more influential and ahead of its time then most people realize. this game was released 12 years ago and it was already doing so many of the presentational flourishes that people are still playing with in things like the backrooms or those old slenderman videos, and those projects are often doing it worse then kane and lynch 2. i wonder how much the uncountable multitudes of angry joe-esque big rant videos on this helped lead to its unintentional cultural proliferation. the ways in which io was able to use shaders and post processing magic to turn decidedly xbox 360 era models and animations into something that feels entirely unique and often contemporary is the coolest part of this game. what really jumped out while playing was the dedication to the acoustics of early cell phone videos. the subtle ways in which the audio will crush itself depending on the size of the room you're in or how loud the explosion you're next to is is remarkable. this is a game made by io and published by square enix but it feels more experimental then a good many indie games i've played recently. outside it's presentation the game is brutally difficult and often not that engaging, but i kinda don't care. i'm sure a ton of people have called this game "style over substance," but so much work and care was put into the style that it can't just be written off over other aspects of the game.