Gamersmint Review : Kane & Lynch 2 Dog Days
Kane and Lynch 2 : Dog Days is finally here, bringing back all the elements that made the first game fun. It’s not a big task to step on the shoes of its predecessor considering Kane and Lynch : Dead Men was quite a flawed game, showing  occasional glimpses of excellence. Its been exactly 2 years since the first game came out, IO interactive had plenty of time to improve and fix all the flaws that made Kane and Lynch Dead Men meet with average critical success. Do they succeed in doing that and providing a splendid experience to the gamers? Gamersmint finds out.
Dog Days follows the story of well… Kane and Lynch ( who else would it follow?), who are both incompatible personalities with one thing in common, that is to create havoc and mess up things. The setting is Shanghai this time, which shows Lynch trying to settle down with his Girlfriend Xiu. He undertakes a Job for Glazier calling Kane for aid and everything goes wrong as they are trapped in a hostile environment with their chances of survival looking bleak. An accidental death proves too costly for the duo as the Shanghai mobs prey for their blood. The game puts you in control of Lynch as you blaze through the cramped yet varied environments of Shanghai.
There have been notable visual changes to Dog Days, which you should notice as soon as you start playing the game.It feels like a live recording with the camera shaking as if someone is capturing the action as you play along. It takes a while to get used to it, as it felt a bit disorienting at the beginning, that coupled with full screen effects like lens flare and a matching color palette resulted in some pretty unique visuals. It can be disabled in the PC version although it’s not recommended since the game looks pretty generic if you do. What impressed me most was the variety of environments you get to witness in the game even though the main setting was Shanghai.
With neat touches like buffering during the loading screens between levels and the presence of a censorship system where unpleasant things get pixilated, it was crystal clear what the director wanted to convey in Kane and Lynch 2 : Dog Days. The tech behind the game is nothing special but it’s the look and feel of the game that vastly separates it from its predecessor. The thing I found so impressive was the impeccable detailing on the character models, with cuts and blood easily visible on their bodies, speaking of cuts, it has to be noted that the game is incredibly violent. In fact in a certain level in the game, I halted a bit to gather my wits around as to what’s actually going on. It left a powerful impression as to what the developers had pulled off here, as well as left me feeling bad for our protagonists. That level was one of the highlights of the game and at the same time, incredibly disgusting or hilarious depending on the person playing it.
It is not recommended to play the single player solo as the presence of a CO OP mode really increases the experience a lot. The game has a total of 11 levels which is less than what Dead Men had on offer; the main drawback of the game is that it can be finished in under 5 hours on normal difficulty. Now this is highly disappointing, seeing how fast the game ended as I was certainly expecting more levels in the game. As I mentioned earlier the Co Op mode increased the immersion level and fun factor a lot as you can fool around with your friend or experiment stuff, which makes you more involved with the things happening around you.
There are a variety of gameplay mechanics like throwing gas canisters, grabbing people as a meat shield for cover along with the option of throwing or executing the poor soul. I had troubles with the cover system when I previewed the game but it’s not a big nuisance this time around in the review code, mainly due to the fact that I got used to it, mainly because it features standard cover mechanics like every other game with a cover system out there. Talking about weapons, there are a variety of guns at your disposal likes shotguns and pistols which pack quite a punch and are highly satisfying to use, plus the odd missions where you can use a LMG with unlimited ammo destroying choppers and the glass windows in the building as you fly around Shanghai in a helicopter raising hell around you. Sometimes it was fun but mostly it felt a bit underwhelming as there were lack of enough memorable levels which makes a game stand out and tempts you to play it again. The voicing acting was brilliant throughout the game as expected, that and the brilliantly  formed dialogues which elicited a chuckle or two. Coming to the A.I, it lives up to its name…i.e artificial and is very poor as it requires very less effort to kill enemies, all they do is, occasionally hide behind cover and that’s about it.
Kane and Lynch 2 Dog Days is a depressing game and given the situation both of them find themselves in, there’s not much you can do but shoot your way out and try to escape Shanghai. The music is pretty decent but it could have been much better. Although it has a short single player campaign, the co-op mode really made it shine. The game showed tons of quality and promise early on and I really enjoyed playing those levels, but near the end the story just falls apart. It has one of the most unfinished and horrible endings seen in the history of videogames.  Which certainly left a sour taste in my mouth. Although everything can be forgiven due to the Co Op mode which instills a great amount of fun and which rightly so,  since I don’t see myself playing the campaign solo more than 2 times.
Coming to bugs and glitches, the game did crash a few times when quitting an online MP mode but overall there aren’t any major game breaking bugs this time around. Could Kane and Lynch 2 have benefited from an extra year of dev time? Considering there were less missions than the first game and a short campaign, this definitely feels like a rushed out game although it does have more content than most of the new games out there.
Before you jump online, it’s recommended that you play Arcade mode to polish your killing and betrayal skills. It’s an offline mode that lets you play against bots, the objective is to steal money and escape along with your teammates. It becomes tough to escape after each round and it gives you enough practice to play online which is much more complicated. There are 3 online modes namely Cops & Robbers, Fragile Alliance and Undercover Cop. I had a lot of fun playing undercover cop, basically the game randomly chooses one of the four guys as an undercover cop, the cop isn’t supposed to kill his teammates before the crime has been completed, and the other players have to be really careful and need to be wary of their teammates. I had tons of fun playing this mode and it’s a blast. Guaranteed.
Fragile alliance is another fun mode where you need to steal 4 million dollars in 4 minutes and escape, avoiding the cops; if you die you get respawned as a cop and have to stop the gang from escaping with the cash. People might get a bit greedy and put a bullet in your head although if you see some one else do that you do get a reward for killing the traitor. It’s a very fun mode and I can see this becoming a huge hit online. The last mode, Cops and Robbers is a pretty straightforward mode as well and overall the multiplayer is fun and good enough to last a few months post-release.
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