Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days review
Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days is the sequel to Kane & Lynch: Dead men. IO interactive are back and have managed to improve Dog Days in many ways over its predecessor. Everything from the graphics to the basic game play mechanics have been improved. Hopefully gamers will give the series a second chance and maybe Dog Days can wash away the stigma associated with the series thanks, in part, to the Gerstmann Gate scandal that hit the Internet a few years back. Many believed that famed journalist, Jeff Gerstmann, of Giant bomb was fired because he gave the game a low score. The scandal has never been resolved, but many issues with the past game have been.
Dog Days takes place in Shanghai and has you follow around Kane & Lynch on a deal that they have arranged. However, as usual with the two antiheroes, things don’t go so smoothly and chaos ensues. The game waste hardly anytime throwing player waist deep into Shanghai’s seedy underworld. Literally within the first 5 minutes the game already has the dastardly duo in a dogfight for their lives. A twist added to Dog Days is that players are no longer the cool and calm Kane and instead are forced in to the shoes of the psychopathic Lynch. Playing the game through the eyes of Lynch helps immerse player in the chaos of the world and also makes gamers sympathize for the lead character as he fights throughout the game to maintain his insanity. Playing as Lynch aslo seems like a natural pick when considering the games presentation.
The real star of the show is the Presentation and environment in Dog Days. I haven’t seen camera work like this since Cloverfield. The camera is, in a sense, a character in its own right. The camera helps to draw the player into the world of Kane & Lynch. The main draw is that the game looks to of been recoreded through a camcorder. So things like lens flare and film grain help the sense of realism hit home. The camera also helps accentuate the environment the gritty look of the film helps flesh out the grittyness of Shanghai like never before. The constant shaking of the camera and quick jerks in perspectives when your character is downed also help provoke a sense of urgency and and help heighten the sense danger. I hope future games take note of the camera work in Kane & Lynch,as its truly a feature I would like to see applied to future games.
Though the camera work is good, it would be meaning less with out improvements to the game play, thankfully the game play has seen vast improvements too. No longer do player have to struggle with the cumbersome squad- controls from the previous Kane & Lynch game. Also the cover system has been change for the better, no longer is it a stick cover system like the first game. Now gamers get in and out of cover by by pressing a button, This has brought Kane & Lynch in line with the industry standard. So expect the basic here with gamers being able to blindfire from cover and vault over it as well. The controls for the most part work and very rarely will gamers get stuck in cover against their will. Also the addition of the “down but not dead” feature is a welcome one. The feature is similar to the “last stand” perk from the Call of Duty games and it gives gamers a chance one last chance to fight off pursuing attackers and get back in cover. The A.I. in the game has also been vastly improved. Enemies will use the cover system just similar to how you would. And they also pop out of cover differently each time so you can sit their and camp a head-shot with the cursor. Enemies will also try and flank players. So players will constantly have to keep their heads on a swivel to survive. The A.I. definitely provide gamers with a challenge even on normal difficulty. The only place Dog Days falters is in the hit detection department. It’s nearly impossible to get a head shot in the game thanks to the hit detection being skewed. However, I will give IO the “benefit of the doubt” and say that it was more of an artistic choice. Because I know in real life if Kane & Lynch were shooting an automatic weapon they’d probably not be that accurate.
The Multi-player in Dog Days is very high concept and I hope other games follow. Fragile Alliance is the first weapon in Dog Days online arsenal and it puts players together in a heist against the A.I.. Once players make it to the money they have to reach the extraction point where the get-away van is located. However, on the way there is where the chaos starts. Gamers can betray each other and steal loot from one another. However, by killing teammates you become a target and the rest of the squad can kill you. Also that teammate you killed becomes a cop and will try to exact revenge on you. Fragile Alliance fosters this greed in players by making the criteria to win to have the most money at the end of the rounds. Fragile Alliance is a mind game and will require a lot of tactics and skills from player. Undercover Cop is the next weapon in Dog Days’ online arsenal. It has players doing a heist, but the kicker is that one of the player is secretly an undercover cop. So players have to be on their guard at all times, because unlike the Fragile Alliance the cop isn’t marked when he kills a teammate. This mode is also challenging for the cop who must teeter between killing teammate and staying undetected. The last weapon in Dog Day’s arsenal is Cops & Robbers. While the base premise of Cops & Robber is a team death match/ capture the flag hybrid, Dog Days manages to put its twist on the mode. Cops and Robbers puts players on team and pits them against each other, however the twist is that the robbers have to make it to a heist point where they try and grab the loot from a van, all while the cop are trying to defend the loot. Once a robber has some of the loot they try to make it to the extraction point, If a robber is killed however, his loot stolen buy the cop who killed him. In turn, this makes the cop who was once the hunter now the hunted as the robbers will try to kill him to get the money back, because whatever team has the most money at the end of the round wins. Dog Day’s also offers a very standard fare co-op mode. The co-op mode is a nice way to run through the campaign. For the most part Dog Days’ multi-player delivers above and beyond your typical online shooter and is a nice break from the norm. The only detriment to the games online offering is the appearance of lag which happens a bit to frequent.
Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days is sure to help gamers pass the summer doldrums. Whether it’s the games staggerring presentation or the high concept multiplayer, Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days delivers, and is a vast improvement over it’s predecessor. The only detriment to Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days is the too frequent lag and the short single player campaign. Gamers looking for something fresh need not look any further, Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days is your game. So put conspiracies aside and do yourself a favor and pick this game up!
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