Untainted Kane and Lynch Review (X360)

Alright, so as we all know Kane and Lynch is a third person action crime drama where you get to whine about how broken this game is and how much potential it might have had at some point. I mean, really this game is slightly broken with artificial difficulty thanks to a stupid friendly AI system. So allow me to rip into this piece of shit properly and…..wait, there’s some guy here at my cubicle. Be right back.

(Cronos’ mind will now be represented in italics. The money won’t allow his mouth to say what he really thinks)

Alright, so in Kane and Lynch you get to play Kane, a guy on death row who gets broken out by Lynch and Kane’s former comrades, The7. The story goes that Kane hid something that The7 want back. And they send Lynch along to make sure Kane does it. Kane is the rational one of the group while Lynch apparently has medical problems and has to take pills to keep his episodes from boiling over. Lynch is an interesting character in that while he goes insane and kills innocent people sometimes, he has a real problem with Kane screwing over former partners and even kidnapping..

Fuck this game. The story gets fucked halfway though and it becomes revenge for the killing of Kane’s wife. Lynch goes from being funny to being whiny the whole second half of the game when it becomes a revenge plot instead of a crime plot. He actually began to drive me nuts with his incessant whining as well. He’s only the psycho they made him out to be for 4 levels, then there’s no mention of pills or violent outburst. THEY’RE LYING TO YOU. I made a typo in IRC calling him Lunch. That’s his new name for the rest of this shitty game review

Graphically this game is awesome. I can’t explain how the use of bloom lighting gives everything just a beautiful shine. When you get shot the screen goes red and the camera tilts, lovely effect.. I love the way explosions look like little poofs just to show off smoke effects. The pop in textures just show that the game designers were pushing to make sure that this game pushed the limits of the 360 hardware. This game is so graphically awesome that the 360 simply cannot handle it.

Yeah, right, the fuckin’ Wii could’ve handled this bullshit. Honestly, the game looks like a glorified PS2/Xbox game, explosions suck, and about the only thing going for it is environment damage when enemies shoot at the cover you’re hiding behind. Did I mention the textures that pop in and out and the fact that it’s just completely underwhelming? And then there’s the fact that the characters mouths will move in cutscenes but not during gameplay. Was that really that hard to do?

Sound is…….well to quote the great reviewer Ron Workmeng, “It has it”. The game tries to keep the Hollywood blockbuster style soundtrack throughout the game. The voice acting is great.

This is basically an R rated movie in a game. The spray the word fuck around like Scarface. The voice acting isn’t bad, but do I need a comment from my teammates everytime I give them a command? I don’t need to hear the same lines over and over. Oh, and Lunch becomes a whiny bastard like I said before.

Onto gameplay. At core, this is a third person shooter. You can fire your gun, throw grenades, and zoom or scope in to shoot at enemies. Once you get a few levels in you get your squad. Using the face buttons you can command to follow, defend a position, or attack and give cover fire. One of the best things is the way the AI decides to lay its life down for you by rushing enemy positions in order to give you a chance to kill the enemy.

And the cover system. I haven’t seen a cover system this well done since Gears of War. Amazing. It’s so realistic because you have to figure out which walls can give you proper cover, forcing you to think strategic.

BULLSHIT. The AI is stupid as stupid can be. I command them to fire on an enemy mounted gun and at least one of them will rush the mounted gun and get killed. Did I mention that if you don’t revive them fast enough it’s game over? Yeah, so now you get to take down a gun and go save your friend’s ass who is laying out in the open street.

At one point your 4 squads members get 3 lackeys each. I shit you not within 10 seconds of getting your 12 backup guys, they will be dead. You’d think they were wearing red shirts or something. It’s horrid. Lunch makes a comment how you’re losing too many men. He’s right, because right after you get rushed by 20 guys. It took me nearly an hour and a half to beat this area. And I lowered the difficulty after 30 minutes of trying. HATE

Cover system? More like hump a wall and hope Kane sticks to it. I died many times thinking I could get in cover and the wall wasn’t letting me. So fucking dumb.

And don’t bother throwing a grenade either. For some reason they seem to bounce off invisible objects. I threw one and it skidded along the ground, hit an invisible pebble and bounce up in the air like 3 feet to the left. Just plain bullshit.

Overall, Kane and Lynch is just so awesome. Everything put together makes this game a real winner. I can’t stress enough that I may have to go redo my vote and make this my GOTY. Thank you I/O and Eidos for gracing us with this game. My life will never be the same again.

The first 3-4 levels are enjoyable, the Tokyo level being the best which is why I linked to it. But once you reach Havana, just turn the game off. You will save yourself from one of the worst gameplay experiences ever. Your frustration level will never rise, and best of all your blood pressure won’t shoot up. Do yourself a favor, watch a few of the videos of the game linked here, see what it’s like. Just don’t play it. The video below is of the Tokyo stage and is the most enjoyable thing in the game.

I will have to award this with the highest thing I can, 12/10 and the Cronosblade Green(Cash Money) Medal Award.

VERDICT – F, SKIP IT