Aramation Games

Third person shooter is a genre that is incredibly crowded, and each new entrant needs something exciting and new to stand out. Kane & Lynch: Dead Men brings film noir storyline to the small screen, with great voice acting, and very cinematic experience. Unfortunately the game developer didn’t spend as much time developing the actual game.

The single player campaign tells the story of Kane, who has betrayed the evil shadowy organization known simply as The 7. In order to recover what Kane has stolen, The 7 kidnaps his wife and daughter: Lynch is tasked to keep Kane in line, and to make sure he does what he promised to The 7. To recover the stolen items, Kane’s journey takes us to crowded nightclub in Tokyo, prison, construction yard and Cuba.

All the atmosphere cannot save this game from mediocre enemy AI, even worse teammate AI, frustrating sequences (such as a boss battle with a gigantic dump truck that took me dozens of attempts to complete) and just ok visuals. The only saving grace is the implementation of split-screen co-op campaign where the second player takes control of Lynch, and expands the storyline by showing his issues. In fact, co-op makes the game slightly easier as you don’t have to depend on incompetent AI.

Ultimately, the game could have benefited from extra weeks of polishing as the storyline and voice acting clearly deserve a better game. As it stands, Kane & Lynch: Dead Men feels like a bad game adaptation of a Michael Mann movie, than a great game with cinematic storytelling.

Rating: 45%

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