Sometimes I see a game with such a high potential and think to myself "how in the world could they mess this up?". The sad thing is that I'm not alone out here. I'm generally okay even with movie based games, I'm not a very demanding person, although I have high expectations most of the times, but I'm one that can bury the grudge. I am one person who genuinely enjoyed The Godfather 2 for what it was and I'm one that seriously thought the Wolverine Origins game was in fact better than the movie it was copying. I'm not going into details, but I just want to make a point. The thing with these mediocre games that turn out this way is that we got used to it. Movie based titles are usually bad because they don't try to live up on their own to the name they carry, but instead producers see a means to cash in on that name and cut the funding accordingly. On the other hand, a game that turns out better than a mediocre movie is always welcoming because, let's face it, no one expects a game to outshine the movie it's based on. What do movie based games have to do with Kane & Lynch Dead Men? Well, the opposite, I'm afraid. Hollywood bigshots are planning on giving screen time to the infamous two characters, initially supposed to feature Bruce Willis and Jamie Foxx in the roles, but that's probably no longer true. And thus I'm giving my two cents on what was good and bad in my experience with the game.
What's it's all about?
You play as Kane, a criminal who's been sentenced to death because he's a criminal. On the way to the prison, Kane meet's Lynch, a crazy person, who helps him escape the transport for a reason. There are some other bad guys that help, one of which breaks Kane's nose, and thus the looks on the cover. No, you cannot kill that guy, but you can shoot lots of cops on the way. After you manage to help Kane escape, we learn it was all a plan of "The 7" who want something from Kane that he stole from them, or else. Or else they kill his family. Simple enough. Next come a stupid tutorial scene where we teach Lynch how to use guns. Seriously? After that, the action starts and we're adventuring in a world of madness, dead men and frustration.
What's good about it?
The characters are incredibly well written. The story makes sense. These two nuts are not heroes. Some moments are really intense and dramatic. Dialogue is thought-out, funny, clever, even the small banter in the action scenes. There is so much potential!
What's bad about it?
Where do I start? How do you make some cutscenes and leave other blank? Okay, I'm obviously referring to the loading screen, and I have to agree it's a nice distraction to have a loading screen that moves the story forward, but that's the problem, because sometimes it has some of the most important dialogues in the story, things that you find out about the characters and to be fair it doesn't take long to load the next level. Talking about levels, the design is awful, minimalistic and dull, despite having decent graphics, not the best but not the worst. Some details could have saved the game on this subject. Is it that hard to make covers in a cover based shooter actually work? I mean, some of the destructible concrete covers are nice and all, but Kane keeps poking his head out the lower covers and you barely can shoot from the higher covers. It practically forces the player to move between covers. The friendly AI is the worst. Besides Lynch, you have to meet other "friends" that you can give orders to, but they keep messing up. You can tell your squad mates stand a ground, but they do whatever they want, they can't find covers, stand in the line of fire, block your way, die frequently and generally can't aim. On the other hand, enemies shoot mostly at Kane and they hardly miss. Basically, you have to do all the work, while Lynch scratches his head out in the open, which makes sense, because his icon sometimes blinks, meaning that his psychotic black-outs are starting to emerge and you have to keep him focused by giving him orders. Nice mechanic, but it's pretty much useless. It makes sense that Kane keeps missing the target -- depth perception. The save system is terrible. This game needed no difficulty option, the frustration was enough. Some people say it's too short, I say good riddance. Really, you wanted more of this? There are some games that are better played co-op -- this is not one of them. This game has multiplayer? Games for Windows Live.
Conclusion.
The story is bold and the characters interesting, without the need to empathize with them. I am really torn between the frustrating gameplay and the good, award winning (!) story. What Kane & Lynch Dead Men fails as a game, it surely succeeds as a movie. Unfortunately, it falls flat on his mediocrity. Geez, I hope Square learned something from this and make the sequel better.