It quickly becomes obvious that the game is not well suited to sustained play. It’s available in three flavours, single player, local co-op and online co-op. It’s unfortunate, but the weakest link of Kane & Lynch is the foundation, the campaign experience. Come For The Shooting Gallery, Stay For The Multi-Player
All in all, an impressive package in terms of presentation. The weapons are nicely represented in the audio as well, bringing a punch that makes the average living room sound like a warzone if the volume isn’t monitored. Mandarin Chinese abounds in NPC dialog, and the performances of Kane and Lynch themselves, while minimal, are functional. It adds to the doco/user-generated content feel of the game, and for the most part, it works. The audio also makes the bold choice of forgoing music entirely, relying only on voice acting and ambient environmental noise to create the soundscape. It’s obvious Io Interactive had art teams that spent a lot of time Asia as they get little details right, such as the seedy look of a street hawker center, or mess of cables and air conditioner units that line the building exteriors. The “doco feel” is unique and well executed, giving even more authenticity to the impressive efforts that have gone into creating Shanghai itself. Forgoing the usual glossy, cinematic look, Kane & Lynch 2 goes for a hand-held documentary feel, with artificial compression artifacts, blown out lighting, even digital mosaics super-imposed over nudity and gore, such as headshots.
On the other hand, the art direction for the game is bold, risky, and for the most part it works. There are no twists or turns in the story, no development to make the characters interesting, and the conclusion ends on a ludicrous note that I won’t go into detail about here. Both of them are still largely unsympathetic, although it seems like the game has put more emphasis on making Lynch, the main character as unappealing as possible. Narratively, there’s little to care about here, as the game frequently cuts out any meaningful character development in favour of the simple anxiety of two criminals on the run. Then Kane shows up, ostensibly brokering some kind of shady job, and things quickly go downhill as the pair screw up a routine “disciplinary measure” that has the entire Chinese mob gunning for them. He’s settled down in Shanghai, shacked up with a nice local girl, and seems to have life under some semblance of control with the local underworld. The sequel puts players in the shoes of Lynch, the psychopath. But art direction can only go so far, and while it creates a palpable, more engaging environment, it is undermined by some problematic game design. This time the action moves to Shanghai and with it, one of the most interesting choices in art direction seen in this entire generation of games. Kane and Lynch are the eponymous pair of the sequel to the 2007 3rd person, cover based shooter about a sociopath and a psychopath bringing gunfire and chaos wherever they go.
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