Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days - Limited Edition (PS3)

Kane and Lynch 2 differs heavily from the 2007 game. Jesper Kyd's gloomy music is gone (a shame, since I rather liked it), the camera system is radically different, and the partner system has also been done away with. This time you play as crazed psychopath Lynch, a man so anti-social he'd make Al Capone run and hide. Or at least he used to be. In this game Lynch is on his meds, and his edge is blunt. So he's basically just a generic run and gun anti-hero. What a wasted opportunity.

The story opens in Shanghai where Kane arrives to help Lynch with a lucrative opportunity. Before we can make sense of anything further two important people are dead and the anti-heroes are getting the blame. A battle rages across several locations as Kane and Lynch desperately try to escape the city. That's it as far as plot goes. No big twists, no innovative narrative techniques. Just kill, kill, kill. You get to play as Kane in the last level, but for the bulk of the game he's just a background character helping you blast away at the legions of bad guys filling the screen.

The story mode can be completed in about four hours. The game gives away trophies like there was no tomorrow, but...the majority of them are for online play. I have to be honest, most of the game's lasting appeal and scope comes from the various online modes (which I have no interest in). It's primarily an online game with a story mode shoehorned in as an afterthought.

I have faith the franchise, Kane and Lynch are terrific characters, but for their third outing the developers really do have to deliver an EPIC game for the ages and not a cheap quickie trading off a mediocre brand name.

Graphics A
Sound A
Gameplay B
Lasting Appeal D+

paid £40 for this which works out at £8 an hour of gameplay, to say i felt ripped off is an understatement. there's no plot really to speak off it's just a run from a to b each time shooting anything that moves down a linear tunnel before the next chapter starts. needless to say i traded it back the next day for store credit. it's games like this that make me not want to buy any ever again and just stick to renting them.

Sweaty, sweary anti-heroes Kane and Lynch are back to terrorise poor old Shanghai, presumably still recovering from the beating it took from EA's Army of Two: The 40th Day, just one of many similarities these two games share. Location? Check. Obnoxious, unlikeable protaganists? Check. A non-event plot? Check... Both dumb, then, but at least Rios and Salem are fun...

Gameplay/Story: 2/5
Lynch calls in Kane for a seemingly simple job, except something goes wrong and blah blah blah. The plot is perfunctory to GETTING SHOT AT A LOT AND SWEARING, two things this game does well. Each stage essentially involves you slowly moving through a location, using the old take cover/shoot from cover/advance method until you reach the anti-climactic end. And thats it. One brief section involves you firing from a helicopter, but there is almost no variation to the mission structure. Taking cover is also a pain, since Lynch seems to be allergic to certain surfaces, leaving you open to being shot at. Basically, the story mode is an unforgiving, uninspiring slog.

Lynch often feels so lightweight that you fear a gentle breeze will knock him to the floor. The weapons in a game like this should be one of its selling points; however, the majority of the guns at your disposal lack bite, with you resorting to grabbing whatever happens to be lying around in the vain hope it might do more than tickle the endless waves of goons sent your way.

Presentation/Sound: 4/5
K&L2's strongest point is its genuinely unique style. Presented in grainy, YouTube style shaky cam, it gives the game an element of immersion that you would normally expect the story to provide. The effect is one of a budget documentary crew following Lynch around, with the low quality camera suffering under intense shootouts, and one nice touch has particularly gruesome/explicit moments pixellated out. Shaky cam can be switched off, which proves something of a relief after after a while. Sound in the game is purely diegetic, with the only music coming from radios, store muzak and the like, and the sounds of a city punctured by gunfire. Voice acting is generally decent and consistent, though not up to the standard of games like Uncharted 2. HOWEVER, I couldn't help shake the feeling that the bells and whistles of the camera style both inadvertently obscured the (impressively) detailed city, yet acted as a shield against the weakness of the gameplay.

Multiplayer/Arcade Mode: 3/5
Dog Days features an online mode in which you can take part in heists as part of an eight man team, the twist being that friendly fire is on and you can betray/be betrayed at any time. Fragile Alliance is a seemingly straightforward heist, where working together should, theoretically, prove to be the most successful method; Undercover Cop pits one of you team mates as an, erm, undercover cop, tasked with bringing the team down from the inside; and Cops and Robbers divides the online players in to two teams, in a mad scramble for the bags of loot. The added tension of betrayal and mistrust makes K&L2's online mode an intriguing affair, and I would have marked it higher were it not for the fact that discrepancies between average players and skillful players often leave you helpless and, well, dead, since your pea shooter always seems more feeble than everyone elses; it also suffers from severe lag at times, and finding a full game room isn't always possible. It offers the usual XP/levelling up you would expect in post-Call of Duty online multiplayer, but its hard to see it offering the longevity of that series, or the popularity.

Arcade mode features the fragile alliance heists in a single player format with AI teammates, with each heist featuring ten rounds and escalating difficulty, with the added bonus of online leaderboards for those inclined to compete with strangers for kudos. Its enjoyable enough, though the looped dialogue and limited variation grates after a while.

Final impression:
Occasionally decent, and packing some very smart ideas, particularly online. However, its numerous flaws are unforgivable, dampening any enjoyment to be gleamed from the game.