The Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days media tour cruised through our office last week with the opportunity to play the restaurant and Shanghai street scene that we watched someone else play back in January. After playing it for myself, I continue to be interested in seeing more, but it's also fascinating to see what, exactly, this game has become.
For those of you just joining us, the previous Kane & Lynch game focused a lot on squad tactics. You had a crew with you fairly frequently, and you could order them around in the name of "getting other people to do stuff for you." It's certainly not the worst idea in the world. In fact, a game IO produced before K&L1, Freedom Fighters, dealt with this exact gameplay system. The difference is that your posse in Freedom Fighters felt effective, and you could easily clean up any mess with your own weapons. The crew in Kane & Lynch was kind of useless. And the shooting in Kane & Lynch was, to put it lightly, not so good.
With all of that in mind, it's surprising, but totally understandable that Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days has thrown away just about all of that stuff. This time there's no crew to weigh you down, no orders to give. K&L2 is a standard third-person shooter with a cover system and a two-player cooperative component. It's 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand with white dudes and, as far as I can tell, no big-ass ramps. It's not exactly the most inspired game concept in the world, but by layering a lot of unique visual elements over the action. Dog Days still stands out as something potentially rad.
It's the violently shaking camera, deliberately lo-fi filters, and things like color-banding and bleeding that makes Dog Days work. At times, it's incredibly disorienting. But when you combine all of that visual noise with a high-tension shootout with Shanghai's police department, it makes the whole thing feel incredibly manic and, well, dangerous. Another nice touch is that some shots hit so hard that they'll knock you down. It's not really Gears-style bleed out situation. Instead, it's just one more way for the game to keep you off-balance. You can stand up with a quick press of the A button, or crawl behind cover and get up in a slightly safer place. But seeing it in motion is what really sells Kane & Lynch 2. That's why it's kind of frustrating that so little video footage has been released so far.
And here are some new screenshots. Square-Enix and IO are set to show off the game's multiplayer soon, so we'll have more on the game's Fragile Alliance mode in the relatively near future.
Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days
Game » consists of 10 releases. Released Aug 17, 2010
Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days makes a notable switch of the titular duo, with James Lynch now taking up the role as lead protagonist over Kane. However the two are still once again forced to endure a hail of gunfire as they find themselves embroiled in Shanghai's criminal underworld.
Kane & Lynch 2 Still Seems Cool
The Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days media tour cruised through our office last week with the opportunity to play the restaurant and Shanghai street scene that we watched someone else play back in January. After playing it for myself, I continue to be interested in seeing more, but it's also fascinating to see what, exactly, this game has become.
For those of you just joining us, the previous Kane & Lynch game focused a lot on squad tactics. You had a crew with you fairly frequently, and you could order them around in the name of "getting other people to do stuff for you." It's certainly not the worst idea in the world. In fact, a game IO produced before K&L1, Freedom Fighters, dealt with this exact gameplay system. The difference is that your posse in Freedom Fighters felt effective, and you could easily clean up any mess with your own weapons. The crew in Kane & Lynch was kind of useless. And the shooting in Kane & Lynch was, to put it lightly, not so good.
With all of that in mind, it's surprising, but totally understandable that Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days has thrown away just about all of that stuff. This time there's no crew to weigh you down, no orders to give. K&L2 is a standard third-person shooter with a cover system and a two-player cooperative component. It's 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand with white dudes and, as far as I can tell, no big-ass ramps. It's not exactly the most inspired game concept in the world, but by layering a lot of unique visual elements over the action. Dog Days still stands out as something potentially rad.
It's the violently shaking camera, deliberately lo-fi filters, and things like color-banding and bleeding that makes Dog Days work. At times, it's incredibly disorienting. But when you combine all of that visual noise with a high-tension shootout with Shanghai's police department, it makes the whole thing feel incredibly manic and, well, dangerous. Another nice touch is that some shots hit so hard that they'll knock you down. It's not really Gears-style bleed out situation. Instead, it's just one more way for the game to keep you off-balance. You can stand up with a quick press of the A button, or crawl behind cover and get up in a slightly safer place. But seeing it in motion is what really sells Kane & Lynch 2. That's why it's kind of frustrating that so little video footage has been released so far.
And here are some new screenshots. Square-Enix and IO are set to show off the game's multiplayer soon, so we'll have more on the game's Fragile Alliance mode in the relatively near future.
yep?
EDIT: i was so worried i was gonna have to refresh giantbomb every 5 minutes for weeks to come. I thank you Sir Gerstmann.
Sounds like decent improvements over the 1st one, actually looking forward to hearing more in the coming months
I agree, I want to see more in-game video footage of this game. I wonder if the marketing department doesn't want to show it because "it'll look crappy and make people not want to play it?" I'm personally a huge fan of visual filters like the ones they're using in this game and I want to see more of it.
The game looks interesting. If I recall correctly the firsts PC version was horribly optimized and ran like complete shit, so here's hoping this one does a better job. If it's even coming out for PC this time around that is.
I just finished the original K & L on PC, and honestly, I loved it. I get that other people have other opinions, but still. Awesome. I really liked the THEORY of the fragile alliance shit, and I hope they make that a lot better.
This sounds interesting - I really hope this will be worth my time since I really enjoyed most of IO's work in the past. I actually was fine with the first K&L too (though it wasn't mindblowing or anything like that) but so far I'm not that sure I want another installment. Well, I'll certainly hope for the best!
@generalen: Yeah, that's true, I hope we'll get another one of those later!
@Jeff: Well shit! I didn't even know that but thanks for the update on that. At least I can bury that hope now - Freedom Fighters really is an excellent game.
[generic comment about lame commenters should move on with their lives like the rest of the world]" generic comment about jeff getting fired over his K&L review "
If this game comes out and is actually rad, I am going to shed a tear for poignance. And if it gets a 5-star review, then the review page should be backed by a midi of like that song from the end of Mulan when all the people in the city are bowing for her:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN4euhZZU9c
Right?
Na, not really! But I am a little interested to see what this game will turn into, especially the multiplayer.
Typographical error: second paragraph, first sentence.
"For those of you just joining us, the previous Kane & Lynch game focused a lot of squad tactics. "
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