In the opening of the first mission in Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days, the eponymous duo meet up on the streets of Shanghai. Lynch sticks his hand out for a handshake that Kane does not reciprocate, before Lynch puts his hand down without comment. Lynch offers surface level niceties and makes small talk with Kane, which he responds to with curt refusals and unnecessary aggression. This initially makes Kane look unlikable and selfish, until Lynch drags Kane along against his will for an unrelated personal vendetta, revealing that he's just as selfish and self-serving as Kane is, only dealing with the other because he needs him to get the job done. There is no compassion, there is no bond, there are only two unlikable, selfish men who drag each other down with every self-serving action they take until their shortsightedness destroys whatever they were fighting for in the first place.
Kane & Lynch 2, on paper, sounds like the kind of fun buddy-buddy crime thriller you'd see in a theater. Two down-on-their-luck career criminals with one humanizing aspect each (Lynch's new girlfriend and Kane's estranged daughter) join up for that "one last job", before things go south and our wacky leads are in over their heads in a foreign land, and epic shootouts and action set pieces occur henceforth. However, there is no joy here. The eponymous duo have no camaraderie like you'd expect, only dealing with each other for their own personal gain, but much like a toxic relationship, neither can fully live without the other. There are no rousing speeches, no begrudging acceptance of true friendship, only bitching and moaning about how much everything sucks and how much they despise each other, and yet they continue to fraternize, because who else do they have? They continue to escalate situations to unnecessary heights as they shoot thousands upon thousands of criminals and private military contractors in the concrete jungle of Shanghai. The endless stream of violence without pause or reprise is almost supernatural in a sense. Kane & Lynch are in a hell of their own creation: a drab, eternal labyrinth of urban architecture and endless gunfights in the hostile underbelly of China's criminal underworld. Just as suddenly as it starts, it ends without fanfare or conclusion. We were privy only to the vignette of time the game wanted us privy to, and in a way, maybe it's for the best. Kane & Lynch don't deserve closure.
What makes this plot work is the visual style in which it is presented. The camera is characterized as a perverse, unaddressed third-party observer to the action that unfolds. In cutscenes, the angles are often candid and much too close for comfort, as if the camera is trying to record the action without being seen by the characters in the story. Scenes often start suddenly and end just as abruptly, sometimes mid-dialogue, as if the battery had died before the scene could finish. In gameplay, it shakes as if in someone's hand when you run. Headshots are instantly pixelated out, blood and rain splatter on your shitty camcorder lens, bright lights create lens flare and loud noises such as shouting and explosions peak the audio and ruin the bit rate. When you die, the camera takes a tumble, the audio is suddenly cut-off without fade and the timestamp is presented without comment, before you are instantly thrown back into the action without any pause. We are neither Kane or Lynch, we are simply observers to their reckless and violent actions.
The gameplay is something I admittedly can't give too much comment on, because this is the first Third Person Shooter I've ever actually played, but I will say that it works incredibly well in-tandem with the visual presentation. The guns feel appropriately weighty and have a real OOMPH to them when you fire, alongside the recoil. You have to scramble across arenas scrounging for ammunition while making sure that you aren't getting riddled with bullets by the hundreds of gunmen you'll encounter, who are just as smart as any player, attempting to flank you and take you by surprise if you aren't careful. The cacophony of bullets whizzing by overhead, overpowering the character's speech and assaulting the player's senses makes every firefight intense. The admittedly tedious nature of it all syncs well with the duo's growing exacerbation at the sheer amount of people being thrown at them in the span of the story's 48-hour chronological window.
Kane & Lynch is an ugly, exhausting, visual anathema I had to walk away from constantly due to the sheer over-stimulation I was being bombarded by. But I think it's critical reception (in part due to it's predecessor's controversy), is largely unwarranted. It's a visually striking and unique experience that has yet to really receive the critical reevaluation other games in a similar vein from the 7th console generation received. It's a game very much worth the 4 hour commitment it asks of you.
Kane & Lynch 2, on paper, sounds like the kind of fun buddy-buddy crime thriller you'd see in a theater. Two down-on-their-luck career criminals with one humanizing aspect each (Lynch's new girlfriend and Kane's estranged daughter) join up for that "one last job", before things go south and our wacky leads are in over their heads in a foreign land, and epic shootouts and action set pieces occur henceforth. However, there is no joy here. The eponymous duo have no camaraderie like you'd expect, only dealing with each other for their own personal gain, but much like a toxic relationship, neither can fully live without the other. There are no rousing speeches, no begrudging acceptance of true friendship, only bitching and moaning about how much everything sucks and how much they despise each other, and yet they continue to fraternize, because who else do they have? They continue to escalate situations to unnecessary heights as they shoot thousands upon thousands of criminals and private military contractors in the concrete jungle of Shanghai. The endless stream of violence without pause or reprise is almost supernatural in a sense. Kane & Lynch are in a hell of their own creation: a drab, eternal labyrinth of urban architecture and endless gunfights in the hostile underbelly of China's criminal underworld. Just as suddenly as it starts, it ends without fanfare or conclusion. We were privy only to the vignette of time the game wanted us privy to, and in a way, maybe it's for the best. Kane & Lynch don't deserve closure.
What makes this plot work is the visual style in which it is presented. The camera is characterized as a perverse, unaddressed third-party observer to the action that unfolds. In cutscenes, the angles are often candid and much too close for comfort, as if the camera is trying to record the action without being seen by the characters in the story. Scenes often start suddenly and end just as abruptly, sometimes mid-dialogue, as if the battery had died before the scene could finish. In gameplay, it shakes as if in someone's hand when you run. Headshots are instantly pixelated out, blood and rain splatter on your shitty camcorder lens, bright lights create lens flare and loud noises such as shouting and explosions peak the audio and ruin the bit rate. When you die, the camera takes a tumble, the audio is suddenly cut-off without fade and the timestamp is presented without comment, before you are instantly thrown back into the action without any pause. We are neither Kane or Lynch, we are simply observers to their reckless and violent actions.
The gameplay is something I admittedly can't give too much comment on, because this is the first Third Person Shooter I've ever actually played, but I will say that it works incredibly well in-tandem with the visual presentation. The guns feel appropriately weighty and have a real OOMPH to them when you fire, alongside the recoil. You have to scramble across arenas scrounging for ammunition while making sure that you aren't getting riddled with bullets by the hundreds of gunmen you'll encounter, who are just as smart as any player, attempting to flank you and take you by surprise if you aren't careful. The cacophony of bullets whizzing by overhead, overpowering the character's speech and assaulting the player's senses makes every firefight intense. The admittedly tedious nature of it all syncs well with the duo's growing exacerbation at the sheer amount of people being thrown at them in the span of the story's 48-hour chronological window.
Kane & Lynch is an ugly, exhausting, visual anathema I had to walk away from constantly due to the sheer over-stimulation I was being bombarded by. But I think it's critical reception (in part due to it's predecessor's controversy), is largely unwarranted. It's a visually striking and unique experience that has yet to really receive the critical reevaluation other games in a similar vein from the 7th console generation received. It's a game very much worth the 4 hour commitment it asks of you.