Acceptable and insanely flawed, guilty pleasure out of nostalgia and wasted potential. Takes a groove out of gritty Michael Mann heist film sailing on cover-shooter. Gameplay suffers some of the most clunky, recoil-tainted gunplay which never was my fixation, but rather my conceptual fascination towards the shamelessly anti-heroic leads, tragic soap opera turned into bullet-spree anarchy and some of the most hectic "Heat" stylized run n' gun scenarios a shooting gallery would ever dream of. It slackers for a travelholic tour of redemption into a lousy-war section with insane difficulty and nonsensical choicemaking, but things add for a stylistically tragic and broken, ugly flavor. Definitely a misfire but one i admire, and Eidos apparently does, to some extent, by having their leads wandering around Hitman Absolution.
It's not a very good shooter but it has an interesting premise and two great characters that helped push me through it.
Really only played this game to be able to be able to play the sequel which I’ve heard mixed things on. I hardly see any discourse about this first entry and I can see why…
There’s really not much to say here. This is about as cookie cutter a third person shooter that exists. If anything it’s below average.
The shooting never feels great. Can’t really tell if you’re hitting anything especially on some later levels with enemies far away obscured in windows and pitch darkness. The strongest gun fights are in the bank and night club levels earlier in the game.
The cover system is also jank. There’s no dedicated button to get on cover which was a big mistake. You’re constantly fighting to get on the contextual cover of objects like pillars and walls that are very clearly meant to be cover but for some reason Kane won’t get on the wall. It was extremely unreliable and frustrating for the entirety of the 4 hours I wasted playing this.
The only saving Grace for this game was the narrative which was solid and the characters, especially Lynch were amusing bantering back and forth. The absurdity of it all was fun but really couldn’t make up for the lack of any depth or fun in the gameplay.
Even co-op I can’t recommend this as there are much better co-op cover based third person shooters out there.
4/10
There’s really not much to say here. This is about as cookie cutter a third person shooter that exists. If anything it’s below average.
The shooting never feels great. Can’t really tell if you’re hitting anything especially on some later levels with enemies far away obscured in windows and pitch darkness. The strongest gun fights are in the bank and night club levels earlier in the game.
The cover system is also jank. There’s no dedicated button to get on cover which was a big mistake. You’re constantly fighting to get on the contextual cover of objects like pillars and walls that are very clearly meant to be cover but for some reason Kane won’t get on the wall. It was extremely unreliable and frustrating for the entirety of the 4 hours I wasted playing this.
The only saving Grace for this game was the narrative which was solid and the characters, especially Lynch were amusing bantering back and forth. The absurdity of it all was fun but really couldn’t make up for the lack of any depth or fun in the gameplay.
Even co-op I can’t recommend this as there are much better co-op cover based third person shooters out there.
4/10
Трудно выдавить из себя хоть что-то, когда тебя даже не пытаются вдохновить на нечто за рамками стандартного мышления. Про Кейна и Линча нечего сказать ровно в той же мере, в которой вы ничего не скажете про пресный хлеб со стаканом воды из под крана. Но отнюдь, хлеб хотя бы питательный, в то время как всемирно известные говноделы IO Interactive снизошли до люда простого с чемпионом посредственности, недостойным и доли вашего внимания.
Мне будет куда проще расписать данную нам ситуацию, рассуждая именно что в ретроспективе истории студии с учётом их прошлых работ. Ведь в действительности Kane and Lynch: Dead Men (2007) это ни много ни мало духовный наследник тех самых Freedom Fighters, вышедших на четыре года ранее. Но что будет, если взять отвратительный шутер от третьего лица, устаревший ещё на момент выхода, и отнять у него единственное достоинство - колоритный сет-дизайн ярко выраженной направленности? Вы получите просто отвратительный шутер от третьего лица, кто бы мог подумать.
Да, вам точно так же будут насильно впихивать механику командования неотёсанным личным составом, ведь без неё вас прорешетят свинцом сотни вражеских болванов, которые в самый неподходящий момент сражения сосредоточат всё своё внимание именно на вас. Да, вы всё ещё можете держать в своём карманчике лишь одно оружие, помимо пистолета, до тех пор, пока не подберёте и временно не поменяете на другое. И, как всегда это бывает у Богом покинутых IOI, в их детище просто адски утомительно играть. Хоть малую толику энтузиазма возможно испытать лишь в первый часик прохождения. В остальные же мгновения мучения вам предстоит лишь молить о скором финале, попутно отстреливаясь от снизошедших с пучин ада безмозглых кусков двоичного кода в этом уродливом памятнике однообразия. Без малейшего преувеличения смею заявить, что здесь худшая стрельба, с которой мне только приходилось сталкиваться. Этот невыносимый разброс, с которым на расстоянии дальше одного метра ни единая пуля не попадёт в оппонента, ещё долго будет сниться мне в геймерских кошмарах. Похвалить могу разве что за вариативность локаций, порой предоставляющих гибкую протяжённость как по вертикали, так и по горизонтали. Да и в кооперативе с товарищами это не предстало бы столь отягощающим опытом. Вот только нигде уж и не купишь сие чудо.
В общем, на лицо всё тот же самый зубодробительный боевик низшего пошиба, что и Борцы за свободу 2003 года, но в тотально унылом облачении. О сюжете даже и не спрашиваете - здесь всего-навсего придётся лицезреть сказ о банальных преступных мразях против всех без какой-либо креативной смысловой подоплёки. Соскучились по простеньким стрелялкам? Ей Богу, уж лучше наверните первого Макса Пэйна, на шесть лет опередившего это убожество.
Мне будет куда проще расписать данную нам ситуацию, рассуждая именно что в ретроспективе истории студии с учётом их прошлых работ. Ведь в действительности Kane and Lynch: Dead Men (2007) это ни много ни мало духовный наследник тех самых Freedom Fighters, вышедших на четыре года ранее. Но что будет, если взять отвратительный шутер от третьего лица, устаревший ещё на момент выхода, и отнять у него единственное достоинство - колоритный сет-дизайн ярко выраженной направленности? Вы получите просто отвратительный шутер от третьего лица, кто бы мог подумать.
Да, вам точно так же будут насильно впихивать механику командования неотёсанным личным составом, ведь без неё вас прорешетят свинцом сотни вражеских болванов, которые в самый неподходящий момент сражения сосредоточат всё своё внимание именно на вас. Да, вы всё ещё можете держать в своём карманчике лишь одно оружие, помимо пистолета, до тех пор, пока не подберёте и временно не поменяете на другое. И, как всегда это бывает у Богом покинутых IOI, в их детище просто адски утомительно играть. Хоть малую толику энтузиазма возможно испытать лишь в первый часик прохождения. В остальные же мгновения мучения вам предстоит лишь молить о скором финале, попутно отстреливаясь от снизошедших с пучин ада безмозглых кусков двоичного кода в этом уродливом памятнике однообразия. Без малейшего преувеличения смею заявить, что здесь худшая стрельба, с которой мне только приходилось сталкиваться. Этот невыносимый разброс, с которым на расстоянии дальше одного метра ни единая пуля не попадёт в оппонента, ещё долго будет сниться мне в геймерских кошмарах. Похвалить могу разве что за вариативность локаций, порой предоставляющих гибкую протяжённость как по вертикали, так и по горизонтали. Да и в кооперативе с товарищами это не предстало бы столь отягощающим опытом. Вот только нигде уж и не купишь сие чудо.
В общем, на лицо всё тот же самый зубодробительный боевик низшего пошиба, что и Борцы за свободу 2003 года, но в тотально унылом облачении. О сюжете даже и не спрашиваете - здесь всего-навсего придётся лицезреть сказ о банальных преступных мразях против всех без какой-либо креативной смысловой подоплёки. Соскучились по простеньким стрелялкам? Ей Богу, уж лучше наверните первого Макса Пэйна, на шесть лет опередившего это убожество.
A game that is the product of that early Xbox 360 push towards everything being co-op. Loads of dull objectives - defend the guy, protect the moving thing, hold the point - which are always more palatable with a friend but so is being held hostage and I don't fancy that as a good way to spend my time either.
There's some cool ideas here that could use further exploration. Lynch's madness sometimes turning NPCs into enemies when playing in two player mode, while Kane sees them as the cowering innocents that they are and a picture-in-picture pop up when a sniper is lining up a shot on your head is a really useful tool for getting into cover but also ramps up the tension and chaos brilliantly.
The shooting feels stiff and unsatisfying and the cover system is basically a fucking coin toss as to whether it works or not and it is fair to say that Kane and Lynch just doesn't really FEEL good to play, which is ultimately is what condemns this one to the trash pile.
It's a real shame though because the characters, setting and atmosphere the game sets in the first half is absolutely fantastic. It's grim, gritty and never paints the protagonists to be anything more than horrible arseholes. They've basically aimed for a Michael Mann-esque hard boiled action thriller and, when it all clicks together during the prison break and sky rise building heist and subsequent shootout through the Tokyo streets, it's absolutely brilliant stuff.
However, some bright spark decided to turn the second half of the game into a fairly by the numbers military shooter and all of the aforementioned problems are suddenly emphasised massively. You're thrust from these excellent thriller movie staples which drip with tension and atmosphere and end up in some generic cover shooter with shite controls, leading to loads of frustrating deaths and tedious shootouts where you're just waiting for lads to pop their heads out from behind walls.
There's about an hour of a good game in Kane & Lynch. Unfortunately the six or so around it mean that hour just isn't worth the hassle.
There's some cool ideas here that could use further exploration. Lynch's madness sometimes turning NPCs into enemies when playing in two player mode, while Kane sees them as the cowering innocents that they are and a picture-in-picture pop up when a sniper is lining up a shot on your head is a really useful tool for getting into cover but also ramps up the tension and chaos brilliantly.
The shooting feels stiff and unsatisfying and the cover system is basically a fucking coin toss as to whether it works or not and it is fair to say that Kane and Lynch just doesn't really FEEL good to play, which is ultimately is what condemns this one to the trash pile.
It's a real shame though because the characters, setting and atmosphere the game sets in the first half is absolutely fantastic. It's grim, gritty and never paints the protagonists to be anything more than horrible arseholes. They've basically aimed for a Michael Mann-esque hard boiled action thriller and, when it all clicks together during the prison break and sky rise building heist and subsequent shootout through the Tokyo streets, it's absolutely brilliant stuff.
However, some bright spark decided to turn the second half of the game into a fairly by the numbers military shooter and all of the aforementioned problems are suddenly emphasised massively. You're thrust from these excellent thriller movie staples which drip with tension and atmosphere and end up in some generic cover shooter with shite controls, leading to loads of frustrating deaths and tedious shootouts where you're just waiting for lads to pop their heads out from behind walls.
There's about an hour of a good game in Kane & Lynch. Unfortunately the six or so around it mean that hour just isn't worth the hassle.
A guy gets on the MTA here L.A. and dies. Think anybody'll notice?
doğuş arkadaşım ile bizim hayat hikayesi
This review contains spoilers
Kane and Lynch: Dead Men? More like getting canned, lynched and dead brain cells after playing this game!
I should start this review by letting you know that I’ve gone through Kane and Lynch franchise backwards having already played the sequel K&L 2: Dog Shit™ prior to this game. As you might guess - I don’t think very fondly of it. You can find my full thoughts on the sequel here: https://www.backloggd.com/u/DarkDante14/review/299070/
Now, why would I go out of my way to play the K&L: Dead Men if my experience with the sequel was so negative? Simply put - I wanted to see where it all started. I want to make it clear that I didn’t go into this game with the intention of hating it, quite the opposite, in fact. I gave it the most benefit of doubt humanly possible. SURELY it can’t be as bad as Dog Days? SURELY the first game must have been good enough that it warranted a sequel. After all, Dog Days is quite notorious and the reception for Dead Men was generally more positive, albeit still somewhat mixed from what I’ve seen. Oh, how wrong I was…
A fair warning that this review WILL contain spoilers, including explicit details about the ending.
I’ll start with the positives, since it won't take long. Unlike K&L2, the initial story set-up and character motivations in Dead Men actually are somewhat decent for a typical crime drama. While nothing original, I, at the very least, didn’t find the story to be nonsensical drivel, unlike the sequel.
Another positive aspect is the soundtrack. One of the game’s composers is Jesper Kyd, who’s best known for his work on the earlier entries in both Hitman and Assassin’s Creed franchises. Kyd has a very particular style and his dark, suspenseful and melancholic arrangements go together quite well with games about murders.
Easily the most redeeming aspect in this otherwise incompetent slog is the level design. The levels are quite varied in their locations, type and scale. Rather than being stuck in your typical rectangle shaped shooting galleries that look and feel artificial, Dead Men’s environments actually feel like a believable part of the world. From a densely packed nightclub, a skyscraper office building and streets of Tokyo to a military compound in the middle of jungle. It’s a globetrotting adventure and levels do a great job of reflecting that. The design itself - from shoot-out sightlines, verticality, cover placement and general flow of direction was also mostly solid with a couple of exceptions.
Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, let’s get down to the meat of the matter.
This game fucking sucks.
It continues to impress me IO Interactive - a studio which made great games before and after the Kane and Lynch entries somehow managed to make not just one but TWO incompetent third-person shooters released during the heyday of the genre (2007 and 2010). How could they possibly screw up the shooting mechanics, you know, THE most important aspect of the genre, THIS badly? The game uses an antiquated way of handling aiming. Rather than your bullets actually going where you’re aiming with the crosshair, they simply spread around randomly. Unless you’re shooting a worn-out rifle with badly adjusted sights, the first bullet should always go directly where your aim is. Missing shots should only be a factor after the recoil kicks in, should you fail to adjust to it. Well, that’s not how Kane and Lynch works. Instead, the first 3–4 bullets will always go around the cross-hair in a somewhat random pattern before a single bullet goes even near where you intended.
This sucked in Dog Days and it sucked here. Arguably even more so here given the scale of the environments. The level design itself might be good, but it’s ruined by simply having an enemy positioned more than 10 meters away from the player.
I cannot stress enough how much this artificial baked-in bullet spread RUINS the entire game. It never stops being an issue. People who say that it “adds to the realism” clearly have never seen a gun in real life, or heck - have even the most basic cursory understanding of how modern projectile weapons work. The way guns behave in Kane and Lynch simply goes against common sense and physics of this world.
Next issue is the AI system. The game features an AI partner system with the ability to issue commands to them but I never really felt like I had to engage with it. That is, until half-way through the game where the unique levels are abruptly exchanged for your typical brown modern military setting. This is the turning point when the game went from bad to worse. You are forced, yes - forced to have a squad of blind, deaf and braindead AI squadmates who, I swear, are trying to get you and themselves killed. By the way, if they die it’s a game over for you. Having to baby sit these incompetent chuckle fucks made the game 10 times harder and 100 times more infuriating. I would have much rather dealt with the entire army of enemies on my own.
The only way of getting past this miserable part is to slowly and meticulously clear out the enemies while continuously yelling at your mentally handicapped squadmates to sit in a corner somewhere out of sight, out of mind. HOWEVER, this very same level features the most ruthless enemies in the entire game and a helicopter that can basically just one-shot you dead. Essentially, if you get unlucky and accidentally get in the line of fire of either the passing chopper or an enemy machine gunner - your squadmates might be too far to revive you in time and you will die faster than you can slam a fist through your monitor.
I’m at the age where I’ve generally mellowed out and don’t really get angry at video games anymore but this game made me yell, swear and bash my table like I was 13 years old again. The word “infuriating” does not even begin to describe the sheer anger I felt towards this poor joke of a game.
So how does this train wreck end? With multiple-choice endings, of course. There’s two to be exact and they both suck. You get a simple choice - after rescuing Kane’s daughter from the main villains, you can either leave your braindead squadmates to die in the middle of the jungle and get in a chopper with your daughter while Lynch is screeching at you for being a traitor bitch OR you can play an additional level and go on a rescue mission. The choice here is obvious - ROLL THE CREDITS AND TURN THIS SHIT OFF! This is how I felt at that moment and jokes aside, after seeing how much worse the “good” ending was, I am convinced that I made the better choice initially.
The common practice in video game design dictates that players who put in the extra effort and/or do additional content should be rewarded with a more satisfying conclusion to the story.
Kane and Lynch on the other hand, is just “built different”. If you choose to actually go through a yet another tedious level, you essentially get spat on as not only Kane fails to save a single soul, his daughter that you just spent the entire game rescuing ends up dying. Thus, it was all for nothing, once again making the “traitor” choice a more satisfying one.
Listen, I get it. The writers of Kane and Lynch keep trying to emphasize how there are no “lived happily ever after” endings. The world is a horrible place and K&L universe even more so. But the way it’s handled is poorly done, essentially betraying the player's expectations and not in a compelling or clever way. Writing a subversive crime drama is not easy, I get that, but the writers behind both Dead Men and Dog Days are simply not as good as they presumably think they are. Perhaps it’s the trash gameplay that sours my opinion of the story, but after playing both Dog Days and Dead Men, it’s clear to me that the writers of both games are simply incapable of creating a truly mature story besides throwing some gratuitous end edgy scenes sprinkled with a load of obscenities.
There is a reason why Kane and Lynch franchise is dead and forgotten and quite frankly, it should remain that way.
I should start this review by letting you know that I’ve gone through Kane and Lynch franchise backwards having already played the sequel K&L 2: Dog Shit™ prior to this game. As you might guess - I don’t think very fondly of it. You can find my full thoughts on the sequel here: https://www.backloggd.com/u/DarkDante14/review/299070/
Now, why would I go out of my way to play the K&L: Dead Men if my experience with the sequel was so negative? Simply put - I wanted to see where it all started. I want to make it clear that I didn’t go into this game with the intention of hating it, quite the opposite, in fact. I gave it the most benefit of doubt humanly possible. SURELY it can’t be as bad as Dog Days? SURELY the first game must have been good enough that it warranted a sequel. After all, Dog Days is quite notorious and the reception for Dead Men was generally more positive, albeit still somewhat mixed from what I’ve seen. Oh, how wrong I was…
A fair warning that this review WILL contain spoilers, including explicit details about the ending.
I’ll start with the positives, since it won't take long. Unlike K&L2, the initial story set-up and character motivations in Dead Men actually are somewhat decent for a typical crime drama. While nothing original, I, at the very least, didn’t find the story to be nonsensical drivel, unlike the sequel.
Another positive aspect is the soundtrack. One of the game’s composers is Jesper Kyd, who’s best known for his work on the earlier entries in both Hitman and Assassin’s Creed franchises. Kyd has a very particular style and his dark, suspenseful and melancholic arrangements go together quite well with games about murders.
Easily the most redeeming aspect in this otherwise incompetent slog is the level design. The levels are quite varied in their locations, type and scale. Rather than being stuck in your typical rectangle shaped shooting galleries that look and feel artificial, Dead Men’s environments actually feel like a believable part of the world. From a densely packed nightclub, a skyscraper office building and streets of Tokyo to a military compound in the middle of jungle. It’s a globetrotting adventure and levels do a great job of reflecting that. The design itself - from shoot-out sightlines, verticality, cover placement and general flow of direction was also mostly solid with a couple of exceptions.
Now that the pleasantries are out of the way, let’s get down to the meat of the matter.
This game fucking sucks.
It continues to impress me IO Interactive - a studio which made great games before and after the Kane and Lynch entries somehow managed to make not just one but TWO incompetent third-person shooters released during the heyday of the genre (2007 and 2010). How could they possibly screw up the shooting mechanics, you know, THE most important aspect of the genre, THIS badly? The game uses an antiquated way of handling aiming. Rather than your bullets actually going where you’re aiming with the crosshair, they simply spread around randomly. Unless you’re shooting a worn-out rifle with badly adjusted sights, the first bullet should always go directly where your aim is. Missing shots should only be a factor after the recoil kicks in, should you fail to adjust to it. Well, that’s not how Kane and Lynch works. Instead, the first 3–4 bullets will always go around the cross-hair in a somewhat random pattern before a single bullet goes even near where you intended.
This sucked in Dog Days and it sucked here. Arguably even more so here given the scale of the environments. The level design itself might be good, but it’s ruined by simply having an enemy positioned more than 10 meters away from the player.
I cannot stress enough how much this artificial baked-in bullet spread RUINS the entire game. It never stops being an issue. People who say that it “adds to the realism” clearly have never seen a gun in real life, or heck - have even the most basic cursory understanding of how modern projectile weapons work. The way guns behave in Kane and Lynch simply goes against common sense and physics of this world.
Next issue is the AI system. The game features an AI partner system with the ability to issue commands to them but I never really felt like I had to engage with it. That is, until half-way through the game where the unique levels are abruptly exchanged for your typical brown modern military setting. This is the turning point when the game went from bad to worse. You are forced, yes - forced to have a squad of blind, deaf and braindead AI squadmates who, I swear, are trying to get you and themselves killed. By the way, if they die it’s a game over for you. Having to baby sit these incompetent chuckle fucks made the game 10 times harder and 100 times more infuriating. I would have much rather dealt with the entire army of enemies on my own.
The only way of getting past this miserable part is to slowly and meticulously clear out the enemies while continuously yelling at your mentally handicapped squadmates to sit in a corner somewhere out of sight, out of mind. HOWEVER, this very same level features the most ruthless enemies in the entire game and a helicopter that can basically just one-shot you dead. Essentially, if you get unlucky and accidentally get in the line of fire of either the passing chopper or an enemy machine gunner - your squadmates might be too far to revive you in time and you will die faster than you can slam a fist through your monitor.
I’m at the age where I’ve generally mellowed out and don’t really get angry at video games anymore but this game made me yell, swear and bash my table like I was 13 years old again. The word “infuriating” does not even begin to describe the sheer anger I felt towards this poor joke of a game.
So how does this train wreck end? With multiple-choice endings, of course. There’s two to be exact and they both suck. You get a simple choice - after rescuing Kane’s daughter from the main villains, you can either leave your braindead squadmates to die in the middle of the jungle and get in a chopper with your daughter while Lynch is screeching at you for being a traitor bitch OR you can play an additional level and go on a rescue mission. The choice here is obvious - ROLL THE CREDITS AND TURN THIS SHIT OFF! This is how I felt at that moment and jokes aside, after seeing how much worse the “good” ending was, I am convinced that I made the better choice initially.
The common practice in video game design dictates that players who put in the extra effort and/or do additional content should be rewarded with a more satisfying conclusion to the story.
Kane and Lynch on the other hand, is just “built different”. If you choose to actually go through a yet another tedious level, you essentially get spat on as not only Kane fails to save a single soul, his daughter that you just spent the entire game rescuing ends up dying. Thus, it was all for nothing, once again making the “traitor” choice a more satisfying one.
Listen, I get it. The writers of Kane and Lynch keep trying to emphasize how there are no “lived happily ever after” endings. The world is a horrible place and K&L universe even more so. But the way it’s handled is poorly done, essentially betraying the player's expectations and not in a compelling or clever way. Writing a subversive crime drama is not easy, I get that, but the writers behind both Dead Men and Dog Days are simply not as good as they presumably think they are. Perhaps it’s the trash gameplay that sours my opinion of the story, but after playing both Dog Days and Dead Men, it’s clear to me that the writers of both games are simply incapable of creating a truly mature story besides throwing some gratuitous end edgy scenes sprinkled with a load of obscenities.
There is a reason why Kane and Lynch franchise is dead and forgotten and quite frankly, it should remain that way.
came back to this site so i could give this dog turd a rating
One of the worst TPS games i have ever played.
As interesting as the vile eponymous characters are, little can save Kane & Lynch: Dead Men from the mediocrity, if not outright terribleness, of its entire package. Gameplay is banal and tedious, even on the easiest difficulty; the narrative twists Max Payne, Trainspotting, and Tarantino into baffling nonsense to justify Kane's search and later rampages (although the cooperative mechanics driving Lynch are intriguing in a way Kane's never is); technical aspects are wholly deplorable with AI and graphics seeming antiquated for 2007; and, in comparison to its sequel, there's just no style to this game to warrant a playthrough to segue into Dog Days. There's worse games out there for sure, but Dead Men isn't really trying enough to not be deemed amongst them.
Imagine, if you will. IO Interactive makes Hitman: Blood Money, one of the best stealth games ever made, if not one of the best games period. They're backed by a large publisher and they're on top of the world. What's their next move? The worst fucking co-op game you'll ever play in your life. You may be misled to think that the game's awfulness is intentional due to the game's gritty, nihilistic and miserable aesthetics, but there is no benefit gained to this whatsoever. Kane & Lynch would be no less interesting if it had decent controls, satisfying shooting, well-developed enemy AI, or any thought put into its design at all. The only positive I can think to this experience was laughing at its awfulness while playing in co-op with a friend. Absolutely irredeemable otherwise.
I love me a janky game with a lot of great ideas that it's reaching really hard to achieve in ways that more polished games just don't. Kane & Lynch was probably a lot less interesting at its time. I've really only known it all these years as the game whose review started the saga of Jeff Gerstmann's firing from Gamespot and subsequential launch of Giant Bomb. Kane & Lynch: Dead Men has some of the worst gunplay I've ever encountered, but it's also head and shoulders above its peers in so many of the other details.
Weird game, but it has something
60/100
A passable if rather generic cover shooter that takes inspiration from the filmographies of Michael Mann and Joe Carnahan. Solid voice acting for the two leads but nothing too special just kinda in the middle.
action button dot net's bottom line for kane & lynch 2 dog days reads "a game whose only verb is kill". i think that applies for dead men as well.
was thinking about kane & lynch games in relation to Rockstar's protagonists. Rockstar typically present you with a character who is equally as psychopathic but in K&L there's no personality to these men whatsoever. no attempt at humour, nothing that undercuts just how truly awful and devoid of humanity they are.
take michael and trevor in GTA V. they are basically kane and lynch but for the mass market. trevor in particular is "edgy" he's "crazy" he's "in your face". he runs around his underwear and causes general mayhem. lynch on the other hand is just genuinely crazy, and angry all the time. the game doesn't really portray him as a clown even though he so easily could be written that way (because he has a funny mullet and glasses and says wacko things).
kane has a family, like michael, and is coded as the "professional one" but kane's family hate him, want nothing to do with him. he abandoned them. he has no witty repertoire or any personality at all. he's a stone cold criminal and murderer. and a traitor and a liar and just an all around piece of shit even if he's dressed like an money manager.
Rockstar games can't help but clutter their "gritty" and "serious" michael mann inspired crime games with wacky side characters aimed at 13 year old american boys. i appreciate that kane & lynch plays itself straight and direct. it's a closer look into the face of evil even it, too, is not quite michael mann either.
i think dead men lacks the genuine romanticism and beating heart of mann. it's not about the professionalism of crime either, in fact it's about the complete opposite - the chaotic. but i think it does skew closer to mann's work. dead men features a scene right out of Heat (in fact, it kinda has two as i'd argue the opening prison break is similar as well) just as GTA IV and V do. basically the infamous LA shootout scene. in GTA IV that's all set piece and scripted. in dead men it's pure chaos. no enemy markers. terrible weapon controls (although great, heavy sounds, the noise the M4 makes in this is great), it really does capture some of the myth of Heat even if it feels completely by accident.
this game also features a club scene right out of collateral including handing kane the same melee animation as tom cruise's hitman vincent. funny this is from the developers of the hitman games yet feels more violent and meaty than any of the hitman games i've played (everything post-blood money, so not a great sample).
i've kind of rambled. this is a good game. it's oddly beautiful at times, much like dog days i think it has some really nice architecture and beautiful dusk skies and night scenes. it's not as daring or committed to an aesthetic like dog days, which in turn to me winds up feeling like a remix of everything in dead men now that i've played it, but it nevertheless has an unmistakable quality too coupled with a cold level of violence that feels unmatched today. they just don't make games like this anymroe.
was thinking about kane & lynch games in relation to Rockstar's protagonists. Rockstar typically present you with a character who is equally as psychopathic but in K&L there's no personality to these men whatsoever. no attempt at humour, nothing that undercuts just how truly awful and devoid of humanity they are.
take michael and trevor in GTA V. they are basically kane and lynch but for the mass market. trevor in particular is "edgy" he's "crazy" he's "in your face". he runs around his underwear and causes general mayhem. lynch on the other hand is just genuinely crazy, and angry all the time. the game doesn't really portray him as a clown even though he so easily could be written that way (because he has a funny mullet and glasses and says wacko things).
kane has a family, like michael, and is coded as the "professional one" but kane's family hate him, want nothing to do with him. he abandoned them. he has no witty repertoire or any personality at all. he's a stone cold criminal and murderer. and a traitor and a liar and just an all around piece of shit even if he's dressed like an money manager.
Rockstar games can't help but clutter their "gritty" and "serious" michael mann inspired crime games with wacky side characters aimed at 13 year old american boys. i appreciate that kane & lynch plays itself straight and direct. it's a closer look into the face of evil even it, too, is not quite michael mann either.
i think dead men lacks the genuine romanticism and beating heart of mann. it's not about the professionalism of crime either, in fact it's about the complete opposite - the chaotic. but i think it does skew closer to mann's work. dead men features a scene right out of Heat (in fact, it kinda has two as i'd argue the opening prison break is similar as well) just as GTA IV and V do. basically the infamous LA shootout scene. in GTA IV that's all set piece and scripted. in dead men it's pure chaos. no enemy markers. terrible weapon controls (although great, heavy sounds, the noise the M4 makes in this is great), it really does capture some of the myth of Heat even if it feels completely by accident.
this game also features a club scene right out of collateral including handing kane the same melee animation as tom cruise's hitman vincent. funny this is from the developers of the hitman games yet feels more violent and meaty than any of the hitman games i've played (everything post-blood money, so not a great sample).
i've kind of rambled. this is a good game. it's oddly beautiful at times, much like dog days i think it has some really nice architecture and beautiful dusk skies and night scenes. it's not as daring or committed to an aesthetic like dog days, which in turn to me winds up feeling like a remix of everything in dead men now that i've played it, but it nevertheless has an unmistakable quality too coupled with a cold level of violence that feels unmatched today. they just don't make games like this anymroe.
Generic and bad
While Kane & Lynch starts off promising, with an interesting premise and tight corridor third-person action, it quickly devolves into a slog.
Long range engagements in the second half of the game are piss-poor, as the players shoots in vain at vague silhouettes resulting in poor player feedback. Scripted turret-esc sections strip player agency and are boring.
The unique duo of characters and “antagonist of the week” style of story telling is dropped in favor for the most generic “save your daughter” plot line ever. Controls are unresponsive and confusing; instead of a button to use cover you walk into it and it’s very inconsistent. Aiming feels sluggish and the squad mechanics are pointless.
A pretty sluggish game. The characters and narrative had potential but it’s wasted on the most generic third-person shooter ever.
3/10
While Kane & Lynch starts off promising, with an interesting premise and tight corridor third-person action, it quickly devolves into a slog.
Long range engagements in the second half of the game are piss-poor, as the players shoots in vain at vague silhouettes resulting in poor player feedback. Scripted turret-esc sections strip player agency and are boring.
The unique duo of characters and “antagonist of the week” style of story telling is dropped in favor for the most generic “save your daughter” plot line ever. Controls are unresponsive and confusing; instead of a button to use cover you walk into it and it’s very inconsistent. Aiming feels sluggish and the squad mechanics are pointless.
A pretty sluggish game. The characters and narrative had potential but it’s wasted on the most generic third-person shooter ever.
3/10
Brings a novel innovation to the third-person shooter paradigm: an aiming reticule that tells you where the bullets will not go
This is the equivalent of watching an old man with AID's take a wet shit and being forced to play with it.
Really dug this for a while. The shooting is awkward, but there’s a blunt verisimilitude to the gunfights, an attention to detail with e.g. your teammates giving you ammo when you’re low, or where being revived with adrenaline too frequently leads to an overdose. The game apes Michael Mann better than most, most blatantly with the nightclub shootout - the screaming crowds are a great touch - or the later Heat-inspired getaway on the streets of Tokyo. What it doesn’t attempt to capture is Mann’s romance. There’s no attempt to lend Kane & Lynch’s quest justification of any sort. They’re bad men - in Lynch’s case, bad in a clinically insane kind of way - and the game is at its best when exploring this blackly comedic dynamic, where one tries to rein the other one in but both, predictably, bring out the worst in each other. Unfortunately, the game falls off a cliff at the midway point, turning into an awful guerrilla warfare shooter that’s full of insanely difficult bullshit. But points to its grimy B-movie vibes until then.
this game is so underrated and amazing, it's from the same devs of the HITMAN series, the executions and third person shooting gameplay is a lot more fun which reminds me of the early john wick ever.
9.8/10 for this underrated masterpiece by HITMAN Devs, wish it comes back to steam though without the games for windows live thingie
9.8/10 for this underrated masterpiece by HITMAN Devs, wish it comes back to steam though without the games for windows live thingie
Starts off as a solid third-person shooter with great style, intriguing story and a lot of potential, but at about 60% mark it devolves into some kind of second-rate military shooter, which pretty much throws away everything that worked about the game. And the ending feels like a slap in the face.
Finished this one in just over 3 hours. You gotta respect the intent, there are few games where you get to play as bad people doing bad things. Of course, there are some attempts at sympathy but for the most part, the writers don't try and make you think Kane and Lynch are anything but horrible people. The music is also a standout, fitting extremely well, really accentuating the spectacle, but not going too far as to make you forget you're doing some messed up stuff.
However, the gameplay is where it all falls apart. The gunplay is bad, the squad mechanics are barely required and might as well be forgotten and to cap it off the final levels are just not good at all, replacing the glamour of earlier levels with copy-paste enemy engagements that just drag on. It's short enough that it doesn't overstay its welcome, but it is really held back by a lack of polish to bring it together.
However, the gameplay is where it all falls apart. The gunplay is bad, the squad mechanics are barely required and might as well be forgotten and to cap it off the final levels are just not good at all, replacing the glamour of earlier levels with copy-paste enemy engagements that just drag on. It's short enough that it doesn't overstay its welcome, but it is really held back by a lack of polish to bring it together.
FROM THE TWISTED MIND OF IO INTERACTIVE
I have an odd relation to the first Kane & Lynch. When I first played it on the PS3, I absolutely HATED this game. Everything felt so clunky and not precise. I couldn't hit ANYTHING with these damn weapons and wasted a lot of ammo, but the PC-version is miles better. Writing wise, IO Interactive tried hard to catch the vibes of Reservoir Dogs or Heat, but it falls mostly flat. But I really need to say, that I dig the downward spiral this game goes... even though the ending is pretty shit. A tale of two detesting human beings, who just fuck up all the time and even jump into a Guerilla War, which reminded me from the mechanics a lot of their previous game "Freedom Fighters".
Really interesting game, not the best by any mean or capacity but interesting enough to keep you hooked through it's story. It's a well made movie-like experience with a great variety of locations and scenarios. The atmosphere feels opressive and dark at times. The Japan levels were the best in my opinion. Something strange I recalled is that the characters just go from one side of the world for another in a matter of just seconds? it helps to keep the pace of the game but come on, it feels kind of lazy.
Both protagonist make a good couple, one being sane and the other being a psycho. One is selfish, the other one is loyal and so one. The best of both worlds and it works Both are deeply flawed on their own way.
Why is just "Decent" then? Well, the gameplay cannot be more tedious for a shooter. The cover mechanic is not associated to a specific button for some ungodly reason and it's just does it by itself when you are close to a wall. The shooting itself feels janky to say the least, the bullets spread like crazy and you don't much options for a more precise weapon such as a rifle or sniper through the game. Sprinting is non-existential, it last less than 5 seconds if you are lucky and the sprint isn't like a huge difference from walking either. The Team mechanic is a mixed-bag it can serve on some specific ocassions but most of the time you ended up killing yout target before your team does most of the time.
Most of the unique mechanics to this game don't flesh out that much really through the journey. Stealth is close to non-existent, specially in the Jungle levels when there is an incentive to use it. You will ending up shooting everyone without consecuence anyways.
Conclusions: Interesting game, but it's not much of a fun ride, but it doesn't need to be it either. And by the end, you will ended up empty.
Both protagonist make a good couple, one being sane and the other being a psycho. One is selfish, the other one is loyal and so one. The best of both worlds and it works Both are deeply flawed on their own way.
Why is just "Decent" then? Well, the gameplay cannot be more tedious for a shooter. The cover mechanic is not associated to a specific button for some ungodly reason and it's just does it by itself when you are close to a wall. The shooting itself feels janky to say the least, the bullets spread like crazy and you don't much options for a more precise weapon such as a rifle or sniper through the game. Sprinting is non-existential, it last less than 5 seconds if you are lucky and the sprint isn't like a huge difference from walking either. The Team mechanic is a mixed-bag it can serve on some specific ocassions but most of the time you ended up killing yout target before your team does most of the time.
Most of the unique mechanics to this game don't flesh out that much really through the journey. Stealth is close to non-existent, specially in the Jungle levels when there is an incentive to use it. You will ending up shooting everyone without consecuence anyways.
Conclusions: Interesting game, but it's not much of a fun ride, but it doesn't need to be it either. And by the end, you will ended up empty.
Very mediocre gameplay, but it didn't have a chance to get overly boring. Some of the changes in pace were pretty cool and a some really shit.
This review contains spoilers
TL;DR: Story/character interactions are great, Gameplay is serviceable until the 3rd act which just becomes dreadful with half-baked ideas.
Feel a bit conflicted on this one. One hand its story is intriguing with starring an ex-merc named "Kane" and a schizo who go by "Lynch" who are complete fuckups going on a quest to pay back the debts of mercenaries called "The7", but everything goes to shit for em.
And im not playing that they're fuckups up either, as soon as the first prison breakout mission ends and the real events begin from the word "go". Botched heists, Botched deals, so many people distrust both of em for valid reasons.
Kane being a selfish dick whose implied to basically use and discard those he comes into contact with for his own personal needs, addicted to "making deals" and weaseling his way out of jams and Lynch for being a pathological liar with a severe case of mental illness and having blackouts to where he loses it and kills those in his sight in the process, including his own wife in his backstory and many civilians whom he sees as cops when you play as him in the co-op mode.
Despite them being massive fuckups by every sense of the word, i feel bad for both of them. Lynch due to his condition, constantly uttering to himself and violent impulses which led to him being in this mess ironically over watching kane, only for him to also be betrayed by the7. and Kane, despite being a traitor using and discarding everyone, having a troubled past when he was a former police officer, his son got a hold of his gun and discharged, causing his wife and daughter to leave him.
Only for spoilers, his wife and daughter getting kidnapped & dragged into his beef with the7. Not only his wife gets shot in the head due to his own fuck ups, but his own daughter, jenny, the only person he cares about left on this earth, RESENTING him. On top of him having disturbing moments play in his head, subconsciously beating himself over and feeling overwhelming guilt while you have near-death experiences during gameplay waiting for someone to revive you with adrenaline.
Just with little bits and pieces, and obvious inspiration from michael mann's work, mainly heat and collateral, and may have been considered an inspiration & often get compared to the likes of GTA V with both characters sounding awfully familiar with A former heister whose selfish and only make deals to go awry and a psychopath who has much resentment towards him, even having the same backstory of a botched heist gone wrong. Though with GTAV, that at least has a "3rd option" or a "Happy ending", with Kane & Lynch, There is no "good ending" here, You either get branded as a traitor by your own daughter for leaving your squad behind, or risk going back for your crew only for one of em to bite the dust and the other ditching you, lynch and jenny.
On the other hand, This is a third person shooter. and ive wrote multiple paragraphs about the story since thats the games saving grace alongside with perfect lighting and cinematography acting like a legit crime drama. ...For the first 2 acts. The third act is such a drastic shift in tone and even quality, that it fucks up any enjoyment i had towards this game and i thought "how bad can the havana levels be", IO interactive just said fuck it and tried their damndest to throw EVERYTHING at you, even on "Codeine" (Medium) difficulty.
A shit ton of soldiers surrounding you, including a few tanks and helis which are tedious to take out, gunplay pretty much taking the piss, shooting everywhere but your target, which i was willing to forgive up until this point (being early 7th gen) since you were facing criminals and cops and not a whole ass militia with M16s and LMGs, oh and half-assed attempts to implement both mechanics from the devs previous work,
Ai squads to back you up with a shit ton of solider fodder from Freedom Fighters (which this game was originally started out as a sequel to but thanks to rights issues, it got morphed into whatever this 3rd act is), and half-assed "stealth" sections and give your pistols and sniper suppressors which is baffling since a year prior, a little small game of theirs called Hitman: Blood Money came out and to go from that games stealth to this feels like a joke.
Wish they had kept the same amount of janky confidence they had with the first 2 acts with the 3rd act instead of basically throwing away a serviceable TPS with Ai giving you ammo when you run out and only have 2 revives with adrenaline until you die completely, a shoddy cover system where it randomly SNAPS onto random objects you duck behind and not having a contextual button like Gears of war and other TPS at the time, and gunplay that makes bullets go all over the place instead of your target, with a good ass story, to make this half-assed spiritual successor with a gimmick you can do without coming from a 2003 game they never got the rights back to. (until modern day when they split away from Square Enix to work on the nu-Hitman games and Now, an untitled James Bond project.)
The story and the first two acts really saved this game from being completely shat on, the bugs (including a game breaking one which at 120+fps a police car spawns, killing lynch and you cannot revive him since its a shooting segment, only fix is to limit it at 60fps), and the 3rd act really drags this from a fair 3 to 2 1/2.
Goes from serviceable to just straight up exhausting, its other saving grace that its short so you don't have to play the last levels for long, but at the same time, if you're planning to play this or replay it, enjoy the good bits because they do not last for long.
Feel a bit conflicted on this one. One hand its story is intriguing with starring an ex-merc named "Kane" and a schizo who go by "Lynch" who are complete fuckups going on a quest to pay back the debts of mercenaries called "The7", but everything goes to shit for em.
And im not playing that they're fuckups up either, as soon as the first prison breakout mission ends and the real events begin from the word "go". Botched heists, Botched deals, so many people distrust both of em for valid reasons.
Kane being a selfish dick whose implied to basically use and discard those he comes into contact with for his own personal needs, addicted to "making deals" and weaseling his way out of jams and Lynch for being a pathological liar with a severe case of mental illness and having blackouts to where he loses it and kills those in his sight in the process, including his own wife in his backstory and many civilians whom he sees as cops when you play as him in the co-op mode.
Despite them being massive fuckups by every sense of the word, i feel bad for both of them. Lynch due to his condition, constantly uttering to himself and violent impulses which led to him being in this mess ironically over watching kane, only for him to also be betrayed by the7. and Kane, despite being a traitor using and discarding everyone, having a troubled past when he was a former police officer, his son got a hold of his gun and discharged, causing his wife and daughter to leave him.
Only for spoilers, his wife and daughter getting kidnapped & dragged into his beef with the7. Not only his wife gets shot in the head due to his own fuck ups, but his own daughter, jenny, the only person he cares about left on this earth, RESENTING him. On top of him having disturbing moments play in his head, subconsciously beating himself over and feeling overwhelming guilt while you have near-death experiences during gameplay waiting for someone to revive you with adrenaline.
Just with little bits and pieces, and obvious inspiration from michael mann's work, mainly heat and collateral, and may have been considered an inspiration & often get compared to the likes of GTA V with both characters sounding awfully familiar with A former heister whose selfish and only make deals to go awry and a psychopath who has much resentment towards him, even having the same backstory of a botched heist gone wrong. Though with GTAV, that at least has a "3rd option" or a "Happy ending", with Kane & Lynch, There is no "good ending" here, You either get branded as a traitor by your own daughter for leaving your squad behind, or risk going back for your crew only for one of em to bite the dust and the other ditching you, lynch and jenny.
On the other hand, This is a third person shooter. and ive wrote multiple paragraphs about the story since thats the games saving grace alongside with perfect lighting and cinematography acting like a legit crime drama. ...For the first 2 acts. The third act is such a drastic shift in tone and even quality, that it fucks up any enjoyment i had towards this game and i thought "how bad can the havana levels be", IO interactive just said fuck it and tried their damndest to throw EVERYTHING at you, even on "Codeine" (Medium) difficulty.
A shit ton of soldiers surrounding you, including a few tanks and helis which are tedious to take out, gunplay pretty much taking the piss, shooting everywhere but your target, which i was willing to forgive up until this point (being early 7th gen) since you were facing criminals and cops and not a whole ass militia with M16s and LMGs, oh and half-assed attempts to implement both mechanics from the devs previous work,
Ai squads to back you up with a shit ton of solider fodder from Freedom Fighters (which this game was originally started out as a sequel to but thanks to rights issues, it got morphed into whatever this 3rd act is), and half-assed "stealth" sections and give your pistols and sniper suppressors which is baffling since a year prior, a little small game of theirs called Hitman: Blood Money came out and to go from that games stealth to this feels like a joke.
Wish they had kept the same amount of janky confidence they had with the first 2 acts with the 3rd act instead of basically throwing away a serviceable TPS with Ai giving you ammo when you run out and only have 2 revives with adrenaline until you die completely, a shoddy cover system where it randomly SNAPS onto random objects you duck behind and not having a contextual button like Gears of war and other TPS at the time, and gunplay that makes bullets go all over the place instead of your target, with a good ass story, to make this half-assed spiritual successor with a gimmick you can do without coming from a 2003 game they never got the rights back to. (until modern day when they split away from Square Enix to work on the nu-Hitman games and Now, an untitled James Bond project.)
The story and the first two acts really saved this game from being completely shat on, the bugs (including a game breaking one which at 120+fps a police car spawns, killing lynch and you cannot revive him since its a shooting segment, only fix is to limit it at 60fps), and the 3rd act really drags this from a fair 3 to 2 1/2.
Goes from serviceable to just straight up exhausting, its other saving grace that its short so you don't have to play the last levels for long, but at the same time, if you're planning to play this or replay it, enjoy the good bits because they do not last for long.
This game is god-awful. The plot is predictable, the writing is terrible, the shooting is frustrating, the cover system is borked, and the team-based gameplay is a hinderance. I do not recommend this game.