Kane & Lynch: Dead Men

by Darren Arquette - 2008/01/18 4:08pm

Despite the bad reviews and the whole Gamespot and Eidos ordeal, I was willing to give the game a try but now I wish I didn't. The graphics don't look too good, in fact they almost look like Hitman's first outing on the 360 - Blood Money. The in game engine is probably just about the same just with more things to break. But you know what? I'm not really into graphics. Why else would I still play SEGA Genesis games?

Kane & Lynch's gameplay caused one of the worst gaming experiences I've ever had. I don't say that lightly because I've played a lot of terrible games from all generations but this has to be the worst and I've played games where I'd have no idea what the buttons do or what the objectives are.

The first problem I came across were the controls. Why is R2 shoot? You lazy developers! We know you made it for the 360 as well, but you could have changed it to R1 for us lazy guys. Every time I needed to shoot I kept throwing a grenade. Anyway, moving on.

The demo starts up on the roof and tasks you with working your way down through the building. Sounds easy right? Wrong. First, I tried to change the camera so I could see the area around me. I tilt the analogue stick down to look up because I use inverted controls you see, and the camera goes down. Okay, no problem. I'll just go into the options menu and change it. Wait. "Where is the invert option!?" A couple years ago this would have been no problem, but I've just gotten so used to inverted controls that I can't play games without it and now I've just found a game with no such option. Great way to prevent third of your audience from playing the game. Another problem I had was in the area near the helicopter where everyone starts running around with guns. Okay, I see mine on my back. "I'll just pull it out... R2... R2... R2!" Dead. 30 seconds into the demo my character's dead because he wont pull out his gun. I try L2. Again, nothing. By this time, my character was dead again. I accidentally press up on the D-pad and he pulls out the gun. Even the introduction doesn't tell you that in order to pull out your gun you have to press UP.



So far Kane and Lynch has shown me that: the developers are lazy and wont change the controls to suit another platform, the game does not support inverted controls and doesn't tell you how to pull out a gun. Sure it's a demo but the whole point of a demo is to get the gamer introduced to the game and enjoy it. FAIL.

From then on, the demo consisted of me running around looking at the ceiling and getting shot while throwing grenades, which at this time had changed to smoke grenades without me even touching the D-pad.

One last thing: the Cover system is terrible. I've played Gears of War and Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and they both have mastered the covering system. The developers must have not taken notice. In order to use it you have to stand next to a wall and then turn your back against it. Why can't I just stand next to it and have the game sick me to the wall? Is that so hard to do or understand?