With Lynch, the crazier of the two, now taking centre stage, I was expecting to go a little deeper beneath the surface to find out what makes this clearly-troubled fellow tick. It’s probably my main gripe with the game as a whole. Likewise, what initially seems like a blisteringly dark tale quickly plays second fiddle to the onslaught of cookie-cutter shoot-outs.
For a game that wears its Michael Mann influences proudly on its sleeve, it lacks the tense climaxes that his action sequences invariably reach. Too many encounters funnel you through narrow alleys and corridors, and while this may be in keeping with the dense Shanghai setting, it quickly becomes repetitive. Shoot-outs rarely consist of more than using cover and flanking tactics, as you make your way from one routine shoot-out to the next. Hostages can be used as human sheilds and you can also now hurl explosive items like gas canisters at your foes, triggering massive blasts to take down a handful of baddies at once, as well as picking up the usual arsenal of pistols, machine guns and shotguns along the way.īut while there is no denying the near-constant stream of action is a marked improvement over the previous game, there are too few memorable sequences for Kane and Lynch 2 to truly shine. Environments too offer plenty of opportunities to hide behind cover and avoid shots from trigger-happy gangsters, some of which will break apart if you rely on it too long for protection. Long gone is the troublesome auto-cover system of the first game, replaced with a button activated one that works more like what we’re familiar with from Gears or Uncharted.
Things initially seem to pick up in the gameplay department too. Shanghai too makes for quite an engaging setting lovingly detailed, it’s a pity more variation beyond alleyways and other urban locations wasn’t captured, though there is an undeniable allure to the seedy neon surroundings that feature so prominently. You’re as much a witness to the horrors surrounding Kane and Lynch as you are a participant, giving the game an unusually conflicted stance on the violence it portrays. Fusing the shaky-cam movement of the Bourne films with the odd pixelated flourish of a YouTube video, Dog Days has a voyeuristic quality that is totally unique. So far so good, right? Kane and Lynch 2 does indeed make a very good first impression, and that’s in no small part thanks to the visual style employed by IO Interactive. Set on the streets of Shanghai, a routine job gone wrong soon sees the underbelly of Chinese society taking up arms against our protagonists, with the dodgy-duo scrapping through innumerable shoot-outs as they fight their way out of the city. The game then goes on to tell the story of the 48 hours that put Kane and Lynch in this life-threatening predicament. This, you soon realise, is the sort of title that 18 certificates were made for. Lynch, who takes the lead role in this outing, is stripped and bound to a chair alongside his buddy Kane, whilst a knife-wielding torturer brutally hacks at our anti-heroes.
As a statement of intent, the opening moments of Dog Days certainly inspire a stomach-churning confidence in developers IO Interactive and their focus on gritty realism for this sequel.
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