there's a lot said already abt the hypnotically repulsive audiovisual presentation with the frantic camera and barebones controls, it made me feel tweaked out and paranoid in a horrifying way and it rocked, but the thing worth talking about for me is the structure of this game, how vitally spartan its character is. how utterly, necessarily devoid it is of much sympathy for its leads. i skimmed through a playthrough of K&L1 after playing this, which i have no desire to ever play, and it just felt very of its time. a pair of antiheroes make a huge mess of things and argue incessantly and ruin lives but you gotta love their camaraderie and attitude!! and then the women in their life dare to nag nag nag at them about all the fucked up shit they get put through because of them until they inevitably get shot, because they talk too much
the second game inherits their disgusting personalities and their capacity for misery--in fact increases that aspect to a fever pitch--and you might look at it as just following in the boring footsteps of its predecessor with a more interesting aesthetic going for it. but the difference is how unsettlingly off things feel from what you'd expect. the cutscenes are so curt, there is hardly any kind of relatable stakes for the characters other than some vague deal to further imperialism (they dont care abt that part obviously why would they). everything happens with hardly any dramatic rhythm, just hot headed banter and death, with things getting worse and worse. the misogyny is still here but even that has a different tone; the women in kane and lynch's lives this time become little more than convenient excuses for them to continue their evil rampaging, not the motivation to do better that they probably tell themselves they are to help them sleep at night. they're in a hell of their making.
the bluntness behind the narrative helps make the bond between the two MILES more interesting. lynch's schizophrenia isn't exploited for :twisted: funny comedy this time but instead to render him as a pathetic crazed animal with a gun. and the stroke of genius of basically ignoring how K&L1 ends gives kane's more levelheadedness by comparison a delusional sociopathic underpinning. they scream at each other about how much they ruined each other's lives (much like the women they love in the previous game hmm [thinks really hard abt this]) yet at no point in the game does that tension come to a head between them like the first game would tease. it always evaporates away awkwardly. there's no bro moments of "heh you're alright" or anything like that ever in sight because they do not deserve that, they just drop their in-the-moment tantrum and go back to doing the only thing they ever know how to do. this is because, despite how they are unable to actually feel love or not destroy things, they ultimately understand each other better than anyone. they NEED each other so bad. AND YET!!! not even this is portrayed with much more than a kind of pity, if that, it's just a human tendency to prefer not being alone in your cosmic punishment. it's nothing to get too attached to.
if this game has anything that could be called a positive human emotion it wants to hone in on, it's this, and it is so incredibly compelling in its smallness to me that it sticks out beyond the rest of the genre subversion in the game to heighten it further. even a couple of rabid dogs will feel loyalty towards each other, when they know neither of them's going to heaven
the second game inherits their disgusting personalities and their capacity for misery--in fact increases that aspect to a fever pitch--and you might look at it as just following in the boring footsteps of its predecessor with a more interesting aesthetic going for it. but the difference is how unsettlingly off things feel from what you'd expect. the cutscenes are so curt, there is hardly any kind of relatable stakes for the characters other than some vague deal to further imperialism (they dont care abt that part obviously why would they). everything happens with hardly any dramatic rhythm, just hot headed banter and death, with things getting worse and worse. the misogyny is still here but even that has a different tone; the women in kane and lynch's lives this time become little more than convenient excuses for them to continue their evil rampaging, not the motivation to do better that they probably tell themselves they are to help them sleep at night. they're in a hell of their making.
the bluntness behind the narrative helps make the bond between the two MILES more interesting. lynch's schizophrenia isn't exploited for :twisted: funny comedy this time but instead to render him as a pathetic crazed animal with a gun. and the stroke of genius of basically ignoring how K&L1 ends gives kane's more levelheadedness by comparison a delusional sociopathic underpinning. they scream at each other about how much they ruined each other's lives (much like the women they love in the previous game hmm [thinks really hard abt this]) yet at no point in the game does that tension come to a head between them like the first game would tease. it always evaporates away awkwardly. there's no bro moments of "heh you're alright" or anything like that ever in sight because they do not deserve that, they just drop their in-the-moment tantrum and go back to doing the only thing they ever know how to do. this is because, despite how they are unable to actually feel love or not destroy things, they ultimately understand each other better than anyone. they NEED each other so bad. AND YET!!! not even this is portrayed with much more than a kind of pity, if that, it's just a human tendency to prefer not being alone in your cosmic punishment. it's nothing to get too attached to.
if this game has anything that could be called a positive human emotion it wants to hone in on, it's this, and it is so incredibly compelling in its smallness to me that it sticks out beyond the rest of the genre subversion in the game to heighten it further. even a couple of rabid dogs will feel loyalty towards each other, when they know neither of them's going to heaven
at the time of Army Of Two, 50 Cent blood in the sand, Stranglehold, Homefront, Uncharted or even the first Kane & Lynch, commercial video games seemed to point to a mindless mass future in which firearms and killings in suburvial environments no longer than 6 hours , with a compulsory multiplayer it sounded like money and almost all of them celebrated themselves unaware of their imperialist premises.
I have always had a fascination for suburban spaces as a setting for drama or action, but I am a bit pissed off by the approaches that see them as a simple playground for violence or misery pornography, which is exactly how it is usually seen under American lenses.
so why not crash the van into the avenue of American shooter and, for once, honestly present what happens here? no context no motivation no satisfaction, just a graphic document in Shanghai, a city often seen by Westerners as a playground for pleasure or shady business, with a conscious camera alerted to cinematic intentions and aesthetically unsightly, ireespectful with the eyes and the hands of the player but, curiously, more visually respectable with the deaths, censoring genitals and disfigurements (taking notes Naughty Dog?) and I don't know what the hell is wrong with the sound.
maybe because the IO interactive anthology doesn't know many more verbs than "kill", you know, the hitman saga, freedom fighters (lol) and they know it, they wanted to take a chance with an exercise on the shame of some "antiheroes" in a "field of games"
Also, play Reciever, it is good and also faithfully presents the use of a firearm
I have always had a fascination for suburban spaces as a setting for drama or action, but I am a bit pissed off by the approaches that see them as a simple playground for violence or misery pornography, which is exactly how it is usually seen under American lenses.
so why not crash the van into the avenue of American shooter and, for once, honestly present what happens here? no context no motivation no satisfaction, just a graphic document in Shanghai, a city often seen by Westerners as a playground for pleasure or shady business, with a conscious camera alerted to cinematic intentions and aesthetically unsightly, ireespectful with the eyes and the hands of the player but, curiously, more visually respectable with the deaths, censoring genitals and disfigurements (taking notes Naughty Dog?) and I don't know what the hell is wrong with the sound.
maybe because the IO interactive anthology doesn't know many more verbs than "kill", you know, the hitman saga, freedom fighters (lol) and they know it, they wanted to take a chance with an exercise on the shame of some "antiheroes" in a "field of games"
Also, play Reciever, it is good and also faithfully presents the use of a firearm
so many reviews of this game (going beyond just this site) read like a shopping list of grating SFX, because in the moment it's very fucking hard to feel like you ever fully have a grasp on the situation. your brain is being force-fed new stimuli constantly, and the game makes no effort to actually help you decipher any of it, so you resort to isolating individual contributors to the chaos in the hopes that it'll help you ground yourself. almost constantly guns are going off, and if bullets are being sprayed then you're probably taking damage, even if you're in cover. whether that's the result of enemies being much better shots than Lynch or their desperate attempts to constantly flank you changes by the minute, and the fact that you can never really get a fix on how many bullets kill this guy at this range means that the player is probably too busy determining if everyone from the first wave is dead to notice that waves 2 and 3 are entering the room. at that point you've lost whatever control you may have had - you don't have the time or ammo to figure out if the enemies are finite or if they'll just pour into this room endlessly. if you've ever played a shooter where you can be "suppressed" by enemy fire, this is every shootout in K&L2 - sitting there as bullets and debris fly past you faster than you can process, hunkered behind cover that won't last forever, waiting for your chance to make something happen while these two losers mutter to themselves and scream at each other. sometimes it's important screaming. it's usually not.
not to suggest that the misery stops when the shooting stops. if you, a hypothetical non-player of K&L 2, were under the impression that this game might ask you to walk up to someone and talk to them to progress the plot, i am sorry to be the one who tells you otherwise. all of kane and lynch's quiet moments are quickly upended by gunfire in a way that feels less like a clever surprise and more like a message from the developers: what else did you think could happen? what else exists for these two, how could they possibly outrun this forever? shooting and screaming is all they know how to do, and they still manage to fuck that up despite their assurances that "things could've been alright if not for this, if not for you". sure, they've ruined each others' lives, but in truth, i don't know if either of them needed the help.
i probably wouldn't argue with someone saying the game is hateful. it doesn't really seem to hate the player, though, which i think is what a lot of people who have never played it take away from these reviews. no, all of the ways in which it inconveniences the player set the tone, making the game feel more like a playable LiveLeak video. there's the association with LiveLeak's classic subject matter, of course, but also with the sense that you're getting a dispassionate look at something as it exists in the real world. watch these two destroy a city, their bodies, their relationships, and know that it's not being scrubbed or retouched for you - this is what's out there for men like this.
not to suggest that the misery stops when the shooting stops. if you, a hypothetical non-player of K&L 2, were under the impression that this game might ask you to walk up to someone and talk to them to progress the plot, i am sorry to be the one who tells you otherwise. all of kane and lynch's quiet moments are quickly upended by gunfire in a way that feels less like a clever surprise and more like a message from the developers: what else did you think could happen? what else exists for these two, how could they possibly outrun this forever? shooting and screaming is all they know how to do, and they still manage to fuck that up despite their assurances that "things could've been alright if not for this, if not for you". sure, they've ruined each others' lives, but in truth, i don't know if either of them needed the help.
i probably wouldn't argue with someone saying the game is hateful. it doesn't really seem to hate the player, though, which i think is what a lot of people who have never played it take away from these reviews. no, all of the ways in which it inconveniences the player set the tone, making the game feel more like a playable LiveLeak video. there's the association with LiveLeak's classic subject matter, of course, but also with the sense that you're getting a dispassionate look at something as it exists in the real world. watch these two destroy a city, their bodies, their relationships, and know that it's not being scrubbed or retouched for you - this is what's out there for men like this.
Digital photography capturing the heavy caliber plowing through the neon-infested air of Shanghai; fuck your eardrums and motion sickness.
Dead Men was clearly inspired by Mann's Heat in some set pieces: the bank heist, the nightclub - which was my favorite part of that game by far - and the shooting in the streets of Tokyo. It had some redeeming qualities but other than feeling like a homage to Mann it didn't get many things right - the dialogue comes to mind.
Dog Days while still being heavily inspired by Mann's cinematography - the use of digital photography in films such as Collateral or Miami Vice - feels like its own thing where everything fell right into place.
The emulation of digital photography is very beautiful and creative - the depth of field, the bokeh, grain (actually noise!), the use of overexposure and a really smart choice of color grading are implented masterfully but Kane and Lynch 2 goes beyond this to present us with very distinct visuals and a nauseating mood: the invisible cameraman struggling to document all of this. To add to this, the camera glitching when you get shot, the hitmarkers getting displayed on the bodies you shoot instead of on your invisible crosshair, the display of water droplets and blood splattered to the lenses were a nice artistic choice as well.
Ironically, this beautifully-crafted digital camera presents us with very ugly things - two psychopaths, sweat shops, corruption, poverty, mutilated persons, innocent people dying and dead naked women in the middle of busy streets. In all of this uglyness, there is some regard for human decency and some elements are masked by pixel censoring: namely these naked women and when you deface the face (sorry) of someone with a shotgun.
It all feels like a long hallway through the deepest place of hell - the nauseauting feeling of a camera struggling to capture this, the worst of human uglyness, the linearity of the levels and the thunderous sound of bullets coming from everywhere - it almost makes you want to vomit.
There's no pretensions about morality in Dog Days as opposed to some dialogues from the first entry - both protagonists just accept what is happening and just push-on as they follow the "the end justifies the means" ethos but for purely selfish gains. There are many moments where this can be seen but one of the best is when they find some hostages in the back of a shop, one of them acknowledges their existence but the other screams something along the lines of "it's not my problem!" which perfectly fits their characters.
Another thing I thought was cool was the fact that most "cinematic moments" happen through gameplay mechanics and with what you are presented from the beginning rather than a cutscene which feels very honest.
It all feels like a collage of violence since you usually don't see what happens behind Kane and Lynch going from one place to the next, you are just placed there to shoot people and get to the end of this nightmare.
On the sound design, it follows the sound signature of Mann's deafening bullets but at the same time it does its own thing by allowing the environments to play the rest of the soundtrack - I simply love it. All of the vocal tracks being in Chinese only enhance the soundtrack if anything.
As for the gameplay, it refined the movement and shooting of its predecessor - a pretty standard third person shooter but I enjoy those so nothing to complain about.
There is nothing else like this in existence and it's still surprising that Square Enix gave all this creative freedom to IO Interactive.
Dead Men was clearly inspired by Mann's Heat in some set pieces: the bank heist, the nightclub - which was my favorite part of that game by far - and the shooting in the streets of Tokyo. It had some redeeming qualities but other than feeling like a homage to Mann it didn't get many things right - the dialogue comes to mind.
Dog Days while still being heavily inspired by Mann's cinematography - the use of digital photography in films such as Collateral or Miami Vice - feels like its own thing where everything fell right into place.
The emulation of digital photography is very beautiful and creative - the depth of field, the bokeh, grain (actually noise!), the use of overexposure and a really smart choice of color grading are implented masterfully but Kane and Lynch 2 goes beyond this to present us with very distinct visuals and a nauseating mood: the invisible cameraman struggling to document all of this. To add to this, the camera glitching when you get shot, the hitmarkers getting displayed on the bodies you shoot instead of on your invisible crosshair, the display of water droplets and blood splattered to the lenses were a nice artistic choice as well.
Ironically, this beautifully-crafted digital camera presents us with very ugly things - two psychopaths, sweat shops, corruption, poverty, mutilated persons, innocent people dying and dead naked women in the middle of busy streets. In all of this uglyness, there is some regard for human decency and some elements are masked by pixel censoring: namely these naked women and when you deface the face (sorry) of someone with a shotgun.
It all feels like a long hallway through the deepest place of hell - the nauseauting feeling of a camera struggling to capture this, the worst of human uglyness, the linearity of the levels and the thunderous sound of bullets coming from everywhere - it almost makes you want to vomit.
There's no pretensions about morality in Dog Days as opposed to some dialogues from the first entry - both protagonists just accept what is happening and just push-on as they follow the "the end justifies the means" ethos but for purely selfish gains. There are many moments where this can be seen but one of the best is when they find some hostages in the back of a shop, one of them acknowledges their existence but the other screams something along the lines of "it's not my problem!" which perfectly fits their characters.
Another thing I thought was cool was the fact that most "cinematic moments" happen through gameplay mechanics and with what you are presented from the beginning rather than a cutscene which feels very honest.
It all feels like a collage of violence since you usually don't see what happens behind Kane and Lynch going from one place to the next, you are just placed there to shoot people and get to the end of this nightmare.
On the sound design, it follows the sound signature of Mann's deafening bullets but at the same time it does its own thing by allowing the environments to play the rest of the soundtrack - I simply love it. All of the vocal tracks being in Chinese only enhance the soundtrack if anything.
As for the gameplay, it refined the movement and shooting of its predecessor - a pretty standard third person shooter but I enjoy those so nothing to complain about.
There is nothing else like this in existence and it's still surprising that Square Enix gave all this creative freedom to IO Interactive.
Several people are typing...
Backloggd users acting like this game is good to act quirky and contrarian awful game
What if shooter but was an incursion to hell.
The most present and conscious camera I've seen. No climax, no build-up, no conclusion, no nothing. Just a disgusting reality permeating the experience.
Also, WTF is up with the sound design and soundtrack?????
The most present and conscious camera I've seen. No climax, no build-up, no conclusion, no nothing. Just a disgusting reality permeating the experience.
Also, WTF is up with the sound design and soundtrack?????
Kane & Lynch 2 is a game about violence. Well, maybe.
Violence has been portrayed in many different ways in videogames. There's been over-the-top violence, mild violence, cartoonish violence, gorey violence, and even missing it entirely as a form of protest.
But this game portrays is it a very unique and, I find, realistic way: it's dry. It's very, very dry.
With gunfights happening in the middle of urban china, killing civilians is hard to avoid. When the stakes start getting higher, dogs become an obstacle that you must kill to prevent a game over. Hell, the events of the game are kickstarted by the violent death of an innocent.
All of these are met with silence. There is no mulling over death, no celebrating victories, nothing.
I find this reaction to violence the most interesting part of the game. I found it very raw and realistic. I remembered Hotline Miami, a game that also deals with the theme of violence, but a stark difference is that in that game the protagonist vomits after the first level. In K&L2, there's never something like that. Violence is not met with indifference but a feeling of emptiness (or at least that's my take-away), maybe even conformity?
But something about this game irks me. Despite my previous "praise", I still find myself a little in the middle of the road with it.
Most of this portrayal of violence isn't really explored by the game itself, which makes me feel that I'm just being pretentious writing this. It also stops doing much interesting stuff after a character dies, and from that point on is very "eh" and then it quite literally just ends. Also this might be consequence of not playing the first game but Kane is kind of a dumbass? He does nothing but follow Lynch along without much conflict aside from saying "this sucks!", which annoyed me because he was really just there for the ride. Lynch was much more interesting, but I was hoping for their dynamic to have more meat to it other than indifference.
So that leaves me a little confused. Is the game really about violence? Is it just a violent game? Was it going for something more than that? I don't know! And frankly, I think the game is a little confused too considering the last stretch of the game.
And for that reason, I feel a little lost. I'm honestly not quite sure what to make of it as a whole package. And honestly? That's fine! It did enough by presenting a different approach to violence, and that is enough to earn praise.
If Kane & Lynch 3: Escape from Brazil ever comes out (which it won't because the devs lost the rights to it when separating from SE), I'll be keeping an eye out for it. But for now, the only thing I'm sure of about this game is that it made me go 🤔
Violence has been portrayed in many different ways in videogames. There's been over-the-top violence, mild violence, cartoonish violence, gorey violence, and even missing it entirely as a form of protest.
But this game portrays is it a very unique and, I find, realistic way: it's dry. It's very, very dry.
With gunfights happening in the middle of urban china, killing civilians is hard to avoid. When the stakes start getting higher, dogs become an obstacle that you must kill to prevent a game over. Hell, the events of the game are kickstarted by the violent death of an innocent.
All of these are met with silence. There is no mulling over death, no celebrating victories, nothing.
I find this reaction to violence the most interesting part of the game. I found it very raw and realistic. I remembered Hotline Miami, a game that also deals with the theme of violence, but a stark difference is that in that game the protagonist vomits after the first level. In K&L2, there's never something like that. Violence is not met with indifference but a feeling of emptiness (or at least that's my take-away), maybe even conformity?
But something about this game irks me. Despite my previous "praise", I still find myself a little in the middle of the road with it.
Most of this portrayal of violence isn't really explored by the game itself, which makes me feel that I'm just being pretentious writing this. It also stops doing much interesting stuff after a character dies, and from that point on is very "eh" and then it quite literally just ends. Also this might be consequence of not playing the first game but Kane is kind of a dumbass? He does nothing but follow Lynch along without much conflict aside from saying "this sucks!", which annoyed me because he was really just there for the ride. Lynch was much more interesting, but I was hoping for their dynamic to have more meat to it other than indifference.
So that leaves me a little confused. Is the game really about violence? Is it just a violent game? Was it going for something more than that? I don't know! And frankly, I think the game is a little confused too considering the last stretch of the game.
And for that reason, I feel a little lost. I'm honestly not quite sure what to make of it as a whole package. And honestly? That's fine! It did enough by presenting a different approach to violence, and that is enough to earn praise.
If Kane & Lynch 3: Escape from Brazil ever comes out (which it won't because the devs lost the rights to it when separating from SE), I'll be keeping an eye out for it. But for now, the only thing I'm sure of about this game is that it made me go 🤔
Blowing someone's brains out with a close-range headshot in Kane & Lynch 2 made me considerably more uncomfortable than any gore-obsessed shooter ever has. I know for a fact that the model's head is perfectly intact and they've just slapped on an obligatory blood splatter decal atop whatever unsuspecting flesh caught the blow, but pixelating the carnage as the body slumps to the floor made me feel as if I'd just seen some low-resolution footage of something real, something that had been edited just enough to make it onto some unsavoury websites visited only by the morbidly curious and the sociopathic.
Following Lynch around the streets of Shanghai with the shakiest handheld camera known to man; complete with the visual artifacting, poor directional audio and overwhelming ambience that comes with it, is an absolutely horrid experience replicated with intent by few others in the medium.
You could argue that Kane & Lynch 2 is a bad game, hell you'd probably be right, but I'll be damned if it isn't something truly special in a way very few other games are.
It's basically an art-house version of Max Payne 3.
Following Lynch around the streets of Shanghai with the shakiest handheld camera known to man; complete with the visual artifacting, poor directional audio and overwhelming ambience that comes with it, is an absolutely horrid experience replicated with intent by few others in the medium.
You could argue that Kane & Lynch 2 is a bad game, hell you'd probably be right, but I'll be damned if it isn't something truly special in a way very few other games are.
It's basically an art-house version of Max Payne 3.
real white guy hours
So essentially this game is a generic 3rd person liniar shooter with god awful cover mechanics, predictable AI, boring uninteresting “gritty” story that wants a pass because it calls itself "ugly" so suddenly it's ok that the whole game is just you killing Chinese people over and over and over again and totally different from every other game in which you do stuff like that.
Almost no variation in where the missions take place and also 80% of the missions look and feel identical to each other. Unlikeable characters that aren't even interesting to watch and a really brief run time of about 4 hours in which all you do is just shoot people, NOTHING ELSE.
It also feels like a very unambitious and pointless game that doesn't strive to do anything different with it's gameplay and the whole gameplay loop is just go to cover, peak out to shoot enemy...go to the next cover and repeat and it's gunplay feels very mediocre, half the time it sounds like you're using toy guns and there isn't much impact or much variation in the guns and even then all but 2 guns are worthless most of the time (shotgun and pistol).
Also for some reason shotguns are better than assault rifles at long range so there isn't really a reason to use any other weapons, it boils down to using your shotgun then using the other weapons when you run out till you find another shotgun or ammo for your shotgun.
It’s a shallow game with nothing to offer in terms of an interesting narrative, or interesting/fun gameplay loop (cover shooting shouldn’t be the ONLY thing you do in a game, even the cliche and boring helicopter sequence is essentially just popping out of cover and shooting enemies before going back in cover and repeating that), or anything. This game offers NOTHING, it’s just a soulless and bland game made because the first game sold enough to warrant a sequel and there’s NO innovation or anything to make it stand out…
Oh right my bad they made the camera shake really hard and put in some filters that made me think I needed to clean my glasses at first, it’s headache inducing for the first 2 hours before it loses its effect then you just become numb, you zone out during the shootouts and try not to fall asleep during the cutscenes.
Kane And Lynch 2: Dog Days is lazy, its a 3rd person liniar shooter because that’s what was trendy with a visual gimmick that is supposed to sell you on the game alone because otherwise this game is not worth fucking shit.
Take that shit away and it’s a worthless unlikeable shitfest of meaningless violence with no ambition or point to make, the characters never grow, they are the same at the start and end with nothing learned which makes them completely uninteresting to watch since you know they won’t really grow or become better/worse people, they’re pretty much fucking evil with how many people they kill in this game and it’s all supposed to be okay because the devs said it’s an “ugly” game. I mean christ the last mission only seems to exist to pad out the pathetic game length (me getting the game for less than 1$ doesn’t excuse it being a 4 hour long game that costed 60$ at launch)
This game is no different from Medal Of Honor 2010/Warfighter or any other meaningless shooter in which you just shoot foreigners, if this shit can get revived and seen as some unique misunderstood piece of art then get ready for when we will all start praising Fallout 76 because not putting in human NPC’s is actually a novel concept that worked out a lot better than people say it did and wasn’t just them going guys look at all this work we didn’t put in
I don’t get this game, I’m with the critics that hated it back when it came out and nothing will prb make me switch sides. If you like it, good for you, but personally I feel like a lot of the praise the game gets doesn’t reflect the actual game when you sit down and play it yourself. It’s not fun, it’s numbing, I didn’t enjoy a second of this game no matter how much I tried, fucking hell at least Medal Of Honor 2010 had one ok mission that was sorta memorable, this couldn’t even achieve that, the infamous mission in which you’re naked in the streets isn’t that much different from the other missions if you really think about it, yeah you’re still just going from cover to cover and shooting people so there isn’t much to make it memorable outside of it sounding really funny on paper.
In other words, 1/10, fucking abomination of a game and the worst game I’ve ever played, Ride To Hell at least was funny in how bad it was.
Almost no variation in where the missions take place and also 80% of the missions look and feel identical to each other. Unlikeable characters that aren't even interesting to watch and a really brief run time of about 4 hours in which all you do is just shoot people, NOTHING ELSE.
It also feels like a very unambitious and pointless game that doesn't strive to do anything different with it's gameplay and the whole gameplay loop is just go to cover, peak out to shoot enemy...go to the next cover and repeat and it's gunplay feels very mediocre, half the time it sounds like you're using toy guns and there isn't much impact or much variation in the guns and even then all but 2 guns are worthless most of the time (shotgun and pistol).
Also for some reason shotguns are better than assault rifles at long range so there isn't really a reason to use any other weapons, it boils down to using your shotgun then using the other weapons when you run out till you find another shotgun or ammo for your shotgun.
It’s a shallow game with nothing to offer in terms of an interesting narrative, or interesting/fun gameplay loop (cover shooting shouldn’t be the ONLY thing you do in a game, even the cliche and boring helicopter sequence is essentially just popping out of cover and shooting enemies before going back in cover and repeating that), or anything. This game offers NOTHING, it’s just a soulless and bland game made because the first game sold enough to warrant a sequel and there’s NO innovation or anything to make it stand out…
Oh right my bad they made the camera shake really hard and put in some filters that made me think I needed to clean my glasses at first, it’s headache inducing for the first 2 hours before it loses its effect then you just become numb, you zone out during the shootouts and try not to fall asleep during the cutscenes.
Kane And Lynch 2: Dog Days is lazy, its a 3rd person liniar shooter because that’s what was trendy with a visual gimmick that is supposed to sell you on the game alone because otherwise this game is not worth fucking shit.
Take that shit away and it’s a worthless unlikeable shitfest of meaningless violence with no ambition or point to make, the characters never grow, they are the same at the start and end with nothing learned which makes them completely uninteresting to watch since you know they won’t really grow or become better/worse people, they’re pretty much fucking evil with how many people they kill in this game and it’s all supposed to be okay because the devs said it’s an “ugly” game. I mean christ the last mission only seems to exist to pad out the pathetic game length (me getting the game for less than 1$ doesn’t excuse it being a 4 hour long game that costed 60$ at launch)
This game is no different from Medal Of Honor 2010/Warfighter or any other meaningless shooter in which you just shoot foreigners, if this shit can get revived and seen as some unique misunderstood piece of art then get ready for when we will all start praising Fallout 76 because not putting in human NPC’s is actually a novel concept that worked out a lot better than people say it did and wasn’t just them going guys look at all this work we didn’t put in
I don’t get this game, I’m with the critics that hated it back when it came out and nothing will prb make me switch sides. If you like it, good for you, but personally I feel like a lot of the praise the game gets doesn’t reflect the actual game when you sit down and play it yourself. It’s not fun, it’s numbing, I didn’t enjoy a second of this game no matter how much I tried, fucking hell at least Medal Of Honor 2010 had one ok mission that was sorta memorable, this couldn’t even achieve that, the infamous mission in which you’re naked in the streets isn’t that much different from the other missions if you really think about it, yeah you’re still just going from cover to cover and shooting people so there isn’t much to make it memorable outside of it sounding really funny on paper.
In other words, 1/10, fucking abomination of a game and the worst game I’ve ever played, Ride To Hell at least was funny in how bad it was.
Kane and Lynch 2 has received a positive reappraisal in recent years and having played it for the first time a year or so back I’d have to agree. Dog Days is a filthy and visceral satire of the PS3/360 gen of shooters and crime games. I have some familiarity with the first game and this game also feels like a takedown of its predecessor as well and its attempts to try and make Kane and Lynch gritty anti-heroes. The titular duo engage in the usual maelstrom of hyper-violence most shooter game protags get into but unlike most of those protags Kane and Lynch are completely loathsome and pathetic scumbags who created said storm of bloodshed completely out of their own blundering bullshit. They have no real sense of comradery; their hatred of each other bubbles up multiple times over the campaign and the only reason they stick together is that at this point all they have left is each other as well their shared delusions of being cool crime-men who are going to have one last big score. And the game loves showing how selfish and delusional they are without really stressing it; Kane thinks that his estranged daughter will just completely forgive him for years of his bullshit by throwing dirty money from a gunrunning job at her and its clear he has never considered her feelings and what she actually wants while Lynch callously disregards his girlfriend’s wellbeing by dragging her into his violent screw-ups which leads to its inevitable conclusion. They’re ugly, vile, washed up old men and the game neither sympathizes with nor glamorizes them.
One of the most discussed elements of the game is the camera and I have to agree that its rad. The camera really does feel like there is some unseen camera man chasing the duo around with a crappy camcorder. It can be a bit disorientating so it’s probably not recommended if you have a propensity for motion sickness but I was fine playing it. The VHS effects are also done real well, effects such as head-shotting a dude and having it be censored by a ball of static makes the game feel even more visceral and messed up.
The gunplay isn’t exceptional but it does add to the hectic and visceral feel that envelops the game. One interesting thing is that there isn’t any truly safe cover, enemies will plink away at you if you stay behind a piece of cover for too long, incentivizing you to be on the move when need be and to take out enemies as quick as you can. Kane and Lynch are also kind of crappy shots so they chew through assault weapon ammo if you’re not too careful, which also adds to the breakneck and sloppy feel of the game. The game is rather tricky at first, but once you get the feel for it gets more manageable as you go along.
The game ends in an abrupt anti-climax but I think it’s the perfect ending for the game. Kane and Lynch will never have a happy ending, will never find peace, they are incapable of achieving it due to their grievous character flaws and they don’t deserve it either. You know they’ll just meet their gruesome ends in a rain of gunfire eventually so the game doesn’t give its characters or the players any sense of closure. It just bluntly ends, just how the rest of the game has been so brutally blunt and breakneck paced. Dog Days is a short campaign, around 3-4 hours, but honestly as I said it as long as need be. Really I just love how abrupt the whole game is and even though I do like this game I don’t think I’d want a sequel, it would just feel unnecessary to me. Definitely check the game out if you’re interested, especially because it’s usually on sale on Steam for like three bucks. Just a unique game that we’ll probably never get again in the AAA sphere.
One of the most discussed elements of the game is the camera and I have to agree that its rad. The camera really does feel like there is some unseen camera man chasing the duo around with a crappy camcorder. It can be a bit disorientating so it’s probably not recommended if you have a propensity for motion sickness but I was fine playing it. The VHS effects are also done real well, effects such as head-shotting a dude and having it be censored by a ball of static makes the game feel even more visceral and messed up.
The gunplay isn’t exceptional but it does add to the hectic and visceral feel that envelops the game. One interesting thing is that there isn’t any truly safe cover, enemies will plink away at you if you stay behind a piece of cover for too long, incentivizing you to be on the move when need be and to take out enemies as quick as you can. Kane and Lynch are also kind of crappy shots so they chew through assault weapon ammo if you’re not too careful, which also adds to the breakneck and sloppy feel of the game. The game is rather tricky at first, but once you get the feel for it gets more manageable as you go along.
The game ends in an abrupt anti-climax but I think it’s the perfect ending for the game. Kane and Lynch will never have a happy ending, will never find peace, they are incapable of achieving it due to their grievous character flaws and they don’t deserve it either. You know they’ll just meet their gruesome ends in a rain of gunfire eventually so the game doesn’t give its characters or the players any sense of closure. It just bluntly ends, just how the rest of the game has been so brutally blunt and breakneck paced. Dog Days is a short campaign, around 3-4 hours, but honestly as I said it as long as need be. Really I just love how abrupt the whole game is and even though I do like this game I don’t think I’d want a sequel, it would just feel unnecessary to me. Definitely check the game out if you’re interested, especially because it’s usually on sale on Steam for like three bucks. Just a unique game that we’ll probably never get again in the AAA sphere.
Essentially a playable Liveleak video with no interest in catering to the comfort of the player. The goal during development, per art director Rasmus Poulsen, was to be non-pleasing. In this effort, it incorporates an interesting combination of things that immediately make it stand out. The nauseating shaky cam, weapons that are frequently inaccurate, a screen prone to visual artifacting, sound that gets blown-out from explosions/gunfire, and some of the most disorienting and oppressive soundscapes you'll find, which were appropriately done by figures from the 1980's German industrial music scene. It all comes together to create an experience unlike anything else in the medium, for better or worse.
How this got past publishers without the vision being severely compromised in favor of a safer and more player-friendly approach, I don't know. What I do know though? To me, this shit rules, and I'm glad it exists.
How this got past publishers without the vision being severely compromised in favor of a safer and more player-friendly approach, I don't know. What I do know though? To me, this shit rules, and I'm glad it exists.
Burros dizem que é ruim, mas só os gênios entendem a gransiosidade dessa obra prima.
Ricardo S2
Ricardo S2
A significantly improved sequel
The first Kane & Lynch was a mess with an interesting premise. This sequel vastly improves the gameplay, strips out the pointless squad mechanics, and adds a raw aesthetic.
K&L2’s combat is much better. Gone are the dreadful long range encounters of the first game. Now it’s up close and personal, which I believe improves these basic third-person cover shooters. The weapons have terrible accuracy in this game and being close is optimal. The level design facilitates this nicely. Using flanks and getting around opponents leads to gruesome slaughtering of your foes from the side. This works congruently with the multiplayer split-screen. Two players can attack enemy positions from varying angles while communicating which enemies are pinning them down. It’s above average third-person cover based shooting. It gets the job done.
What people talk about in Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days is the visceral aesthetic and story telling. Both of these aspects are, quite frankly, genius. The whole game looks like a cartel beheading video you watched in 2006. Shaky camera, rain landing on the camera, and the cinematography in cut-scenes all immerse you. I don’t want to go into details of the story, but it’s what Kane & Lynch: Dead Men’s story should have been. Don’t rely on a cliche story line and just have Kane & Lynch on their misadventures.
But to put it bluntly, Kane & Lynch 2 is nothing special gameplay wise. It’s acceptable. I had fun playing it but it’s still a 7th gen cover shooter. It’s no masterpiece but I thoroughly enjoyed my 3 hours with it.
7/10
The first Kane & Lynch was a mess with an interesting premise. This sequel vastly improves the gameplay, strips out the pointless squad mechanics, and adds a raw aesthetic.
K&L2’s combat is much better. Gone are the dreadful long range encounters of the first game. Now it’s up close and personal, which I believe improves these basic third-person cover shooters. The weapons have terrible accuracy in this game and being close is optimal. The level design facilitates this nicely. Using flanks and getting around opponents leads to gruesome slaughtering of your foes from the side. This works congruently with the multiplayer split-screen. Two players can attack enemy positions from varying angles while communicating which enemies are pinning them down. It’s above average third-person cover based shooting. It gets the job done.
What people talk about in Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days is the visceral aesthetic and story telling. Both of these aspects are, quite frankly, genius. The whole game looks like a cartel beheading video you watched in 2006. Shaky camera, rain landing on the camera, and the cinematography in cut-scenes all immerse you. I don’t want to go into details of the story, but it’s what Kane & Lynch: Dead Men’s story should have been. Don’t rely on a cliche story line and just have Kane & Lynch on their misadventures.
But to put it bluntly, Kane & Lynch 2 is nothing special gameplay wise. It’s acceptable. I had fun playing it but it’s still a 7th gen cover shooter. It’s no masterpiece but I thoroughly enjoyed my 3 hours with it.
7/10
The fact that Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days has to get described as some kind of """anti-game""" because the taste makers and machinations of big-Video Games have decided for you, or through you, that feeling disempowered and disoriented are inherently non-video game feelings (they're not, and calling it an anti-game is cope against this conservatism) just goes to show that gamers and the games they play and the games that are made for them are most of the time absolutely the tackiest, kitsch ♥♥♥♥. I don't want to hear anyone tell me about what makes the latest Sony movie video game exclusive the vanguard of this industry's accomplishment and cultural worth when Kane & Lynch 2 gets denigrated as either a ♥♥♥♥ game or a anti-game.
Y'all have never played a damn game in your life, is what it really sounds like. This one, and the first, however, slap. So maybe start here.
Y'all have never played a damn game in your life, is what it really sounds like. This one, and the first, however, slap. So maybe start here.
There’s not much room for prickly games in the modern gaming landscape, because abrasions hemorrhage cash. Companies and consumers hold fast to the familiar, but I have little sympathy for those who hide away in aesthetic bunkers.
Games like this are an all-out assault on the foxholes of the picky children.
An ugliness pervades Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days, but it was an intentional aesthetic decision, and one that has imbued it with a specific kind of timelessness not enjoyed by its contemporaries. There’s reason to believe a remaster would potentially ruin the alchemy behind its very being.
This game’s not about redemption. It’s not about friendship. It’s not about a higher purpose. It’s about shaky, noisy, low bitrate dv footage of two fully naked men covered in bleeding cuts massacring their way through the bootleg dvd stores of Shanghai.
Kane & Lynch 2 is a laser-focused four-hour experience, but you’ll probably make a decision on its merits within the first four seconds of gameplay. I was all in. It’s divisive, and while disliking it is understandable, dismissing it is wholly undeserved. After all these years I still haven’t played anything like it.
Anyway what do you think the chances are of us getting a Kane & Lynch 3?
Edit: I did not intend for this review to denigrate or delegitimize people who dislike this game. I don’t feel like I should delete the review, but I don’t want people to get the impression that disliking this game means you just “don’t get it” or something, or that I am extra enlightened because I fell in love with the blurry Michael Mann game.
I stand by my subjective belief that this game is a phenomenal work of art, but it is a flawed game. Every game is flawed, and people can rightly criticize those flaws. For me, the pros outweigh the cons. For others, they don’t. Is it just offensive? Is it all style, no substance? I’d like to think it’s something more than that; a commentary of sorts. A strange one that has a little bit of its cake and eats it, too, but in a way I think actually works.
This review is not a reappraisal because I have always liked this game; I didn’t ‘come around’ on it. That said, not everyone who hated it at the time (or now) is some kind of backwards puritan, and it’s wrong and in bad faith to assume that. But dawg you know a game is divisive when the review distribution is almost a flat line. Anyway this game doesn’t need to be a battleground and I’m sorry, I think I made it worse. Let’s just go back to loving Ecco the Dolphin, as we all do without question.
Games like this are an all-out assault on the foxholes of the picky children.
An ugliness pervades Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days, but it was an intentional aesthetic decision, and one that has imbued it with a specific kind of timelessness not enjoyed by its contemporaries. There’s reason to believe a remaster would potentially ruin the alchemy behind its very being.
This game’s not about redemption. It’s not about friendship. It’s not about a higher purpose. It’s about shaky, noisy, low bitrate dv footage of two fully naked men covered in bleeding cuts massacring their way through the bootleg dvd stores of Shanghai.
Kane & Lynch 2 is a laser-focused four-hour experience, but you’ll probably make a decision on its merits within the first four seconds of gameplay. I was all in. It’s divisive, and while disliking it is understandable, dismissing it is wholly undeserved. After all these years I still haven’t played anything like it.
Anyway what do you think the chances are of us getting a Kane & Lynch 3?
Edit: I did not intend for this review to denigrate or delegitimize people who dislike this game. I don’t feel like I should delete the review, but I don’t want people to get the impression that disliking this game means you just “don’t get it” or something, or that I am extra enlightened because I fell in love with the blurry Michael Mann game.
I stand by my subjective belief that this game is a phenomenal work of art, but it is a flawed game. Every game is flawed, and people can rightly criticize those flaws. For me, the pros outweigh the cons. For others, they don’t. Is it just offensive? Is it all style, no substance? I’d like to think it’s something more than that; a commentary of sorts. A strange one that has a little bit of its cake and eats it, too, but in a way I think actually works.
This review is not a reappraisal because I have always liked this game; I didn’t ‘come around’ on it. That said, not everyone who hated it at the time (or now) is some kind of backwards puritan, and it’s wrong and in bad faith to assume that. But dawg you know a game is divisive when the review distribution is almost a flat line. Anyway this game doesn’t need to be a battleground and I’m sorry, I think I made it worse. Let’s just go back to loving Ecco the Dolphin, as we all do without question.
The £0.79 I paid feels like the right price for this. Not in the cost = value sense - I have paid far more for games I've appreciated far less - but as a symbolic act that forms part of the Dog Days experience's larger whole. From the moment I clicked on the Steam launcher, the game started its audio-visual assault - taking over both my monitors, refusing to run in borderless or windowed mode, crashing to desktop when I tinkered with the AA settings, running my modern raytracer rig hot before I'd even seen the main menu. It was every Fuck You that Backloggd had promised me it would be, and I hadn't even clicked on "Start campaign" yet! Wow!
This may all sound like facile shithousery, but there is something kinda special about a game with Square Enix and IO Interactive title cards trying its absolute hardest to assault you through the screen. Title screens are an important part of the Gaming Experience, and the Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days title screen is no exception - hitting you with a barrage of low-kbps door-knocking sound effects, poorly-mixed raindrops and presumable Chinese swearing. Two paragraphs in and I haven't even pressed the Any key yet - that's how you know this is a game worth talking about! Yowza!
At the time this game was released, I was all over the cover-shooting scene - Gears, Ghost Recon, Uncharted, Vanquish - the whole hole-hiding lot. Gears of War 2, was, and still is, a 5/5+10/10 Certified: Awesome banger in my eyes. Landing an active reload and separating a locust's chest from its dick and balls will always feel (Marcus Fenix voice) Nice! to me, But could I have handled this game back in 2010? You've all heard of the Cool Ranch Dorito Effect, but this game is the Moldly Stale Nacho Cheese Dorito Effect - an alluring flavour so overpoweringly awful that you can barely handle the taste. But something about it just keeps bringing you back... This is Woke Up This Morning (Nightcore Remix) in video game form. Awesome!
It blows my mind that this game has splitscreen co-op. It does not blow my mind to learn that the splitscreen co-op is apparently broken in all sorts of offensive and ridiculous ways - it's so perfectly fitting in so many many ways that elude elucidation. It's now a Life Goal for me to play through this thing in splitscreen with a buddy while we're both spun out of our minds on something or other. It would whip so much fucking sack. I feel like splitscreen Dog Days would function as a drug in and of itself. Even if I wasn't blitzed, I feel like it would still give me a hangover the next day. Can you imagine two guys doing that sprinting animation at the same time while overlapping "SHT YOU CNT!!" "FCK PSS!!" audio files play at different levels over the top of each other and six other stock uzi sound effects of variable volume? It would be sick! Fuck yeah!
It always kinda bothered me when people told me No More Heroes was "belligerent by design" as part of some larger Art Game whole - it was just boring as hell! (Travis Touchdown voice) Fck off! Even if it was intentional, No More Heroes always had its sneakers halfway into its player-hostile concept. Kane & Lynch 2, by contrast, is completely unafraid of confrontation with the player on the other side of the keyboard/gamepad. Like killing people, do you, nerd? No More Heroes 2 (released the same year as Kane & Lynch 2) tried to take the antagonistic nature of the series further towards real meaningful stuff, but it looks like Little Baby Shit in comparison to Dog Days. Suda51 apologises for wounding you. IO Interactive interactively pisses in your wound - and maybe fucks it too, before crashing to desktop! This* is how you challenge your player about all their endless killing and collecting. God damn! Are you enjoying yourself?
I was gonna do a paragraph where I lamented the fact that the game lacks that final furlough of audio/visual/gameplay polish to complement the art vibe that almost takes this to 5 Star Status, but in the process of writing this I realised that the game just wouldn't land the same if you could actually hear the music or think clearly over the sound of a shotgun getting stuck in an audio loop. If I'd been able to clear the rooftop chase the first time without being wiped out by a fucked up ragdoll distracting me and causing me to run into a glitched-out cop who couldn't find cover, I wouldn't have been half as aware of the artifice of video game running-and-gunning-and-murdering. Holy shit! Am I enjoying myself? No! Five stars!!!!
This may all sound like facile shithousery, but there is something kinda special about a game with Square Enix and IO Interactive title cards trying its absolute hardest to assault you through the screen. Title screens are an important part of the Gaming Experience, and the Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days title screen is no exception - hitting you with a barrage of low-kbps door-knocking sound effects, poorly-mixed raindrops and presumable Chinese swearing. Two paragraphs in and I haven't even pressed the Any key yet - that's how you know this is a game worth talking about! Yowza!
At the time this game was released, I was all over the cover-shooting scene - Gears, Ghost Recon, Uncharted, Vanquish - the whole hole-hiding lot. Gears of War 2, was, and still is, a 5/5+10/10 Certified: Awesome banger in my eyes. Landing an active reload and separating a locust's chest from its dick and balls will always feel (Marcus Fenix voice) Nice! to me, But could I have handled this game back in 2010? You've all heard of the Cool Ranch Dorito Effect, but this game is the Moldly Stale Nacho Cheese Dorito Effect - an alluring flavour so overpoweringly awful that you can barely handle the taste. But something about it just keeps bringing you back... This is Woke Up This Morning (Nightcore Remix) in video game form. Awesome!
It blows my mind that this game has splitscreen co-op. It does not blow my mind to learn that the splitscreen co-op is apparently broken in all sorts of offensive and ridiculous ways - it's so perfectly fitting in so many many ways that elude elucidation. It's now a Life Goal for me to play through this thing in splitscreen with a buddy while we're both spun out of our minds on something or other. It would whip so much fucking sack. I feel like splitscreen Dog Days would function as a drug in and of itself. Even if I wasn't blitzed, I feel like it would still give me a hangover the next day. Can you imagine two guys doing that sprinting animation at the same time while overlapping "SHT YOU CNT!!" "FCK PSS!!" audio files play at different levels over the top of each other and six other stock uzi sound effects of variable volume? It would be sick! Fuck yeah!
It always kinda bothered me when people told me No More Heroes was "belligerent by design" as part of some larger Art Game whole - it was just boring as hell! (Travis Touchdown voice) Fck off! Even if it was intentional, No More Heroes always had its sneakers halfway into its player-hostile concept. Kane & Lynch 2, by contrast, is completely unafraid of confrontation with the player on the other side of the keyboard/gamepad. Like killing people, do you, nerd? No More Heroes 2 (released the same year as Kane & Lynch 2) tried to take the antagonistic nature of the series further towards real meaningful stuff, but it looks like Little Baby Shit in comparison to Dog Days. Suda51 apologises for wounding you. IO Interactive interactively pisses in your wound - and maybe fucks it too, before crashing to desktop! This* is how you challenge your player about all their endless killing and collecting. God damn! Are you enjoying yourself?
I was gonna do a paragraph where I lamented the fact that the game lacks that final furlough of audio/visual/gameplay polish to complement the art vibe that almost takes this to 5 Star Status, but in the process of writing this I realised that the game just wouldn't land the same if you could actually hear the music or think clearly over the sound of a shotgun getting stuck in an audio loop. If I'd been able to clear the rooftop chase the first time without being wiped out by a fucked up ragdoll distracting me and causing me to run into a glitched-out cop who couldn't find cover, I wouldn't have been half as aware of the artifice of video game running-and-gunning-and-murdering. Holy shit! Am I enjoying myself? No! Five stars!!!!
white man's drakengard
Dog Days, and by relation Dead Money, are both games predated by the notion of violence: Dead Money taking it for granted, a cruel necessity of the genre and it’s inspirations, Dog Days as a meditation of violence entirely, a framing device for something that is less a compelling narrative and more a dive into the commodification and acceptance of violence in digital spaces. Two unfixable men dive headlong into bloodshed for less-than-stable reasons, one fueled by a half-assed savior complex, another locked into this life through violent psychopathy, both completely unfit to fill any sort of heroic role.
Stylistic violence is the bread-and-butter of shooters, so having Dog Days specifically focus on such an abrasive art direction is a very hardline choice. Breaking apart from its contemporaries, the violence isn’t glorified, nor is it treated as some absolute evil that is done by cruel men. It just… happens. The game, in that sense, takes a lot of its stylistic inspiration less from films and games, but more from accident compilations on LiveLeak and BestGore. Keeping with that tone, everything reflects the kind of videos you’d find on the cursed, blighted side of the web: blown out colors leaving darkness in monotone and searing in bright neon signs, artifacting and corruption over any abrupt action, cameras shaking and audio clipping mercilessly as firefights escalate, and particularly gruesome shots are covered in mosaic by some unseen editor. It’s a game where low-resolutions and frame rates are ideal: anything to fit the grainy, lo-fi nature of online video in the late 2000s.
The mechanics do a bit of the lifting to sell the nihilistic vision, for better or for worse. Dog Days doesn’t feature interesting mechanics, satisfying gameplay loops, or, really, any systems worth pointing out. Mediocrity is the name of the game, further showing how the violence on screen isn’t enticing, dramatic, or worthy of excitement. That does mean the game is not very interesting to play for it’s short four hour run time, but I suppose that’s part of the point. The game exists as more of a vibe experiment than an actually entertaining game, and on that it works amazingly.
Kane and Lynch live on deals written in terms they refuse to understand, inked in innocent blood, signed with bullets and bodies. Over the course of ten hours, between two separate games, the only language the pair are fluent in is that of pointless violence, where cruel men and the victims they amass pop into view, cause pain, and see their own life cut short. Mechanically, stylistically, narratively, the life that Kane and Lynch follow is never portrayed as anything less than meaningless, a series stupid games with stupid prizes. Somewhere between bumbling incompetents and ghoulish slaughterers, no one questions their choices, for questioning them would imply any sort of control, a desire to change, ideas incomprehensible to the middle-aged menaces. Wherever they go, people die.
Neither game is great, but the series as a whole is interesting. The short length of Dog Days alone, along with its low price in most places, should be enough of an excuse to at least experience the aesthetic work on display.
Stylistic violence is the bread-and-butter of shooters, so having Dog Days specifically focus on such an abrasive art direction is a very hardline choice. Breaking apart from its contemporaries, the violence isn’t glorified, nor is it treated as some absolute evil that is done by cruel men. It just… happens. The game, in that sense, takes a lot of its stylistic inspiration less from films and games, but more from accident compilations on LiveLeak and BestGore. Keeping with that tone, everything reflects the kind of videos you’d find on the cursed, blighted side of the web: blown out colors leaving darkness in monotone and searing in bright neon signs, artifacting and corruption over any abrupt action, cameras shaking and audio clipping mercilessly as firefights escalate, and particularly gruesome shots are covered in mosaic by some unseen editor. It’s a game where low-resolutions and frame rates are ideal: anything to fit the grainy, lo-fi nature of online video in the late 2000s.
The mechanics do a bit of the lifting to sell the nihilistic vision, for better or for worse. Dog Days doesn’t feature interesting mechanics, satisfying gameplay loops, or, really, any systems worth pointing out. Mediocrity is the name of the game, further showing how the violence on screen isn’t enticing, dramatic, or worthy of excitement. That does mean the game is not very interesting to play for it’s short four hour run time, but I suppose that’s part of the point. The game exists as more of a vibe experiment than an actually entertaining game, and on that it works amazingly.
Kane and Lynch live on deals written in terms they refuse to understand, inked in innocent blood, signed with bullets and bodies. Over the course of ten hours, between two separate games, the only language the pair are fluent in is that of pointless violence, where cruel men and the victims they amass pop into view, cause pain, and see their own life cut short. Mechanically, stylistically, narratively, the life that Kane and Lynch follow is never portrayed as anything less than meaningless, a series stupid games with stupid prizes. Somewhere between bumbling incompetents and ghoulish slaughterers, no one questions their choices, for questioning them would imply any sort of control, a desire to change, ideas incomprehensible to the middle-aged menaces. Wherever they go, people die.
Neither game is great, but the series as a whole is interesting. The short length of Dog Days alone, along with its low price in most places, should be enough of an excuse to at least experience the aesthetic work on display.
In the opening of the first mission in Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days, the eponymous duo meet up on the streets of Shanghai. Lynch sticks his hand out for a handshake that Kane does not reciprocate, before Lynch puts his hand down without comment. Lynch offers surface level niceties and makes small talk with Kane, which he responds to with curt refusals and unnecessary aggression. This initially makes Kane look unlikable and selfish, until Lynch drags Kane along against his will for an unrelated personal vendetta, revealing that he's just as selfish and self-serving as Kane is, only dealing with the other because he needs him to get the job done. There is no compassion, there is no bond, there are only two unlikable, selfish men who drag each other down with every self-serving action they take until their shortsightedness destroys whatever they were fighting for in the first place.
Kane & Lynch 2, on paper, sounds like the kind of fun buddy-buddy crime thriller you'd see in a theater. Two down-on-their-luck career criminals with one humanizing aspect each (Lynch's new girlfriend and Kane's estranged daughter) join up for that "one last job", before things go south and our wacky leads are in over their heads in a foreign land, and epic shootouts and action set pieces occur henceforth. However, there is no joy here. The eponymous duo have no camaraderie like you'd expect, only dealing with each other for their own personal gain, but much like a toxic relationship, neither can fully live without the other. There are no rousing speeches, no begrudging acceptance of true friendship, only bitching and moaning about how much everything sucks and how much they despise each other, and yet they continue to fraternize, because who else do they have? They continue to escalate situations to unnecessary heights as they shoot thousands upon thousands of criminals and private military contractors in the concrete jungle of Shanghai. The endless stream of violence without pause or reprise is almost supernatural in a sense. Kane & Lynch are in a hell of their own creation: a drab, eternal labyrinth of urban architecture and endless gunfights in the hostile underbelly of China's criminal underworld. Just as suddenly as it starts, it ends without fanfare or conclusion. We were privy only to the vignette of time the game wanted us privy to, and in a way, maybe it's for the best. Kane & Lynch don't deserve closure.
What makes this plot work is the visual style in which it is presented. The camera is characterized as a perverse, unaddressed third-party observer to the action that unfolds. In cutscenes, the angles are often candid and much too close for comfort, as if the camera is trying to record the action without being seen by the characters in the story. Scenes often start suddenly and end just as abruptly, sometimes mid-dialogue, as if the battery had died before the scene could finish. In gameplay, it shakes as if in someone's hand when you run. Headshots are instantly pixelated out, blood and rain splatter on your shitty camcorder lens, bright lights create lens flare and loud noises such as shouting and explosions peak the audio and ruin the bit rate. When you die, the camera takes a tumble, the audio is suddenly cut-off without fade and the timestamp is presented without comment, before you are instantly thrown back into the action without any pause. We are neither Kane or Lynch, we are simply observers to their reckless and violent actions.
The gameplay is something I admittedly can't give too much comment on, because this is the first Third Person Shooter I've ever actually played, but I will say that it works incredibly well in-tandem with the visual presentation. The guns feel appropriately weighty and have a real OOMPH to them when you fire, alongside the recoil. You have to scramble across arenas scrounging for ammunition while making sure that you aren't getting riddled with bullets by the hundreds of gunmen you'll encounter, who are just as smart as any player, attempting to flank you and take you by surprise if you aren't careful. The cacophony of bullets whizzing by overhead, overpowering the character's speech and assaulting the player's senses makes every firefight intense. The admittedly tedious nature of it all syncs well with the duo's growing exacerbation at the sheer amount of people being thrown at them in the span of the story's 48-hour chronological window.
Kane & Lynch is an ugly, exhausting, visual anathema I had to walk away from constantly due to the sheer over-stimulation I was being bombarded by. But I think it's critical reception (in part due to it's predecessor's controversy), is largely unwarranted. It's a visually striking and unique experience that has yet to really receive the critical reevaluation other games in a similar vein from the 7th console generation received. It's a game very much worth the 4 hour commitment it asks of you.
Kane & Lynch 2, on paper, sounds like the kind of fun buddy-buddy crime thriller you'd see in a theater. Two down-on-their-luck career criminals with one humanizing aspect each (Lynch's new girlfriend and Kane's estranged daughter) join up for that "one last job", before things go south and our wacky leads are in over their heads in a foreign land, and epic shootouts and action set pieces occur henceforth. However, there is no joy here. The eponymous duo have no camaraderie like you'd expect, only dealing with each other for their own personal gain, but much like a toxic relationship, neither can fully live without the other. There are no rousing speeches, no begrudging acceptance of true friendship, only bitching and moaning about how much everything sucks and how much they despise each other, and yet they continue to fraternize, because who else do they have? They continue to escalate situations to unnecessary heights as they shoot thousands upon thousands of criminals and private military contractors in the concrete jungle of Shanghai. The endless stream of violence without pause or reprise is almost supernatural in a sense. Kane & Lynch are in a hell of their own creation: a drab, eternal labyrinth of urban architecture and endless gunfights in the hostile underbelly of China's criminal underworld. Just as suddenly as it starts, it ends without fanfare or conclusion. We were privy only to the vignette of time the game wanted us privy to, and in a way, maybe it's for the best. Kane & Lynch don't deserve closure.
What makes this plot work is the visual style in which it is presented. The camera is characterized as a perverse, unaddressed third-party observer to the action that unfolds. In cutscenes, the angles are often candid and much too close for comfort, as if the camera is trying to record the action without being seen by the characters in the story. Scenes often start suddenly and end just as abruptly, sometimes mid-dialogue, as if the battery had died before the scene could finish. In gameplay, it shakes as if in someone's hand when you run. Headshots are instantly pixelated out, blood and rain splatter on your shitty camcorder lens, bright lights create lens flare and loud noises such as shouting and explosions peak the audio and ruin the bit rate. When you die, the camera takes a tumble, the audio is suddenly cut-off without fade and the timestamp is presented without comment, before you are instantly thrown back into the action without any pause. We are neither Kane or Lynch, we are simply observers to their reckless and violent actions.
The gameplay is something I admittedly can't give too much comment on, because this is the first Third Person Shooter I've ever actually played, but I will say that it works incredibly well in-tandem with the visual presentation. The guns feel appropriately weighty and have a real OOMPH to them when you fire, alongside the recoil. You have to scramble across arenas scrounging for ammunition while making sure that you aren't getting riddled with bullets by the hundreds of gunmen you'll encounter, who are just as smart as any player, attempting to flank you and take you by surprise if you aren't careful. The cacophony of bullets whizzing by overhead, overpowering the character's speech and assaulting the player's senses makes every firefight intense. The admittedly tedious nature of it all syncs well with the duo's growing exacerbation at the sheer amount of people being thrown at them in the span of the story's 48-hour chronological window.
Kane & Lynch is an ugly, exhausting, visual anathema I had to walk away from constantly due to the sheer over-stimulation I was being bombarded by. But I think it's critical reception (in part due to it's predecessor's controversy), is largely unwarranted. It's a visually striking and unique experience that has yet to really receive the critical reevaluation other games in a similar vein from the 7th console generation received. It's a game very much worth the 4 hour commitment it asks of you.
god this was so fucking kawaii
genuinely one of the most nauseating four and a half hours i’ve had the chance of experiencing and the crude, candid presentation of it all made the act of playing it all the more abominable.
arguably you're not even playing as the two poster boys; you're moreso some ubiquitous cameraman, desperating attempting to keep two dudes actively committing a massacre within frame. not helped by your camera not being equipped to handle the explosion of bitrate-dropping grit and grain nor the overbearing soundscapes you'll be rummaging through. but, dog days goal isn't just to make you witness some wild descent to hell, these characters are already in hell anyway. what it really wants you to do is to feel, as an estranged viewer, a gradual, personal descent into exhaustion. the outrageous become a morbid curiosity, and that morbid curiosity turns into fatigue and cynicism; an effect not unlike that of its inspirations - that being gruesome, online recordings of extreme violence and cruelty (the game's teaser is styled as a liveleak video. unsurprisingly, its extremely gross! ( https://youtu.be/nkfBvxrIz5M )). all this distilled in a medium where big name contemporaries are ready to patronize you, either attempting to justify your every action or sometimes straight up not questioning them. this game was literally scientifically engineered to be as repulsive as possible - transcribing the true nature of some of its peers, the casual viscerality of user generated content, and the discomfort, nausea, and detachment that content incites.
so essentially, this game fucking rocks and the fact it actually exists alludes me
arguably you're not even playing as the two poster boys; you're moreso some ubiquitous cameraman, desperating attempting to keep two dudes actively committing a massacre within frame. not helped by your camera not being equipped to handle the explosion of bitrate-dropping grit and grain nor the overbearing soundscapes you'll be rummaging through. but, dog days goal isn't just to make you witness some wild descent to hell, these characters are already in hell anyway. what it really wants you to do is to feel, as an estranged viewer, a gradual, personal descent into exhaustion. the outrageous become a morbid curiosity, and that morbid curiosity turns into fatigue and cynicism; an effect not unlike that of its inspirations - that being gruesome, online recordings of extreme violence and cruelty (the game's teaser is styled as a liveleak video. unsurprisingly, its extremely gross! ( https://youtu.be/nkfBvxrIz5M )). all this distilled in a medium where big name contemporaries are ready to patronize you, either attempting to justify your every action or sometimes straight up not questioning them. this game was literally scientifically engineered to be as repulsive as possible - transcribing the true nature of some of its peers, the casual viscerality of user generated content, and the discomfort, nausea, and detachment that content incites.
so essentially, this game fucking rocks and the fact it actually exists alludes me
join the two biggest fucking idiots in the world as they somehow manage to botch each worst-case-scenario they land themselves in about ten times harder than the last. the liveleak logo never goes away on this ride
yeah yeah shaky cam artifacting hard to see motion sickness; whatever. once the initial shock wears off from the hilariously grim - and frankly very well executed - snuff/found footage aesthetic this is a damn fine albeit incredibly short tps with cool set pieces and satisfying gunplay
yeah yeah shaky cam artifacting hard to see motion sickness; whatever. once the initial shock wears off from the hilariously grim - and frankly very well executed - snuff/found footage aesthetic this is a damn fine albeit incredibly short tps with cool set pieces and satisfying gunplay
Pleb filter
im jus gon copy and paste my steam review
also ive played thru dis game like 10 times im pretty sure so take my fuckin word for it
a misunderstood masterpiece
kane and lynch 2 was released in a time where games like uncharted, army of two, and gears of war were the standard for third person shooters at the time. games where you played as a quippy asshole who kills a million guys but youre still good and likeable
kane and lynch 2 did not follow dis
in kane and lynch 2 you play as da most disgustin, repulsive men who hate each other, doin ugly horrible things, ruinin eachothers lives, and as a result dats what da game is. its disgustin and repulsive, da camera shakes when you run, it looks like an MPEG video, when you get shot da screen depixelizes, you SHOULDNT aim down your sights, da guns are deliberately inaccurate, Lynch is yellin constantly from PTSD and his schizophrenia, Kane is pissed off at Lynch and at his life, and ultimately doesnt care about anyone but himself. dis is usually where people (people who even like this game) say dis game is "deliberately bad" but dat doesnt apply here and anyone who says it does is a moron
theres a scene about midway thru da game, after Kane and Lynch escape torture and are runnin around China naked with cuts all over them bleedin everywhere where they stop in an underground mall, and Lynch starts havin a breakdown. you cant feel bad for him, you cant, and Kane starts talkin to him about how he "needs" Lynch to go thru with dis deal from Glazer with him, "one last deal," so he can "get out the game," and as fucked Lynch is even he realizes how selfish Kane truly is. but who else does Lynch have to rely on? get some clothes on
when i first played kane and lynch 2 it was on PS3 with my homie veronica, it was on sale for $3 and i played it on my old 90s HP monitor, we got to da helicopter setpiece, where you hijack a helicopter and start unloadin machine guns indiscriminately on offices in a huge tower
due to my monitor bein so old, it has speakers, and when things get too loud, it clips like HELL, and starts makin dat sound like when your earbuds are screwin up but way louder and basically perpetually. i wish everyone could experience dat part dis way
another thing people either completely ignore or misunderstand how huge of a design choice it is, is da fact the game is based off graphic liveleak videos
dats WHY da camera is like that, dats WHY da game is so short, dats WHY da gameplay is chaotic, dats WHY da story is so sparse and told in inbetween shootouts and loadin screens with shots of shanghai, dats WHY da entire game is how it is. its a design choice dat runs so deep into the game yet no one realizes it, for whatever reason
i wanna credit my homie veronica for showin me dis game, and for part of how i initially describe da game in dis review
id recommend everyone should go back to dis game, after almost a whole decade of retrospect, and how ambitious it is, i think it deserves it
also ive played thru dis game like 10 times im pretty sure so take my fuckin word for it
a misunderstood masterpiece
kane and lynch 2 was released in a time where games like uncharted, army of two, and gears of war were the standard for third person shooters at the time. games where you played as a quippy asshole who kills a million guys but youre still good and likeable
kane and lynch 2 did not follow dis
in kane and lynch 2 you play as da most disgustin, repulsive men who hate each other, doin ugly horrible things, ruinin eachothers lives, and as a result dats what da game is. its disgustin and repulsive, da camera shakes when you run, it looks like an MPEG video, when you get shot da screen depixelizes, you SHOULDNT aim down your sights, da guns are deliberately inaccurate, Lynch is yellin constantly from PTSD and his schizophrenia, Kane is pissed off at Lynch and at his life, and ultimately doesnt care about anyone but himself. dis is usually where people (people who even like this game) say dis game is "deliberately bad" but dat doesnt apply here and anyone who says it does is a moron
theres a scene about midway thru da game, after Kane and Lynch escape torture and are runnin around China naked with cuts all over them bleedin everywhere where they stop in an underground mall, and Lynch starts havin a breakdown. you cant feel bad for him, you cant, and Kane starts talkin to him about how he "needs" Lynch to go thru with dis deal from Glazer with him, "one last deal," so he can "get out the game," and as fucked Lynch is even he realizes how selfish Kane truly is. but who else does Lynch have to rely on? get some clothes on
when i first played kane and lynch 2 it was on PS3 with my homie veronica, it was on sale for $3 and i played it on my old 90s HP monitor, we got to da helicopter setpiece, where you hijack a helicopter and start unloadin machine guns indiscriminately on offices in a huge tower
due to my monitor bein so old, it has speakers, and when things get too loud, it clips like HELL, and starts makin dat sound like when your earbuds are screwin up but way louder and basically perpetually. i wish everyone could experience dat part dis way
another thing people either completely ignore or misunderstand how huge of a design choice it is, is da fact the game is based off graphic liveleak videos
dats WHY da camera is like that, dats WHY da game is so short, dats WHY da gameplay is chaotic, dats WHY da story is so sparse and told in inbetween shootouts and loadin screens with shots of shanghai, dats WHY da entire game is how it is. its a design choice dat runs so deep into the game yet no one realizes it, for whatever reason
i wanna credit my homie veronica for showin me dis game, and for part of how i initially describe da game in dis review
id recommend everyone should go back to dis game, after almost a whole decade of retrospect, and how ambitious it is, i think it deserves it
I first played this game in about 2013 on the PS3. I thought it was shit.
Hindsight and some growth on my part, as well as getting to the point where this game legitimately costs a buck has enabled me to see this game through the lens of being more along the lines of something like Busby Visits the James Turrell retrosective than Gears of War or Uncharted.
I have to say, I've come to really like the art style. Yes, it gave me multiple headaches, but it's unique, and I really like the way they've replicated compression artefacts. It works well with the "world is a fuck" nature of the game.
And the vile, ugly nature of the whole game i do get is the point. There's times with some games where people will say "oh, it's not meant to be fun" and I don't buy it, but Kane and Lynch 2 definetly is not meant to be fun. It's wholly unpleasant from start to finish.
Sadly I think it's biggest flaw sort of draws from this, because I think despite the game's remarkably short length, it can't keep it up. It absolutely peaks at the end of the second act where you start shooting up shanghai naked and bleeding from torture, and from then it basically becomes a blockbuster shooter and it frankly just gets a bit dull.
By hour 3 you end up in huge arenas full of identical enemies which do generic 7th Gen TPS potshotting from half height cover, whilst your weapon options are hilariously innacurate at range and you have only environmental hazards as an option for flusihng them out of cover. It sucks, and the gameplay, whilst never good, is by far at its strongest in the small environments of the first half of the game, where it feels more intimate and chaotic.
And that's my other main problem, honestly the most significant gripe i have with this thing as an art project - the portrayal of violence isn't "intimate" enough, and the scores of people being gunned down in the streets is a bit laughable, and I feel the approach of a game like the last of us, where there's more of a focus on intimate, cruel violence against individuals rather than just straight up massacres, would have worked better here. It gets a bit silly.
Speaking of silly, the story's shit. There's no real throughline, for most of it - things just happen to our protags and eventually they shoot the main villain ten seconds after he's first shown on screen. The game ends with them hijacking a plane and just... getting away with it?
I must also say, from an audio standpoint, it falls really hard. The audio mixing is terrible to the point where you can barely hear what the protagonists are saying, there's a score you can barely hear that also isn't good, gun sounds are bad and the voice acting isnt great. I probably wouldn't bring it up if the visual side of this thing wasn't as strong as it was though.
So yeah, Overall, odd, weird, disjointed mess of a game, and a pretty decent exhibit of unpleasantness. Definetly fits into the "unspeakable games" category on the EGS if it's there. As the art thing, it falls apart in the second half and it might be fair to say being outright headache inducing is a flaw, but eh, I at least appreciate the effort here.
So, despite being remarkably shit, I do prefer this over most of the smorgasboard of Gen 7 Third person shooters. Unlike the vast majority of them , you can't say it's not interesting.
Hindsight and some growth on my part, as well as getting to the point where this game legitimately costs a buck has enabled me to see this game through the lens of being more along the lines of something like Busby Visits the James Turrell retrosective than Gears of War or Uncharted.
I have to say, I've come to really like the art style. Yes, it gave me multiple headaches, but it's unique, and I really like the way they've replicated compression artefacts. It works well with the "world is a fuck" nature of the game.
And the vile, ugly nature of the whole game i do get is the point. There's times with some games where people will say "oh, it's not meant to be fun" and I don't buy it, but Kane and Lynch 2 definetly is not meant to be fun. It's wholly unpleasant from start to finish.
Sadly I think it's biggest flaw sort of draws from this, because I think despite the game's remarkably short length, it can't keep it up. It absolutely peaks at the end of the second act where you start shooting up shanghai naked and bleeding from torture, and from then it basically becomes a blockbuster shooter and it frankly just gets a bit dull.
By hour 3 you end up in huge arenas full of identical enemies which do generic 7th Gen TPS potshotting from half height cover, whilst your weapon options are hilariously innacurate at range and you have only environmental hazards as an option for flusihng them out of cover. It sucks, and the gameplay, whilst never good, is by far at its strongest in the small environments of the first half of the game, where it feels more intimate and chaotic.
And that's my other main problem, honestly the most significant gripe i have with this thing as an art project - the portrayal of violence isn't "intimate" enough, and the scores of people being gunned down in the streets is a bit laughable, and I feel the approach of a game like the last of us, where there's more of a focus on intimate, cruel violence against individuals rather than just straight up massacres, would have worked better here. It gets a bit silly.
Speaking of silly, the story's shit. There's no real throughline, for most of it - things just happen to our protags and eventually they shoot the main villain ten seconds after he's first shown on screen. The game ends with them hijacking a plane and just... getting away with it?
I must also say, from an audio standpoint, it falls really hard. The audio mixing is terrible to the point where you can barely hear what the protagonists are saying, there's a score you can barely hear that also isn't good, gun sounds are bad and the voice acting isnt great. I probably wouldn't bring it up if the visual side of this thing wasn't as strong as it was though.
So yeah, Overall, odd, weird, disjointed mess of a game, and a pretty decent exhibit of unpleasantness. Definetly fits into the "unspeakable games" category on the EGS if it's there. As the art thing, it falls apart in the second half and it might be fair to say being outright headache inducing is a flaw, but eh, I at least appreciate the effort here.
So, despite being remarkably shit, I do prefer this over most of the smorgasboard of Gen 7 Third person shooters. Unlike the vast majority of them , you can't say it's not interesting.
i'm an elitist and i hate fun
gave me a headache in just 5 minutes
libertarian guys with asian wives
pinnacle of the medium
pinnacle of the medium