Posted by Josh Salem on January 20th, 2008

What do a grizzled mercenary, a medicated psychopath, bloodsplosions, and colourful language have in common? They’re all here in Hitman creator IO Interactive’s newest title Kane and Lynch: Dead Men for the Xbox 360, a third person co-op shooter with lots of character and story development.

The story behind this co-op centered action shooter is based around forced alliances, blackmail and backstabbing. Adam Marcus A.K.A. Kane is a mercenary in jail waiting on death row for the manslaughter of 25 Venezuelan citizens. As he is being transported to his place of execution he shares a truck with another prisoner known only as Lynch, a certified schizophrenic sentenced to death for a crime he doesn’t remember committing. Lynch knows all about Kane and in the middle of transportation informs him to get down and hold on tight. Next thing you know all hell breaks loose while a few masked gunmen guide the criminals to safety. As it turns out, Kane stole something that belonged to a group called the 7 Brothers and in order to get it back, they hold his family hostage and stick him with their deranged lapdog Lynch. Of course things go sour and calamity ensues, but that’s expected in story driven video games.

Kane and Lynch: Dead Men plays much like Hitman with a hint of Gears of War and Rainbow Six. The story can be played either by yourself as Kane or if you have a friend to play co-op mode with, Lynch is also a playable character. The interaction between the two works out quite well as they usually begin each mission with different weapons (Lynch sometimes has a sniper rifle or shotgun) and different objectives and goals. At times the two characters even split apart to complete various tasks at the same time. If one of you (or your computer teammate) take too much damage too quickly, it’s up to the other to shoot them up full of adrenaline to keep them moving – but look out, take too much too quickly and you’ll black out. A very cool aspect of this game, however, is how both Kane and Lynch interact throughout the game. From time to time Lynch will lose it and go a bit nutty, he’ll begin to see civilians as pig-headed police and won’t be able to differentiate frightened bystanders from armed officers. Kane is a little more stable but once thoughts of his daughter enter his mind, he loses it and goes on a teary eyed rampage.

Presented in 1080p with guns a-blazing and people running every which way, the game looks amazing. The effects in this game are one of the aspects that separate itself from other shooters released this year. Level design for the most part is created and laid out very well, from destructible surroundings to pivotal cover and mounted weaponry Kane and Lynch’s world is set up perfectly for offensive assaults, and defensive retreats. Kane and Lynch look great themselves; in fact, all character models in this game have plenty of detail and make each hair and scar visible and unique. It also doesn’t hurt that these two murderers are among the most unique, realistic characters I have ever seen in a game. All this being said, however, while playing through this title I noticed moments of slowdown in extremely chaotic gun battles with 10 or more shooters, and in a couple of instances the game became nearly unplayable. I was also pretty disappointed by the explosions in the game, sometimes turning out as little dust blasts, while at other times big fiery explosions, hurling the story further into pandemonium. You just never know how far to stand from detonation. It also seemed that near the end of the game, graphics during cut scenes and overall production values dipped down a little lower as shadowing and graphical glitches came into play more (I got stuck in a wall a couple of times during very intense shoot offs).

As a game that relies on at least one other player to survive at any time, sound is important to hear your teammates cries, commands, and other vital information. Luckily, thanks to the in-game Dolby Digital you can hear everything perfectly as bullets whiz and insults are thrown from all directions. The guns and bombs sound as realistic as any other game involving weaponry, but the real winner in this game is the voice acting. Each character has their own attitude and style, which is not only visible from their facial expressions and posture, but can be easily identified by uniqueness from the way they talk and how they respond and interact with each other. Features like this don’t come into game life very often, but when it does, it’s always great to see it work out so well.

Controlling Kane or Lynch is streamlined and simple. Each player can carry a main firearm and a side gun, as well as different grenade types such as incendiary, smoke, and tear gas grenades. While you can switch weapons with teammates or pick up guns and ammo you find on the ground, teammates can also bring you more ammo when you shout for it. Movement and looking around are controlled by the analog sticks. Push in the left stick while moving to sprint, or while standing still to bust out your in-game radar. Pushing in the right stick brings up your inventory screen to pick your weaponry. The controls otherwise are pretty standard. The left shoulder button to sneak, right to throw grenades, right trigger shoots your gun, left trigger aims, up on the D-pad to change your gun quickly and down to change your grenade. One thing missing from the standard controls is a button to reload your gun. As for the rest of the buttons, A performs context sensitive actions (much like Resident Evil 4), while X, B, and Y order your crew to regroup, move in, or fire at your mark. The game promotes ‘snapping’ against walls and other cover when near the proper environment to peek around corners and fire blindly towards enemies. However, at points where snapping against walls should be easy and quick, it usually isn’t so. In urgent times when you need to snap right away and can’t, it can be very frustrating to play through.

Kane and Lynch isn’t all about crazy people and story driven plot. The fine folks at IO Interactive also provided us with a unique take on multiplayer online shooters. Their online element called Fragile Alliance (a great name for the game by the way) puts players on the same team with specific objectives like robbing a mall, or killing a specific person and getting away. The catch is that all opposition start off as computer played characters. The reason I say start off is because, as the title says, you’re in a fragile alliance, and as such, you can at any point stab your partners in the back and take their earnings. When this happens, your fallen ex-teammate will re-spawn as the enemy and try to exact revenge, netting bonus money used later to purchase weapons and armor for the next round. The winner of the game is whoever has the most money at the end of all the rounds. A reason players might become traitors in this game would be because mercenaries split the money won during that round between all that survive, if your greedy and want to keep all the money, all you have to do is stab your friends in the back. Another reason to become a traitor is if you’re a jerk. You can play in ranked, unranked, or system link games. You can play quick instant matches or customize your preferences. Fragile Alliance is something different in the world of online shooters, However if some players decide to team up at the beginning of the game, they can make the rest of the matches very unpleasant by killing you right away at the start of each round. Kane and Lynch doesn’t offer straight up death matches or any other mode of online play, unfortunately. That and when you can’t find a game to join, instead of taking you back to the multiplayer menu, it brings you back all the way to the main screen taking precious chunks out of your fragging time. Based on your TrueSkill ranking (a ranking system for matching players of similar skill and style), you may play as different characters from the game. Low ranked players begin as a basic masked mercenary while the top two players on Xbox Live play as Kane and Lynch themselves.

Kane and Lynch: Dead Men does a lot of things very very well. It also does a lot of things very poorly. The game has a lot going for itself and if you’re looking for the next Hitman or a different perspective on the average shooter, this might be the game to keep you happy during the holiday season. Otherwise if you want more bang for your buck Kane and Lynch might not be the best bet for you (the only real replay value in this game besides achievements is that there are two endings). With all the triple A titles coming out this season, Kane and Lynch’s poor detection system and clunky controls make this game seem more like a second tier purchase then the game of the season.

Graphics: 3.5 / 5.0
Gameplay 3.0 / 5.0
Sound 4.0 / 5.0
Replay value 2.0 / 5.0

Tags: kane and lynch: dead men, review, xbox