The original Kane & Lynch game gave plenty to write home about – assuming nothing had happened in your life and you instead wanted to write a description of possibly one of the most overrated and unplayable games to hit the next-gen consoles. OK, so there were far worse games in many respects but Kane & Lynch managed to take the crown largely because it was controversial and really, really bad at the same time; not a good combination.
And yet, despite the awful fighting mechanics, dreadful storyline, and lack of just about anything we’ve come to expect in such games, a second title was virtually agreed to before the first one had even had chance to flop.
At first glance, Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days is a definite improvement on the original and for a few reasons. The camera work looks grittier, there’s less in the way of controversial but oh-so-poor storyline, and the gun mechanics have been improved. However, all of this comes at a trade-off – there’s a whole lot less to do in the second than there was in the first.
Dog Days is a regrettably repetitive game. Move and shoot, shoot and move, cover and swear at the clumsy cover system. Swear, move, shoot, cover and that’s about your lot all the way through. Except that the cripplingly realistic weapons mean that you’ll also spend a very large amount of time looking for better weapons strewn on the ground.
In its defence, the multiplayer side of things has been shored up a little. There’s a couple more multiplayer modes but most notable there is a multiplayer co-op. The very nature of the story, which includes two people working in tandem, meant that the first game truly lacked this mode – something that developers Square Enix have moved to remedy and good on them.
Did you play the original Kane & Lynch?
Will you be running out to buy the second instalment?
