Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days Review

From the creators of the Hitman series, the second installment to the Kane & Lynch series is now available. The first game that was released in late 2007 was not warmly received by both fans and critics as there were numerous unbearable gameplay flaws such as poor aiming and a meagre cover system. The story of the first game wasn’t good either as it failed to exude any excitement to pay attention to it. However does Dog Days fix the issues that plagued the original game?

Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days will take gamers into Shanghai, China as you’ll battle your way out of the trouble you’ll soon get into. Now that the summer drought of games is finally over, is Kane & Lynch 2 a game to start off the hot Fall releases? Let’s take a look on the HOTs and NOTs of Square Enix’s Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days.

HOT

Improved Story
Comparing the story of Dead Men to Dog Days, the sequel provides a much better story over the first game. Following the events in Venezuela, Kane & Lynch find themselves in China as they try to make out a deal with Gerzel. In an unexpected twist that they get into, killing the girlfriend of Shangshi, the powerful businessman in Shanghai, the deal is called off as they will have to pay for what they did with Shangshi’s girlfriend. Players will guide Kane & Lynch into an intense crime action drama as you’ll survive and fight your way out of Shanghai.

Improved Cover System and Aiming System
While aiming weapons at enemies, it doesn’t feel cheap as it was in the original game. There is now a cover system in Dog Days which makes shooting enemies and dodging bullets a whole lot easier. Players can cover behind anything they find such as cars, dumpsters, walls, or even a garbage truck. Thanks to the cover system seen in games such as Gears of War, a lot of third person shooter games have adapted this nice feature. Aiming the weapons at the enemies feels so much better as when you shoot, it shows on the screen as to what parts you’re shooting. The accuracy isn’t one hundred percent but it’s a good improvement over the system used in the first game.

Presentation
With the technology that we have now, the graphics of Dog Days have improved so much over the first game. The game now looks more realistic as Kane & Lynch looks more like human beings now rather than the cheap flat character models seen in Dead Man. Players who wish to visit Shanghai can just sit at their chair and play the game as Dog Days successfully replicate the streets of Shanghai. From the beautiful marketplace to the apartments, Dog Days does an overall makeover in terms of the graphics. The soundtrack used is well delivered in the game as IO Interactive uses some of the most intense music similar to when you’re watching a movie. The tension builds up and excitement can all be expected during the middle of a fire-fight. In addition to the soundtrack, expect a lot of cussing too!

From the beginning to the end, storytelling of the game is presented via the style of a video-documentary. Whenever a cutscene occurs, players can see that the way they shoot the scenes are the scenes we obviously seen in amateur videos. Whenever the player dies in the game, the camera will just drop making it look like the person filming the video dies too. It is a pretty neat thing to do but sometimes, the camera movements can make a player nausaeus.

Multiplayer Modes
IO Interactive retained the multiplayer mode that Dead Men has. Fragile Alliance will make a come back on Dog Days. For anyone who played the online portion of Dead Men, Fragile Alliance on Dog Days is no different. Up to eight players can team up and players must steal as much money as they can and leave at the getaway truck at the end of the level. The player can become a traitor and steal the money that your alliance got. When a player dies, they respawn as a cop and they can get a percent of the enemies’ earnings.

In addition to Fragile Alliance, two other modes are added; Undercover Cop and Cop & Robbers. In Undercover Cop, one of the members in the team is a cop and as soon as the money is stolen from the source, the undercover cop must stop the other people from fleeing; it’s somehow similar to the objective of Fragile Alliance except the cop must stop the robbers! In Cop & Robbers, it plays like a team deathmatch. Half of the team on the lobby will play as Robbers while the others will play as cops.

Intense Action and Co-Op
A way to finish off the summer drought of games is by having the most intense action on Dog Days. From the first level to the last, players can expect a lot of fire-fights, explosions, and a lot more. The action never stops from the time you start the game and anyone can consider this game as an action type of movie. For a gamer that wants to play co-operative, Dog Days offers both split-screen and online. They can team up on the levels that the host has finished in single-player. It is a good idea to play with someone on Extreme difficulty as the AI on single player for Kane can be very stupid.

NOT

Short Campaign
On normal difficulty, you can expect to finish Kane & Lynch 2 in around five hours. However, for hardcore gamers who want more of a serious challenge, playing on Extreme mode can last a gamer up to eight hours as the difficulty is at its peak. There are a total of nine levels in the game whereas gamers can finish each of them in thirty minutes or less depending on the difficulty. A lot of third person shooter games have jumped into this bandwagon in delivering a game that is five hours at length. It may somehow be disappointing but if that’s how the game ends, then let it be. Either way it’s a big disappointment that the game is this short.

The Stupidity of Censorship
For a mature rated game, Kane & Lynch 2 offers a ban on images that may seem too gory. Whenever a player shoots an enemy in the head, the head will be censored and the face can no longer be seen. This may be a good thing for squeamish audiences who attempt to play the game however, the point of being a realistic game is taken out of the picture. All of the nude scenes in the game are also censored just like when Kane & Lynch are naked or when a lady is completely naked you won’t see any boobs! Honestly, that is the most stupidest thing to do for a mature rated game as every shooting games shows heads bursting off, breasts, and blood while this game cannot. It seems that IO Interactive wants to keep it on the low side as they don’t want issues with Dog Days at the day of release. Normally this sort of censorship is seen when games are released in Australia (a country without an R18 rating), so it’s odd Kane & Lynch 2 softens the mature content for everyone else.

Weak AI
The AI problem found on Dead Men still haunts Dog Days. At every fire-fight that the player can get into, it can get pretty obvious that the AI in the game hasn’t improved at all compared to the first game. The enemies will still attack players without the idea of covering. The moves of the AI enemies is so easy to read that killing them can be no problem at all. It seems as if the AI has no fear in being shot.

Wait? No Explosive Cars?
In the first game, gamers can shoot a car and have it explode. In Dog Days, players can no longer use the car as a part of explosives. With no grenades at hand, a player can just use a fire extinguisher, and fuel case as a mean of explosive devices. It is a huge let down as a game as intense like this will not have any grenades or a lot of explosions. Basically, just expect a basic and boring gun fight!

Occassional Glitches
Despite having improved graphics over its predecessor, Dog Days will have occasional glitches where there will be random pop ins. Players can expect to see cops running through walls or sometimes floating. It is not that bad as it only occurs once in a while.

Voices are Offsync
The voice acting is indeed good and believable but what makes it bad is when a player sees the characters lips off sync with the audio. There’s like a two second lag on voices which makes it kind of annoying when the player is carefully watching the cutscenes.

VERDICT

Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days has improved a lot compared to the first title. The graphics are much more realistic, the gameplay is more component and the story will engaging enough to keep any player from ending the game. Despite flaws such as the dumb AI and a very short single player campaign this game still manages to provide enough intense action to keep any third-person shooter fan happy. The game might not win any awards but I give props to IO Interactive in taking time in improving Dog Days. With the small flaws set aside, Kane & Lynch 2 is a decent title.

[Editor’s Note: Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days was reviewed on a Xbox 360 platform. The game was provided to us by the publisher.]