Kane and Lynch
Kane and Lynch: Dead Men was, in my opinion, a sleeper hit. It didn't see a huge success in terms of sales and didn't receive a ton of attention from the gaming community at large. Critics were unnecessarily harsh when reviewing the game, and as a result, this gem of a title has gone largely unnoticed. In my book, "Kane and Lynch" for the PC suffers only from a couple of flaws, but is, on the whole, a great co-op third-person shooter with one of the most compelling stories in video game history.
In "Kane and Lynch," you play as the titular characters (or as Kane with an AI-controlled Lynch, if you're not playing it cooperatively with a buddy), who are, in essence, stuck between a rock and a hard place. The game opens with the assassin Kane in an armored truck being transported to his execution for crimes that he committed in South America, which are initially vague but are revealed over the course of the game. Before he can reach his final destination, however, the truck is blown off the road and Kane is sprung free by the psychopath known as Lynch, who was also riding with him in the truck. After fleeing from the police, Kane is brought before a mysterious organization of assassins known as The7, who sent Lynch to intercept Kane on his way to the execution. Apparently, The7 believe that Kane betrayed them before his arrest and made out with millions of dollars in cash. They give Kane one week to retrieve the missing cash, with threats made against his ex-wife and daughter if he fails to procure the goods. Things go from bad to worse as Lynch finds himself in just as dangerous of a situation as Kane, and the two unlikely partners must work together to stay alive.
The plot of "Kane and Lynch" gets better and better as it progresses with twists and turns that not only keep you on edge, but also result in you rooting for these anti-heroes who, in reality, are pretty awful people. The fact that the story is so engaging and heart-wrenching that you end up really caring about the fate of an assassin and murderous psychopath lends credence to superb writing. Given the game's cinematic nature, it's not surprising that a film adaptation is currently in the works.
As far as gameplay goes, "Kane and Lynch" is a fairly standard...but still highly enjoyable...third-person shooter. There are some squad tactics that come into play later on as you start working alongside some equally nefarious criminals, and while it's not the most complex system in the world, it's a welcome addition. Teamwork between Kane and Lynch alone is also a large part of the gameplay. Some highlights include Lynch covering Kane as he breaks into a bank vault (only to lapse into a violent fit and begin killing hostages), or Kane meeting a crimelord in a large, open space, only to be ambushed by snipers that Lynch must quickly dispatch with a rifle. The team elements like this make it an exceptional co-op game, but the AI is serviceable if you're playing through solo.
The game looks fantastic, especially on a high-end machine, despite the fact that it came to the PC over a year and a half ago. Everything has a smooth, clean look to it that belies the dirty deeds that you commit as Kane and Lynch, and character models...especially the weathered faces of the title characters...look fantastic. Some of the extraneous effects are nice touches, as well, like the screen fogging and tearing up when you walk through tear gas, or alarming hallucinations that occur when Lynch goes into a violent rage. Considering the fact that the game is a whopping 7+ gigabyte install, one should hope that the visuals are top-notch, and the game does not fail to deliver on this front.
Possibly my biggest gripe with the game is the cover system, which is flawed to the point of disrupting gameplay on a fairly regular basis. After playing games like "Rainbow Six: Vegas" that feature intuitive, well-executed cover systems, this seems like two steps backwards. In "Kane and Lynch," you are required to run up to the wall that you wish to take cover behind, hit a button (which, in turn, locks you against that wall until you hit the button again), and hold down the fire button to stick your head out. First off, the fact that you get locked to the wall...as opposed to just having a button that you can hold down to stay on the wall and release when you want to get off of it...can result in some unfortunate situations where you try frantically to get out of cover when your enemies flank you. Secondly, the game has some issues detecting when you want to take cover behind a wall; there were many a time in which I would stand there looking at a wall while tapping the command key, only to have my player refuse to take cover. Should you be fortunate enough to get into a decent position once in cover, you're still not out of the woods, as your enemies frequently shoot your head or shoulder through the wall that you're supposedly taking cover behind. It's frustrating to deal with, since it's a vital link that is broken in a gameplay formula that relies on tactics and careful shooting to succeed.
The online multiplayer mode in "Kane and Lynch" is an exclusive, unique game type known as Fragile Alliance. In this mode, you and up to seven other players start a round as a group of robbers on the same team, working together to pull off a heist against computer opponents. The round ends when all surviving robbers have escaped in the getaway vehicle. Any money secured in the heist is divided evenly among the allied robbers, which can be spent in between rounds to buy better weapons and armor. The catch is that a player can, at any time, kill one or more of his teammates to secure as much cash as he can for himself, which he will no longer need to split with anybody since he is no longer part of the alliance. In turn, if you betray any of your teammates, you are immediately marked as a traitor, and anyone who kills you will immediately receive a $200,000 reward that they do not need to split. There are a number of other caveats too, such as the fact that money can act like a shield (it's dropped as you take damage) and that players are respawned as police if they die. As a policeman, you can kill robbers and pick up whatever loot they drop at a rate of a 10 percent finder's fee, but if you're killed as a cop, then you're out for the rest of the round. It's complicated, but after a few rounds, it's easy to get the hang of, and it's wildly addicting. It's more of a mind game than anything else. You never know when your teammates might turn on you, and that paranoid, constantly-on-edge feeling that you have when you play is a feeling that few other video games can inspire.
Fragile Alliance is not without its flaws, however, and is very conducive to obnoxious tactics should players feel like ruining the game for everybody. There's nothing stopping players from shooting teammates right off the bat before even starting the heist, which completely defeats the purpose of the mode; the idea is that you work together with your teammates to take down the computer before deciding on any betrayals, and it's for a reason. Typically, if people try to kill off all of their teammates from the get-go, they rarely succeed in taking down all of the computer opponents on their way through the heist. On the rare occasion that they do, it's still terribly boring for the rest of the players to have to sit there and watch as they do so. Technically, it's not cheating, but it's certainly against the spirit of the game and it's easy for anybody to ruin a good time.
An equally cheap tactic I came across during my online play is that players would form alliances outside of the game and team up to take down other team members. While this may seem like strategy, it becomes frustrating to witness if one of two allied players gets killed and is respawned as a policeman; that policeman, in turn, refuses to do his job and kill the remaining robbers, per their outside agreement. Instead, they just kill off fellow policemen or robbers that they're not allied with, collect their finder's fees, and let their buddy slip away without any trouble. At that point, players are just abandoning the objectives of the game, and there are no rules in place to keep them from doing so.
Beyond inherent flaws that make for easy exploitation of the game mode, the other noticeable issue with online play was that I had a lot of problems with latency. Granted, many of the people I was playing with were from Europe (as the online community in America is rather slim) but it was impossible for me to host, as I would stay frozen for the first two or three minutes of the round, only to find myself shot or the round finished by the time my connection came through.
And although I enjoyed Fragile Alliance for the most part, it's the only online multiplayer mode available, and I would have liked to see some other options. Even if they were as simple as deathmatch or capture the flag modes, I feel like a little more variety would have been nice. Online co-op would have been nice too, considering the fact that the game puts such an emphasis on playing through the game with two players via local co-op. It just seemed like having the option to do it online was something of a given. Similarly, as a PC gamer, I feel a little short-changed since the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game were given free downloadable content in the form of four new maps which the PC never saw.
"Kane and Lynch: Dead Men" has a lot to offer. It's a solid third-person shooter...albeit with a flawed cover system...that features an excellent plot to drive the gameplay. Beyond the single player (or co-op) campaign, however, developers IO Interactive took a leap of faith and developed an innovative multiplayer mode that, besides some minor issues, was a success. I have since heard that a sequel to "Kane and Lynch" is on its way, and if it fixes the couple of issues that this title suffered from it could be a huge hit.
Score: 8.2/10