Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days (2010)

Dog Days' gameplay is generic, repetitive and a little dull at times. You take cover, you shoot, you move forward and take cover and shoot again. The guns are dogshit, while the enemies' bullets tear you to pieces in seconds. Unlike the first the game there are no squad commands, there is no globetrotting, and it is a lot shorter.

Despite this, it has something the first game lacks: cohesion. From the opening moments this game immerses you in ugliness. Your perspective becomes that of a cheap camcorder filming the protagonists getting tortured before flashing back to several hours earlier.

This handheld perspective gives the game a hazy dreamlike quality. Gorgeously detailed environments blur in and out of existence as you pass. Neon lights cause lens flares and artifacts break apart the screen. It is a strangely beautiful game, especially when roaming down back alleys strewn with garbage and old shopping trolleys. This is a world of abandoned things - the only place two ugly and broken men like Kane & Lynch could logically exist.

A rather bad game I like more than I should for some reason.

First of all this game is bad. Bordering on being complete garbage. The graphic does feel a bit outdated now. The environment looks pretty generic as well. If they didn't tell it is located in Shanghai I would have assumed it's New York or Hong-Kong or something along those lines. It looks just generic. The levels are rather linear and with noting special to them.

Most terrible thing about it is probably how the camera works. It's stylised after reality shows. It's shaky as hell and you can't turn it off. That coupled with over the top visual effects which makes it very hard to tell what's going on at the moment and you will be lucky if you don't get sick while playing.

The story is very unclear and I was having a hard time to work out what is going on. It almost felt like some cut sceenes were missing. The characters hinted different things that were never explained. It's unclear what exactly transpired to get the two main characters in to the fight they ended up.

The game is a standard cover based third person perspective shooter. You follow a pretty obvious path and just shoot people as you go along. And while some guns feel nice, there is a lot of terrible ones. Especially the SMGs with their terrible aim are worse than a normal pistol. As those are the guns you will be dealing with early on it gets really tempting to throw the damn thing out of the window.

So why I liked in the end? No idea. It's fairly short, a bit brutal and definitely mindless. Provides a challenge at times but it's rather on the easy side. And I do like the Kane and Lynch characters and have fond memories about the first game featuring them in. So the nostalgia might have played a role in me liking the game. Subjectively I'd recommend staying from it as far as possible.