Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days Demo, First impressions

Aug 1, 2010

I played Kane and Lynch: Dead Men… I did. I bought it for the PC, it didn’t work on my system, too high spec you see… Some time later, 3 years later actually, I bought it for the PS3 and my friend and I toiled for hours trying to get through that game with our sanity, temper and friendship intact and without killing ourselves from the depression that radiates from the story. The game was ok, I never would have thought a sequel could be drawn from it, but here it is. The Demo for “Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days” was released recently and I thought I might check it out because I have to say, the trailer looked grand.

The first thing you will notice is the big ol’ disclaimer that’s forced into your eye right at the start. It claims that this game does not wish to offend any races or religions… Well I’m sold, let’s continue shall we?

The whole demo basically consists of a huge gunfight between the two fellows and the entire Shanghai police force from the looks of it, what on earth did you two do? Don’t know, nothing’s really explained and I wouldn’t expect it to be because it’s only a demo. What I gather from the opening cut scene is that Lynch has moved on in his life and got himself a girl in Shanghai, then Kane flies over to say a howdy doo. Then they go to a restaurant and Lynch eats something with chopsticks and the cops bust in and shoot up the place. So, I think they were trying to apprehend him for his poor use of chopsticks… that’s all I got…

The visuals in this game are formed entirely like its being formed as part of a Blair Witch, Cloverfield, .REC type of handheld look. What I mean is the camera follows the characters like in a normal 3rd person shooter but when you run, the camera shakes like the person holding it is running after you. If you are shot, the camera goes pixelated for a second. If you die, the camera falls to the floor and rolls about like what you saw at the end of Blair Witch… Sorry if you haven’t seen that movie, ehem. Now for those of you who hate this type of camera perspective, you can turn on “Steady cam” mode which basically turns it into a normal camera. This would take a lot away from the feel of the game though, it completely defeats the home made YouTube video feel that somehow makes me feel uneasy. Even the menu has play buttons and rewind buttons to give the effect of a self made video.

The controls seem way more revised than in the previous Kane & Lynch game. Cover is more easily taken and movement in general is vastly improved from the first game. However I do have a couple of annoyances. The first is why do shooters always switch between using the top and bottom shoulder buttons for aim and fire? This game uses the L1/R1 (LB/RB) buttons for aim and fire, come on people, the bottom shoulder buttons look like triggers! Use them!
My other annoyance was the fact that the reload button is the same button as the one you use to pick up guns from the floor, and both uses are carried out by tapping the button. So I’m constantly running along trying to reload but he replaces his shotgun with some tatty discarded police pistol that couldn’t kill anything, so I have to run back and get my gun that I wanted while being shot to death… Very frustrating.

The enemy AI is very advanced from what I’ve seen, they flank you to shoot you from behind, they shoot through destructible cover and retreat when needed rather than just standing there and taking fire. Again, this comes with a price, the Civilian AI is… horrendous, is the best word. In this unbelievably hard part of the demo, I was stuck in a DVD shop and there were about 7 Policemen shooting the entire place to the ground. In this heavy exchange of bullets there was a civilian that just ran into the shop, stood still right in the middle of the doorway where the bullets were flying and struck a pose with his hands on his hips. Needless to say I cried with laughter, but then he was cut down by about 45,000 rounds of 9mm ammo.

I am aware that this review is short, but the demo was short, without my numerous deaths I would say the gameplay time can’t have been more than five or ten minutes. Saying that though, that’s all I needed. This game looks like it’s going to be very very good and should provide a delicious story for us to all get depressed over. I look forward to it and encourage you to at least try the demo before Dog Days is released on the 27th of August, you won’t be disappointed.