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Kane and Lynch: A Review for Dead men |
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Written by Digitalistic
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Saturday, 26 January 2008 04:31 |
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Page 1 of 2 If you've been living under a rock for the past month or so, you've probably not heard about the massive shit storm surrounding Eidos and IO Interactive's latest release, Kane and Lynch: Dead Men. For those not in the know, just google “Gerstmann-gate” for the details. Regardless of decisions made by Eidos and Gamespot, it's quite obvious that the game has gotten a very bad reputation as a result – one that is not well deserved, even if the game isn't that great.
Kane is a man with a mysterious past of violence and betrayal, seeking to protect his family from a group known only as The7. Lynch is the one they sent to keep track of him – a murderer with a case of psychosis that can cause him to shoot things faster than Dick Cheney with a shotgun. Together, they have three weeks to retrieve a certain briefcase of value before Kane's wife and daughter are killed by The7. When the plan to rob a bank fails, it becomes a race against time across ganglands X, Y, and Z in a quest to shoot whoever gets in his way.
The game may sound like the next big Hollywood production, but unlike most cinematic gems, the game lacks any kind of visual flair or polish. Anyone that's played Halo 2, Oblivion, or Mass Effect is familiar with texture pop-ins – something that you may find yourself waiting for when you first take control of Kane. However, it won't take long to realize that there are no pop-ins and that the game world actually does look bad enough to induce vomiting. Occasionally, there are graphical effects like bloodstains, fog, or lighting which look decent, if not out of place in a game without any other visual shine. In contrast, the characters themselves look rather nice. Both Kane and Lynch look very believable, and despite limited animations, successfully give the player a sense of personality. A shame really, because the unbelievably generic teammates look... unbelievably generic. It's as though IO decided to focus only on the two main characters, rather than the whole game. As for the game's audio, there's not much to say good or bad. It gets the job done and the gunshots sound like gunshots.
The audiovisual look and feel of the game gives one the impression of developer laziness, which is unfortunately carried over onto the gameplay as well. The AI, both friendly and enemy, seems like it was programmed by a two-year old. Your allies have a tendency to either not obey your orders or run around blocking you, while your enemies love to hide behind cover for a whole two seconds before jumping out again ready to die of stupidity. Fortunately, the game gives the player an amazing sense of actually performing a heist. A few of the levels feel like they were pulled from the collection of Michael Mann, including a street side gun-battle Heat fans know and love and an impressive nightclub crowd-weave reminiscent of Tom Cruise in Collateral.
(Image taken from www.kaneandlynch.com)
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 30 January 2008 00:48 )
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