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Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days
After their harrowing adventures in the first game, things seemed to have calmed down a bit for Kane and Lynch. The latter started a new life in Shanghai and even has a girlfriend while the former is trying to patch up things with his daughter. Things go south very quickly however when the two reunite for a supposedly easy gun smuggling job. Kane barely has time to catch his breath after landing in Shanghai before the duo is once again engaged in a fight for their survival.
Despite its flaws I quite enjoyed the first game so I was interested to see what Dog Days had to offer. While the game is still a third person, cover based shooter it has undergone a bit of a visual transformation. The developers have opted for a gritty, "documentary film" look complete with shaky camera and visual anomalies. The result is a game that looks like it was filmed with a cheap handheld camera by someone running after the protagonists. It is definitely a unique choice but not something that will appeal to all players. It does fit the rather frantic and chaotic pace of the game quite well. Unfortunately, it can also be very disorienting and it's easy to be shot by enemies without being able to see where they are hiding. There is an option to stabilize the camera but not the other effects. You take control of Lynch for most of the game and apart from some psychotic rambling when under stress he is much saner than in the last game. A second player can join in as Kane in the co-op mode while he is under A.I control in the story mode. Things start off hectic and just get more chaotic as the game progresses. You not only have Chinese gangsters to contend with but also the police and eventually military. Kane & Lynch spend most of the time desperately trying to escape their dire situation so there is rarely time to stop and take in the gritty surroundings. It also means that the game is very linear and unfortunately quite short. While the story mode only weighs in at about four hours there are still the multi-player and arcade modes to keep you busy. Multi-player is the same as in the original and sees you along with some criminal buddies staging a heist and then shooting your way to the safety of a getaway vehicle. This mode is quite fun as anyone can turn traitor during the looting so you have to constantly watch your back. The arcade mode works pretty much the same except your team mates are A.I controlled and rounds become increasingly challenging. Speaking of a challenge, this game can chew you up and spit you at even on the "Normal" setting. Enemies take a lot of damage before they go down and you really need to work on your flanking skills to get the drop on them. Some weapons are also horribly inaccurate which can definitely lead to frustration. Hiding behind cover is also no guarantee for safety as most objects are destructible and if any part of your body is visible to enemies they will riddle you with bullets. Your characters health regenerate quite fast but if you are down you can still crawl to safety or take aim at bad guys while waiting for your partner to revive you. To fit in with the visuals, the audio also sounds like it was recorded with a cheap camera. Character voices echo and distort depending on the surroundings and action taking place which while realistic can also make it hard to hear what is going on. Instead of a musical soundtrack you'll be hearing lots of ambient audio effects which brings the levels to life. The guns all sound rather nice and the developers definitely achieved what they set out to do with the whole audio/visual experience. The controls work fine although my aiming sometimes became screwed up at random points. I'm not sure if this is a bug as it caused the characters bodies to obscure their aiming reticules. The terrible lip synching for characters is also unfortunately very noticeable. While there is a lot of violence and swearing in the game a lot of the "explicit" stuff is censored with some pixel blurring. This fits in perfectly with the rest of the visual style and looks more unique than the gratuitous violence in some other games. You'll definitely be thankful for the censoring in a disturbing level where the two protagonists make their way naked and bleeding through the city streets. Overall, I found Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days to be quite enjoyable and not nearly as terrible as some people made it out to be. It's a pity that the story mode is so short and ends rather abruptly but the arcade mode has been keeping me busy ever since. The game is a non-stop action rollercoaster featuring two very unlikeable characters doing some morally reprehensible things so it's obviously not going to be everyone's cup of tea. Executing your human shields, hurling explosive canisters into crowded city streets and hitting innocent civilians during the crossfire is just another day at the office for this twisted duo. It might not have been worth it at full price but since the game is selling for quite cheap these days it's well worth checking out.
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System Requirements
TAGS: Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days, Shanghai, Glazer, Hsing, Xiu
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