Kane & Lynch is the new game from the makers of Hitman: Blood Money, which it has to be said has been getting a lot of hype attached to it in the build up to its release, but is this hype justified?
The background behind the game sees you take control of a convicted criminal by the name of Kane who is about to meet his makers via death row. At the beginning of the game you are given a lifeline as the people (also known as the 7) you betrayed have decided to break you free from jail in order to get back from you what is theirs. To give them something to bargain with they have kidnapped your wife and daughter, threatening to kill them unless you give them what they want. When the story reaches this point you are then introduced to Lynch, a psychopath whose assignment it is to keep an eye on you and make sure you complete the mission and it soon becomes apparent later in the story that he has his reasons for doing this.
There is one thing I should mention before continuing this review any further, if you don’t like swearing or if it offends you in any way, then don’t play this game, I didn’t actually count how many times the “F” word was said in the early levels, but believe me it was a lot. The same could be said about the morals of the game, if you’re a person that feels it’s wrong to kill innocent people and cops in video games, then giving this a miss is probably your only option.
One of the best things about Kane and Lynch is the way that the story is told, both characters are constantly talking to each other, all while revealing more and more of the story. The idea of character interaction throughout the game really is a great way of doing things and more developers should take note of this, though that’s not to say that the cutscenes don’t serve their purpose, as they also provide more answers as well as an excellent cinematic experience.
The action itself is presented from a third person perspective and unfortunately the game suffers for this, for example, aiming your weapon is a task in itself, at the beginning of the game it took me quite a while to get used to the combat, it is very awkward trying to get the sight to match up to the enemy, and you may be killed quite a few times before you eventually manage to take them down. Another disappointing aspect is the way in which Kane takes cover, sometime it just feels like he sticks to anything that can be remotely classed as cover, whether you make him or not, and to add to this the cover doesn’t always work as some of the time you will still be killed.
There are some fairly decent ideas when it comes to the action, for example, you can give commands to your squad, either asking them to help you take down a specific target or to hold a certain position and to some extent this works ok, but you will probably just end up sending them ahead to get killed.
When you or any of your squad are on the verge of dying, you will be revived using adrenaline, this is basically another way of giving you three lives and is a pretty great addition, the only problem is that should you have this administered too much, you will overdose and it will be game over. One of the great things about the adrenaline is that you must also administer it to your squad if they are in danger, and if you don’t do this quickly enough then the game will end as you cannot complete the levels if you lose any member of your team.
As far the enemies go, it has to be said that when recruiting them, the bosses must have chosen the people with the least amount of brain power, this is because they just stand there half the time, in the open, waiting for you to shoot them, and even if you shoot one of them then his mate will still just stand there without any idea that your bullet is about to fill his empty head, disappointing really.
Apart from the storyline which is very strong, the games main saving grace comes in the form of the different levels you will play in, the jail break level for example is a excellent and tense affair as you try to break your squad free from prison in order to help you in your task (we will keep this quiet so as not to spoil the story), or the nightclub level, which is one of my favorites and involves you trying to barge your way through the crowds of dancing people as you try to escape the scene of your crime.
As far as the games graphic go, Kane & Lynch is pretty hit and miss, the cutscenes as mentioned earlier do look the part, however the game in general looks to me like it could easily not look out of place on the Playstation 2 (no offence intended to the PS2). It seems that all the work in this area has been made less of a priority while the developers worked on the storyline, however this is just my opinion.
One of the biggest disappointments about Kane and Lynch is the online mode, named Fragile Alliance, this certainly offers a unique online experience but a very limited one. The whole idea behind this mode is that four to six players collect as much money as they can between them from a bank vault and then escape alive, however there is a twist as the person with the most cash wins, providing that they are the only survivor, what this results in is trying to kill your teammates and steal their cash before escaping into the van. There are a few more catches, for example, if you die you will respawn on the other team, take revenge on whoever killed you and a bonus will come your way. It’s a very different online mode from most but there are only four maps and the whole thing becomes very repetitive, very quickly.
Kane & Lynch is a game that offers a very strong story and an online mode that is very unique, however it does have its flaws and once you have played through the game and tried out the online mode a few times, you will probably never put the disc in your machine again. I wouldn’t say that playing this game is a disappointing experience because that would be far from the truth, it’s just that if you do buy it, then it will probably be the first game you look to trade in when it comes to funding your next purchase.
