Kane & Lynch: Dead Men
November 27,2007 - With games and movies becoming increasingly connected with each other, it’s no wonder why developers are making more cinematic games. Kane & Lynch: Dead Men is no exception. Unfortunately, had they decided to make a movie out of the storyline instead of a game, they may have been better served. Despite an intriguing multiplayer element, Kane & Lynch has so many problems that it fails to deliver what it should have.

You play as Kane, an ex-con mercenary broken out of prison by his old crew, The7. Having been betrayed by Kane, the mercenaries force him to retrieve what they believe he stole from them. To make sure it happens, they send along Lynch, a psychopathic killer who needs medications to calm him down. But with certain events taking place, both men find themselves in a situation where they must take down The7 before they become dead men.

Though you may not have gathered it from the story’s description, trust that the story is pretty damn good. It’s nothing phenomenal, but it’s noteworthy. But that’s what makes the game so flawed. Its gameplay is less than stellar. Some things react as they would in real life, as they should, but there are just so many things wrong. Hit detection is horrendous. There are times where you can hit enemies easily, but there are others that will make you say, “Seriously, it missed?” Take for example our fight against a helicopter. With the copter dead in our sights, we fired an RPG. As the copter merely floated there, the RPG passed through its propellers. While it’s entirely possible for it to miss should it have passed through the blades with remarkable timing, we were aiming directly at the base of the propeller—so it should not have happened. Other times, bullets will fly directly through enemies. Needless to say, it’s irritating.

Weapons don’t handle too well either. There is far too much kick to weapons, especially the machine guns, and there’s not much you can do about it. You can try aiming lower, but it’s possible that you’ll just be wasting ammo before it forces your aim upwards towards your intended target. Shotguns seemed to be the most normal, so use those if you have the chance. The camera isn’t that great, but we’ve seen worse. And because of its tactical nature, there are commands to be issued. Unfortunately, those don’t work too well either. You must scroll through your team and issue commands to follow, defend, or attack. Following works fine, but if you tell them to defend, they won’t move until you issue another command, but that’s only if it works. They’ll still manage to put themselves in danger, but issuing an attack command is worse. Instead of keeping a decent distance, they’ll rush in to attack enemies. Clearly, the AI isn’t top notch.

On that note, you’ll run into many other AI problems. After they go down, you have to rush in to save them by way of adrenaline. They seem to be able to handle as much adrenaline as possible, but you can’t. If you go down, you’ll have to wait at least a few minutes before you’re eligible for another shot when you go down. If not, you die. It’s also a problem getting your teammates to revive you. They can be standing next to you and they won’t necessarily do it. And if they’re defending, they may not even try if you’re close enough to them.

Dying presents its own problem: a terrible save system. There are no options to save the game manually. Automatic saving is fine and all, but at least make it known when the game is saving. One would think that after text pops up signifying a new chapter that the game would save. Nope. Seems as though it only saves every other time it does that. So, if you quit out, expect to be frustrated when going back in after a hard part because you may have to do it all over again.

As mentioned, the game’s multiplayer is interesting and does well to separate itself far enough from other games. There is only one gametype called Fragile Alliance. Essentially, all players start off on the same team of thugs. All must work together to pull off a successful heist. The thing is, you don’t have to stay as a team. You can kill your teammates in order to take the money for yourself, jumping to the traitor’s side. After that, it’s a matter of successfully keeping the money. Whoever ends up with the most money wins the match. It’s fun to an extent but won’t be able to keep your attention for too long. There only about 6 scenarios to compete in too, so not much to go off of. And good luck trying to get into a game. It took us quite some time before we successfully joined a game. Guess it didn’t take most people too long to figure out how flawed the game is.

So if you have some extra time on your hands, Kane & Lynch is just barely worth a rental. Were it not for its story, we would undoubtedly give it a “Skip It” recommendation. However, it should be able to tide you over for a small while. Don’t expect anything great out of it though.

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