Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days

The most glaring difference between Kane and Lynch 2 and other shooters on the market is its presentation and visual style. The third person camera is shaky, blurs colours and knows how to provide this reviewer with a solid headache. Unlike other games whose poor camera can be a game breaker, the developers of Kane and Lynch, IO Interactive, made the camera this way intentionally. This camera style does a good job of mimicking a YouTube home video and is reminiscent of the camera work on the TV show cops. The camera lends itself to making the action on screen appear to be more raw and “real”. Explosions will shake the camera, damage will result in blood splattering onto the screen disrupting view and bright lights will often flare up, displaying out of place colours the way cameras do.

I respect IO Interactive for taking the creative risk of presenting their game with an untraditional camera style, I respect them even more for allowing players to disable the shakiness of the camera. Trying to follow the action on screen while the camera was constantly shaking gave me a headache and reminded me of all the people who complained about movies like Cloverfield having the same effect on them. Turning off the shaky camera improves the game by leaps and bounds. Besides the camera work there are a few other details that lend themselves to giving the game a YouTube vibe. Loading screens are essentially a video buffer screen found on any video streaming website. Headshots on enemies will also result in a blurred face, masking the violent visual of what a head looks like after a bullet connects. Shooting the face of an already dead body however does not result in a blurred faces…..yes I’m weird for trying this.

Kane and Lynch 2 consists of several corridor battles with a few wider open areas peppered in between. Two staples of third person shooter games of this generation, cover and blind firing make their way into the game and are essential to progressing through levels. There are some destructible elements to Kane and Lynch 2, with the majority of them being cover.

Playing single player, your partner’s A.I is much more competent than that of the enemies, who will often take cover on the wrong side of objects. The single player campaign can be enjoyed alone or with a co-op partner via Xbox Live or split screen. Playing with a real partner is a different experience than playing alone for the simple fact that your partner will need to be revived if knocked down and can die, ending the level. Playing solo, the A.I partner will pick themselves back up and cannot die even if you blow up an explosive canister in their face.

Speaking of explosives there are several objects that can be used in a grenade like fashion scattered in each level. Fire extinguishers on the walls or cans of gasoline can be thrown at enemies and shot resulting in an explosion. The cool feature found in Kane and Lynch 2 is the ability of auto shoot the canisters by pulling the right trigger instead of manually aiming and firing at them.

Kane and Lynch 2 has a crazy level that probably has never been attempted before in a video game. Without spoiling too much it consists of two slightly overweight middle aged men running naked through the streets of Shanghai covered in blood.

The story presented in Kane and Lynch 2 had its emotional underpinnings but ultimately failed to capture my interest. While I appreciated twists the story took and the ridiculous situations Kane and Lynch find themselves in, I ultimately did not care for the fate of these characters or their loved ones. There were a few instances in the story where convenient occurrence allows plot progression while going against the motivations of characters.

To my gaming preference, the most important shortcoming of Kane and Lynch 2 is the length of the campaign. Clocking in around four to five hours, I beat the game the same day that I picked it up. Thankfully IO Interactive added enough to the multiplayer experience that would warrant the game’s price tag.

Maybe.

There are three multiplayer modes that stretch across six maps and allow a maximum of 16 players. Each multiplayer mode is a variation upon the simple premise of the Fragile Alliance mode. The team of criminal stage a heist and have to battle their way through police to get to an escape vehicle. The criminals will end up splitting all of the money from the heist, which is where the twist in the game comes in. Once the looting begins one player can betray their teammates to try and take a bigger slice of the heist. This is a unique variation of a multiplayer game, with police shooting you from the front and a team of criminals who could betray you at any moment from behind, creating some interesting and tense games.

The second multiplayer mode is undercover cop, which plays exactly like Fragile Alliance except one member of the criminal squad is an undercover cop. The goal of the undercover cop is to kill the entire team of criminals before they can escape with any money.

The cops and robbers mode is exactly like fragile alliance except two teams take turns playing as the criminals and the police. Whichever team has the most money at the end of the four rounds wins the game.

Kane and Lynch 2’s multiplayer is untraditional and a lot of fun to play. The only problem I found is that it is difficult to get into a game. Joining or quitting a game is a pain and can take up to two minutes. When you do get in a game, if the host quits the game automatically shuts down. There is no form of host migration. There is also a weird delay at the end of multiplayer matches. After all the criminals have escaped or are dead the game occasionally does not immediately end. Instead it waits for the escape vehicle’s timer to slowly tick down to zero.

For those gamers that can put up with some of the pitfalls of playing Kane and Lynch 2 online, it could be just the game to hold you over until the big multiplayer games release this fall. The single player experience alone does not warrant multiple playthroughs unless you’re hunting for achievement points. I wouldn’t recommend purchasing Kane and Lynch 2 unless you are a dire hard fan of the original or the characters. The multiplayer does a good job of adding to the overall value of the single player but is not strong enough to keep its current community from playing other titles in the coming months.