Just shut up and help me carry my wife
I doubt any of you will remember or care, but I made a post about wanting to play Kane & Lynch: Dead Men back in late November of 2007-I only note the date because I spent 45 minutes trawling through old entries to find it only to discover it wasn't worth a relink-and now finally here I am three years later, reviewing it. When I made the decision to buy an Xbox 360, I was motivated by four new games in particular: Assassin's Creed (which I adore and its sequel too), BioShock (which I adore but not its sequel), The Darkness (so fun and yet so flawed) and K&L. The latter game's plot and characters sounded impressive to me (I love psychopaths) and the promotional art did nothing to abate this e.g. specifically this one, this one and this one. In the end, I didn't buy the game until last week because the reviews were so variable and I was strapped for cash. Well, now I have played it and I shall tell you all what I think.
My major complaint is that it only took me three days to complete, which is fine for the £6.95 I paid and when compared to what you have to cough up at the average cinema for a two hour film, but for a full price game I would want another ten levels with a few more extras (they tell me the second game is even shorter). My minor complaint is that the cover system needs a bit of work-I had just finished playing Gears of War 2 which has a fairly impeccable cover system so this may have biased me somewhat-you never quite know if you're temporarily safe from getting shot or not. Also, as in GoW perhaps a symbol could appear on screen to let you know when you're on your last legs health-wise (one of those cool tattoos The7 have on their arms would do the job nicely).
There were criticisms people levelled at the graphics quality and the weapons accuracy. The case of the former is quite simply hogshit: the whole thing looks gorgeous in regards to both scenery and character movement. This is especially noticeable when you reduce Retomoto's beautifully cultivated and ornamented conference room and office block to mere breeze block through applied gunfire and dynamite makeover. The latter point I can justify-as I justify anything that I like in a video game that can be got away with-with an appeal to realism: if you fire a Heckler & Koch at a target half a mile down the road, I imagine there's a good chance you'll miss almost every time. Besides, the sniper rifle is always around for that purpose. Others have complained that the action is all very tedious which is similarly twaddle of the highest calibre. Admittedly, I would have preferred a few more peaceful moments to explore the cityscape without being accompanied by a salvo of lead. Having said that, we get to rob a bank, fire out of a getaway van, kidnap a Japanese nightclub hostess, defend your daughter against a lorry, rappel down a sky scraper, shoot our way through downtown Tokyo, break out of a prison, break into a prison, travel the streets of Havana with your own army and drive through the Cuban jungle on a jeep shooting the propellers off an airplane. That's a fair bit of variation right there or am I lying, cabron? The final grievance I've seen people talk about is that the main characters are unsympathetic. I'll admit that The7 themselves could've done with a bit more characterisation other than just giving one of them glasses and another a beard, but saying the main duo are unsympathetic because they're crooks or sociopaths is solid gold nonsense. Presumably these people haven't been able to watch any grown up films for much the same reasons.
Right, we've dealt with what people say is wrong with the game. Now here's a brief stream of consciousness about everything I love about it: the two main characters, their Tarantino-esque business suits, their hideous countenances (Kane's scarred face and bandaged nose; Lynch's Benjamin Franklin hairstyle), their entirely honourable and entirely selfish motivations, their (enormous) personal flaws and neuroses pathologies, that they hate each other at the beginning, that they hate each other at the end, that Lynch mumbles death threats towards you during play, that during breaks between gunfire (or even during battles) your team take time to fill you in on plot points or personal problems they've been experiencing, the adrenaline shots and the flashbacks you undergo while taking them, the I-Shot-Marvin-In-The-Face style clusterfucks you get into, the I'm-In-A-Michael-Mann-Film-And-It's-Not-Miami-Vice feeling you get throughout the game, the splash of red on grey when you snipe a foe's brains across a wall, the thrill of popping cops (and I don't even mind the police), the YOU SHOULD! HAVE LET! ME TALK TO THEM! scene with Mute (Moot?), the fact that a mercenary's life has no happy endings and the general verisimilitude of the whole game overall. Near the end of the first level, when trapped in the donut store with the cops opening a hailstorm of bullets on us and me crouching by the windows with the other convicts screaming orders at one another, I wondered if this is supposedly such a duff game, why am I having so much fun?
My major complaint is that it only took me three days to complete, which is fine for the £6.95 I paid and when compared to what you have to cough up at the average cinema for a two hour film, but for a full price game I would want another ten levels with a few more extras (they tell me the second game is even shorter). My minor complaint is that the cover system needs a bit of work-I had just finished playing Gears of War 2 which has a fairly impeccable cover system so this may have biased me somewhat-you never quite know if you're temporarily safe from getting shot or not. Also, as in GoW perhaps a symbol could appear on screen to let you know when you're on your last legs health-wise (one of those cool tattoos The7 have on their arms would do the job nicely).
There were criticisms people levelled at the graphics quality and the weapons accuracy. The case of the former is quite simply hogshit: the whole thing looks gorgeous in regards to both scenery and character movement. This is especially noticeable when you reduce Retomoto's beautifully cultivated and ornamented conference room and office block to mere breeze block through applied gunfire and dynamite makeover. The latter point I can justify-as I justify anything that I like in a video game that can be got away with-with an appeal to realism: if you fire a Heckler & Koch at a target half a mile down the road, I imagine there's a good chance you'll miss almost every time. Besides, the sniper rifle is always around for that purpose. Others have complained that the action is all very tedious which is similarly twaddle of the highest calibre. Admittedly, I would have preferred a few more peaceful moments to explore the cityscape without being accompanied by a salvo of lead. Having said that, we get to rob a bank, fire out of a getaway van, kidnap a Japanese nightclub hostess, defend your daughter against a lorry, rappel down a sky scraper, shoot our way through downtown Tokyo, break out of a prison, break into a prison, travel the streets of Havana with your own army and drive through the Cuban jungle on a jeep shooting the propellers off an airplane. That's a fair bit of variation right there or am I lying, cabron? The final grievance I've seen people talk about is that the main characters are unsympathetic. I'll admit that The7 themselves could've done with a bit more characterisation other than just giving one of them glasses and another a beard, but saying the main duo are unsympathetic because they're crooks or sociopaths is solid gold nonsense. Presumably these people haven't been able to watch any grown up films for much the same reasons.
Right, we've dealt with what people say is wrong with the game. Now here's a brief stream of consciousness about everything I love about it: the two main characters, their Tarantino-esque business suits, their hideous countenances (Kane's scarred face and bandaged nose; Lynch's Benjamin Franklin hairstyle), their entirely honourable and entirely selfish motivations, their (enormous) personal flaws and neuroses pathologies, that they hate each other at the beginning, that they hate each other at the end, that Lynch mumbles death threats towards you during play, that during breaks between gunfire (or even during battles) your team take time to fill you in on plot points or personal problems they've been experiencing, the adrenaline shots and the flashbacks you undergo while taking them, the I-Shot-Marvin-In-The-Face style clusterfucks you get into, the I'm-In-A-Michael-Mann-Film-And-It's-Not-Miami-Vice feeling you get throughout the game, the splash of red on grey when you snipe a foe's brains across a wall, the thrill of popping cops (and I don't even mind the police), the YOU SHOULD! HAVE LET! ME TALK TO THEM! scene with Mute (Moot?), the fact that a mercenary's life has no happy endings and the general verisimilitude of the whole game overall. Near the end of the first level, when trapped in the donut store with the cops opening a hailstorm of bullets on us and me crouching by the windows with the other convicts screaming orders at one another, I wondered if this is supposedly such a duff game, why am I having so much fun?