Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days

I skipped the first Kane & Lynch. At first I wanted it, because its multiplayer looked so promising, however early reviews cured me of wanting the game. So when its sequel came out, Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days, I certainly didn't run out to get it. I expected the game to be poor, and besides a striking visual style, I was right.
 
The game opens with the caption "2 days earlier" and a scene of Lynch being tortured by some dude you don't know, and apparently being killed, Kane screams at him and fade to black. Its a strong beginning, it evokes a sense of tension and lets you know things get ugly, and soon. Sadly, this is nearly the last time you will see or hear anything of any emotional value from this game. The writing in the game almost appears to be written by a thirteen year old, someone able to give you a shockingly evocative scene, but unable to give you any deep emotional connections.
 
I'm going to give you an example, and try as hard as I can to not make it a spoiler, but it could be so you have been warned. Someone gets killed during the course of the game in a gruesome and shocking fashion, the simple fact this person dies can be a great ability to move this game into a realm of emotional impact it was seriously lacking at the time, however after about four minutes, the person most effected by this death gets over it and is fine except for times when its again shocking to have him react to the death later in the story. 
 
So besides the mediocre writing, what else is there to a shooter? The shooting, of course; its basically the whole game right? Good thing its also mediocre, bordering on bad. Every gun in the game besides a very small handful of sniper rifles feel loose and weak. At one point I had a gun that these special forces guys use, I then shot a normal policeman five times before he died, it took me nine shots to hit him those five times, this was while I was using the left trigger to aim at him. This looseness and weakness spans the entire arsenal of this game sans one gun, the machine gun. This one gun has awesome power and accuracy. Too bad you dont see one until the last hour of the game.
 
The sound in the game is also pretty shoddy. Besides some things related to the visual style of the game, the sound is lack luster and even at times poorly mixed. There are times when you can not hear people over back ground noise, even though the scene is taking place in a giant warehouse with little action going on behind the scene. Peoples voices get lost alot actually in this game, which would be bad, if they ever said anything really worth hearing.
 
When I played this game the online community was already pretty small, along side that is the fact that I am not being paid to write these and didnt want to put myself through a multiplayer that I already know I would only find mildly entertaining. 
 
This brings me to the only thing about this game worth mentioning. The visual style. Its pretty great, giving you the feeling of a cheap hand held camera is filming the whole thing. There are even times in the game when it appears people interact or at least react to a cameraman holding the thing. On top of that the video "suffers" from artifacting and compression issues, along with the sound actually breaking up during explosions and distorting during loud scenes. All in all its amazing, besides being a breath of fresh air, its also amazing because the rest of the game is so... meh.
 
Over all, the game walks right up to the line needed to check a box off on a sheet and goes no further, with the soul exception of the visual style. Save yourself the three hours and watch some youtube videos of the game, you'll get all the real enjoyment there is in this game from that, and its free.