yellowjello's Full Review: Kane & Lynch: Dead Men for Windows
Kane and Lynch: Dead Men is a third-person shooter action game about two foul-mouthed criminals who both have been thrown in jail for their wrong doings. Kane, the main character of the game, has been put on death row after being convicted of crimes he committed in Venezuela. He has a wife and a daughter. Lynch, the biggest supporting character in the game, has also been put on death row for murdering his wife. As they are being transfered, the van taking both Kane and Lynch is attacked by a large group of masked criminals who have their mind set on making sure that both Kane and Lynch get to The7, the group of elite criminal masterminds whom Kane apparently left to die back in Venezuela. Long story short, Kane is told that The7 have kidnapped his wife and daughter and if he doesn't get the money back that he stole from them, they will kill them both. From here, Kane and Lynch are sent on a number of missions to get the money back.
Kane and Lynch basically takes the gameplay of Gears of War and tweaks it to fit a more modern setting. The cover system was changed so that you no longer have to press a button to use cover, all you have to do now is run up to the cover and it automatically uses the cover that your character is behind. This system, in theory, is convenient and easy to use, but it was not executed perfectly. Every once in a while your character will just stand by the cover and not do anything and other times your character will use cover that you were either walking by or is near what you were actually trying to use as cover. This was much more frequent on console, but on PC it was a rare occurrence.
Another flaw that I came across was how inaccurate the automatic weapons are. I can understand it not being accurate when spraying, but even when you're just bursting or even if you're zoomed in, the crosshair is almost useless because the bullets seem to go everywhere except for where you're shooting. The main thing that made the gameplay fun was the squad based action; not all of the missions had it, but it made for great action sequences. Unlike most squad based games like this, your squad is actually helpful and will provide you with covering fire when you need it.
The graphics in Kane and Lynch were spectacular. Every little detail in the game was so high quality that I really have nothing to criticize. The environments were all breakable and the ragdolls were all very well done. As with all of IO Interactive's games, it ran on the Glacier engine (heavily modified), but this time around the it used Havok physics which fixed the laughable ragdoll physics that all of the Hitman games use.
The story of Kane and Lynch is not a very complex one, but despite it's simplicity it is still solid and somewhat believable. Based on the background of the characters, you know that neither Kane nor Lynch are very classy guys, but the character development in the cut scenes during and in between each of the missions are pretty acceptable despite the mediocre dialogue (more detail about that in the next part of the review). In the beginning, Kane and Lynch despise each other, but throughout the game, you can see how they start to learn to work with each other and collaborate.
The sound in Kane and Lynch: Dead Men can be split into two categories: sound effects and voice acting (dialogue included). On one hand we have very clear and strong sound effects and on the other hand we have very average voice acting with unimaginatively foul language.
First let's talk about the beauty of the sound effects. From the very beginning of the game, the shootouts sound so great because the gun shots and explosions combined with the gruesome shouts of pain make for very intense sequences. The sound effects alone almost make the shooting more fun because it so clearly represents the power of the weapon in your hands.
Now for the weak point of the game; the voice acting. While yes, the characters were all supposed to sound angry and aggressive, it was a bit too much and some of the characters come off as overly dramatic. This causes a problem for the game since the dialogue is such a huge part of it. Speaking of dialogue, let's talk about the foul language. These characters are criminals, it's understandable that they are foul mouths, but it starts getting annoying when every third word out of their mouth was either 'f---' or 's---'. When those words are thrown around too much they come off as unimaginative and lazy. There are so many better words to show anger with, but it seems that Kane and Lynch took the easy route when it comes to this.
Once you beat Kane and Lynch once, there is no incentive for you to go back and play it through again. Nothing changes and there is nothing added. You're just playing the same thing over again. If you're looking for replay value, Kane and Lynch is not a great candidate.
Compared to IO Interactive's other releases, this game is a bit of a let down, but it is by no means a bad game. If you're looking for a game that will entertain you one time around and maybe again in a few months, this is a good candidate despite it's apparent flaws. Overall, Kane and Lynch: Dead Men has a good initial delivery, but after that it all depends on how bored you are or how long it's been since you've played the game.
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