wave after wave of enemies descend upon whichever room you’ve just entered and you’re forced to find cover and simply wait for each AI counterpart to pop their head over their own cover or dart out to the next obstacle. One poster on the infamous NeoGaf forum accurately depicted the style as “Whack-A-Mole 2010”, which I feel describes how the game ends up feeling beautifully. Then there’s the bullet sponge problem that plagues the game. Every enemy can absorb massive amounts of rounds from direct center mass before they even begin to fall. Copious amounts of ammunition are wasted as you attempt to fell your foes. One might be able to overlook this issue if the guns were at least halfway accurate to their real life counterparts. There’s something systematically broken with the idea that a carbine rifle cannot take down an enemy at close range without emptying the clip, but a shotgun can cripple an enemy at 50 yards away. Headshots do seem to take down anyone that comes you way, but since most of the fighting is from behind cover at distance and the weapons are horribly inaccurate at anything beyond the reach of your own hand; headshots are increasingly difficult to pull off.
The sounds in the game are fulfilling. Each weapon has a distinct sound and feels accurate for the type of weapon that it is. The buffering, which is this game’s term for loading, that happens between levels is filled with story filling chatter that most often finds Lynch on the phone with his love interest Xiu. This interaction adds to the appeal of the characters and makes them feel more real. Voice acting on this title also really seems to be its strong point. I had a hard time finding any faults in the actors depictions of their digital counterparts.
In the end, it is difficult to recommend this game as a purchase. It was an entertaining yet incredibly short lived experience. The story was so short that it felt like once you got to feel for the characters and fully get a grip on what was happening to them, it was all over with and done. The visual style will impress some and put off others, but that alone shouldn’t be the reason for deciding whether a game is worthy of purchase. In an August lag that has few worthwhile titles on the shelves, it is still hard to recommend this game as anything more than a rental at best.
GrE Grade: C
Popularity: unranked [?]
