Kane and Lynch: Dead Men will go down in my personal gaming history as that brilliant game that was ALMOST good.

I can’t decide whether I completely agree with some of the mediocre reviews of Kane and Lynch: Dead Men. I think IO actually did some really neat things with the game. But even with the best of ideas, it just takes one crappy element to bring a game to its knees.

Multiplayer

Fragile Alliance

Fragile Alliance is a fresh, new concept for multiplayer gaming. Faced with having to work WITH your teammates to blast your way into and out of a scenario like a bank robbery, while trying to pick and choose the perfect moment to turn on your buddies, gamers are put into the middle of a really tense situation. The only problem with it is that everyone’s expecting it, and after a few rounds there’ are so many people trying to settle the score from a previous round, that nobody ends up succeeding. There is also cussing and real-life threatening going on too. But I’m not holding this against Kane and Lynch: Dead Men, because at its essence, it is not a multiplayer title. It is a story.

Single Player

StoryThe game’s overall story is creative and compelling. You play as Kane, a former mercenary on death row. Your associates, who you thought were dead, have kidnapped your family, busted you out of prison, and have demanded that you return what you’ve stolen from them, and they’ve assigned Lynch, a medicated psychopath, to make sure that you do what you’re supposed to do. The problem is that he’s an idiot, and you end up spending a bunch of your time trying to keep him from self destructing. I don’t want to even get close to a spoiler in this article, but suffice it to say, it’s a strong storyline, with equally strong language.

I’m no prude, and I’m not offended by foul language in a video game or movie. Often it enhances the experience or is necessary to convey the raw emotions of the scene. Take the brilliant film Reservoir Dogs. A terrifically tense movie, that would have been completely ruined had they tried to tone down the language. But in the first half hour of Kane & Lynch, and I’m not exaggerating here, the word “Fuck” is used no less than 70 times (I went back and counted). It became distracting. If you’re a parent trying to decide if your child is mature enough for Kane & Lynch, let me make this simple for you. The answer is no. It’s a bloody and obnoxiously profane game. I’m not sure why it bothered me so fucking much, but it did.

Graphics and Sound

The graphics are just fine by my standards, and the soundtrack is a huge part of the game.  Jesper Kyd (Hitman) did a tremendous job of translating the theme of the game into a moving and relevant score.

Controls and Interface

Kane and Lynch: Dead Men is a great idea that almost did something for me. If it weren’t for the crippled controls, I would be giving this game at least a RENT recommendation. But for me, the control issues are unforgivable and unplayable. Frustrating beyond description.

The first thing that jumped up and bit me on the buttocks was my complete inability to aim. Although I’ve never been what you’d call a third-person-shooter expert, I am certainly not as horrible a marksman as K&L made me feel. The controls were sluggish and frustrating. There are no less than FIVE sliders that you have to adjust to try to bring the targeting in the game to playability. The aiming reticule accelerates as you turn. To put it bluntly, its a chore just to look around. Getting a bead on a cop, who is predictably standing still next to his police car, should not be this difficult. I’d pass my target with the crosshairs at least three time before getting it steady, all the while absorbing a ton of damage. The cover mechanic seems random and poorly executed. Get near something big, and if you’re lucky, your guy MIGHT take cover.

Some might call this realistic.

Well I’m not playing this game to prepare myself for a life as an international fugitive. I want to have fun and play a game.

Thanks to the awful control scheme, playing Kane & Lynch is like getting married to an extremely hot chick and then finding out she used to be a dude.

No matter how gorgeous the the game and its innovations are, I can’t get over that “one thing”.

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