Kane & Lynch: Dead Men

by Eidos

Product Features

• This is the violent and chaotic journey of two men - a flawed mercenary and a medicated psychopath. Each hates the other but must work together to save themselves. Play Kane in single-player mode and either character in two-player co-op mode.
• Violence Erupts in Meticulously Created Safe Worlds: Realistic and responsive environments and crowds react when events get of out control. Manipulate the environments and crowds strategically to complete objectives.
• Wide Variety of Intense 3rd Person Game Play: Rappel from buildings, firing on the run or from moving vehicles, launch surprise attacks, lay down cover fire, and shoot blind from around corners, hurl smoke, tear, and incendiary grenades
• Fast and Iintuitive Combat: Lead a crew of criminal mercenaries to increase your chance of survival. You can also fight alone, you will automatically draw fire, throw grenades, lay down cover, and engage in close combat with their own signature moves.
• Two-player Co-operative Game Play: Team up and play the full story with a friend as either Kane or Lynch. At any point in the game you can choose to play the next, or previous, levels in co-op. Innovative Multi-player Levels: Up to 8 players.

Product Details

• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B000UUFR12
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.2 x 0.5 inches ; 3.2 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: November 16, 2007
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #13,425 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)

Product Description

Platform: PC

Amazon.com

Kane & Lynch: Dead Men follows the violent and chaotic journey of two men--a flawed mercenary and a medicated psychopath--and their brutal attitude towards right and wrong. This volatile partnership combined with innovative technologies allow for an unparalleled gaming experience. Kane & Lynch: Dead Men will immerse players in a crime drama with unflinching action. Lo-Interactive's proprietary technology will deliver fluid high definition graphics and lighting, highly destructible environments, massive crowd AI, single, co-op, and squad-based combat, a cinematic interface, and non-stop dialog between Kane and Lynch. The title also features innovative two-player co-op and online game play.

System Requirements:

Minimum Specifications: Recommended Specifications: Optimum Specifications: OS: Windows XP Service Pack 2, Windows Vista Processor: Intel Pentium 4 2Ghz or AMD Athlon XP 1800 Intel Pentium 4 2.5Ghz or AMD Athlon XP 2400 Intel Pentium 4 3Ghz or AMD Athlon XP 3000 RAM: 1 GB 2 GB Video Card: 128 MB NVIDIA 6600 or better/ATI X1300 or better 128 MB NVIDIA 8300 or better/ATI X1800 or better Sound Card: DirectX 9 compatible DVD-ROM: Quad-speed (4x) DVD-ROM drive Hard Drive Space: 7GB Input Devices: 100% Windows 2000/XP compatible mouse and keyboard Other: Online gaming requires broadband connection

Product Description

Kane & Lynch: Dead Men follows the violent and chaotic journey of two men - a flawed mercenary and a medicated psychopath ¿ and their brutal attitude towards right and wrong. This volatile partnership combined with innovative technologies allow for an unparalleled gaming experience. Kane & Lynch: Dead Men will immerse players into an emotionally intense crime drama with unflinching action. Lo-Interactive's proprietary technology will deliver fluid high definition graphics and lighting, highly destructible environments, massive crowd AI, single, co-op and squad-based combat, a cinematic interface, and non-stop dialog between Kane and Lynch. The title also features innovative two-player co-op and groundbreaking online game play.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A game that could have been so much more, December 4, 2007

By 

P. Trimble (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Kane & Lynch: Dead Men (Video Game)

Man, this game is frustrating. Not because it isn't fun (because it is), but because of missed opportunities. I am a big Michael Mann fan, and as far as story/visuals go, this game delivers. Unfortunately for me, technical issues and sometimes frustrating AI ruined the overall experience.

I cannot play this game without a crash. It crashes and I see the 'send a report to MS' window. Fortunately I can alt-tab back into the game and play unhindered. I recently did a full Windows format and reinstall and still receive the error, so unless it's a random configuration problem with my machine...also, Eidos Support has no idea what is wrong and tells me to replace the media. Well, others in the official and unofficial forums have the exact same issue, and we can't figure out any commonalities. I also receive random crashes to desktop on level loading.

As far as AI, sometimes they find cover and sometimes they do not. In my experience they rarely act smart, merely adequate at best. Many times I will order someone behind cover only to see them sit NEXT to the cover out in the open. They die very quickly. And this is on medium difficulty. I don't remember having this much frustration with the AI in Freedom Fighters. No, this AI definitely needs tweaking, but it's close to what it needs to be. As it stands, seeing the AI stand out in the open while they get shot ruins the immersion.

I really wanted to love this game. Although some are bashing the graphics, I think the graphical style overall is very good. It has a gritty, hazy style that I feel fits perfectly with the overall mood and I think the textures look great. Is it as beautiful as Crysis? No, but it's still very good. The aiming is great on the PC, and the weapons feel awesome. The sound is amazing, and the voice acting and writing are great. The gameplay is overall straightforward, but that doesn't bother me. Yes, you just move from cover to cover and shoot it out with cops. That's why I bought the game.

Honestly, if the technical issues were fixed and the AI was tightened up then I would easily recommend this to everyone who would listen. The time I spent playing was overall enjoyable. As it stands, however, I can only say 'proceed with caution'.

25 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A Poor Game From Eidos!!?!, December 20, 2007

By 

JoT (Carrollton, GA) - See all my reviews

= Fun:2.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Kane & Lynch: Dead Men (Video Game)

Kane & Lynch is outdated fare for pc-gamers with years of experience speeding or slogging or sneaking through generations of FPS games. As far as ports go, it's not the most disappointing I've ever played (WHY DIDN'T HALO INCLUDE CO-OP!!!). K&L attempts to bring squad-based combat to the seedy crime story shooter sub-genre of gaming. It does not succeed. Unfortunately for its publishers, it is probably the least competitive FPS on the PC game market today.

(I don't know how good it looks on an x-box or PS3, and I don't really care. This is a PC game review, so if you love playing this game on your console, please observe that I am only reviewing the PC port of this game.)

The first problem with K&L is the poor AI. The AI controller feels ancient after playing S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl and Crysis. Opponents and teammates go straight to objective points (cover positions, good firing positions, or ordered destinations), without utilizing cover or providing covering fire. Also, your teammates sometimes, momentarily, stick on walls or cover while running past, which demonstrates, among other things, pathfinding problems in the AI.

The zoom/aim fire is severely outdated. Iron-sights have been an industry standard for years in the PC shooter market, and the fact that K&L uses an old mini-zoom with a crosshair change instead of well rendered iron sights significantly drops its comparative worth.

K&L's graphics appear last-gen or mediocre when compared to its competitors (Crysis, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl). Even with tweaking to max the graphics on my machine, the K&L graphics weren't as smooth or realistic as any of the other three games listed. This might be harsh, but playing K&L right after finishing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, the graphics in K&L were like cartoons.

Speaking of tweaks, this game actually required them. I personally take it as a bad sign when a game has problems playing on default settings in a system with better than recommended specs. I do tweak my games and hardware settings for performance, sound, and graphics enhancement, but a game should run smoothly, if not maxed out, when loaded onto a computer with better than recommended specs. K&L doesn't do that. I had to tweak my settings just to get it to run smooth. The publishers just rushed too hard, and compatibility suffered. This is poor coding like I haven't seen since Max Payne, that gem of a game, showed us all what good, tight code could do for a game.

Scripting in K&L is much less than smooth. Enemies can spawn three feet in front of the player if one moves too quickly for the heavily scripted AI to keep up. For example, I took the left hand slope/path toward the docks from the church. Unfortunately, I moved to the exit too quickly for the game to register, so it spawned five enemies right on top of me. Poof, there they were. This should never happen. I haven't seen spawns this visible since the 90's. More than anything else, multiple bugs of this kind, throughout the game, demonstrate very, very poor scripting.

Squad controls are extremely limited. The game doesn't allow you to hotkey the squad command submenu orders or hotkey individuals in your squad. This might sound like nitpicking, but there have been some really good squad command control structures offered in squad based PC titles over the past five years, and the K&L team didn't use any of them. In the end, the squad based controls, especially when combined with poor AI pathfinding, where more frustrating than helpful. I ended up just beating the game using ancient run and gun tactics, and only using the squad commands when they were required.

Combat controls also suffer. The fire-from-cover feature is a cool addition to gaming, but please let us control our character. Titles in the Splinter Cell, Metal Gear, or Gears of War series allow you to key into and out of cover in their control systems. Having crates or walls GRAB you when you're trying to walk away from them is really annoying. So, in this area, K&L falls short of both old and new titles.

Finally, the game is way too short. Frankly, for fifty bucks, I expect twelve hours of straight through game-play at a minimum. I don't appreciate sitting down during the week to warm up for some serious weekend game-play, only to beat the game in under five hours. It was sad. Even with all of the frustrations, bugs, and annoyances, the game didn't take up more time than a DVD movie with a decent set of special features. This, more than anything else, makes me say that this game isn't worth more than $20-$25, which is about what you would pay for audio-visual entertainment lasting between 4 and 5 hours.

I cannot recommend Kane & Lynch: Dead Men for any attribute except a decent attempt at having a story line of sorts. It is surpassed by other new FPS games on the PC market in all aspects of game design, play, and visual effects. The best FPS games on the PC market are currently Crysis, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, BioShock, and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl. These are all great games in different ways. They all do some really new things, or revamp old stuff in new and extremely improved ways. So, if you have to have a really good FPS this year get one of them, and leave Kane & Lynch on the shelf.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A COCTAIL OF Max Payne & Hitman THAT NEEDED MORE SHAKING., November 18, 2007

By 

NeuroSplicer (Freeside, in geosynchronous orbit) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

= Fun:3.0 out of 5 stars 

This review is from: Kane & Lynch: Dead Men (Video Game)

This is a game that enjoys one of the most SOLID story-lines that came out of game developing in the last 3 years. Unfortunately, this was NOT enough.

You are Kane, an aged mercenary and former member of a criminal brotherhood known as The 7. The last heists failed, you get arrested and convicted - yet you are a traitor in The 7's books anyway. Having you for making off with the loot somehow, they send Lynch (a psychotic, easily distracted and pill-popping murderer) to first break you out of prison and then make sure he gets their money back. They are sure you will play ball: they have kidnapped your wife and daughter to ensure it.

Now this is a foundation to built a GREAT TPS game! Unfortunately KANE & LYNCH does not reach the top floor as the game demonstrates all the flaws of a rushed release.

The character movements feel too scripted and automatic at some places (a console left-over I guess) whereas they have to be spoon-fed detailed directions at some others. Since one cannot predict where the one or the other will occur, it will eventually get on your nerves.

The squad curse is not lifted for KANE & LYNCH either: the AI of your squad is infantile at best - but you will be thankful that your enemies do not demonstrate a higher one either!
Also, the game is pretty short: it shouldn't take you more than 7 hours on normal difficulty.

Graphically this is a beautiful game - notably though not at par with, say, CRYSIS. Keep in mind that the strength of KANE & LYNCH is its story.
The gameplay and the cut-scenes blend seamlessly and the story flows like an A-List movie. And you will definitely not get bored: from the inside of a prison, to rappelling from a skyscraper, to escaping a packed Tokyo dance club...

Although a well developed character story and a visually well designed game, they did NOT complete their follow through!

A disappointment...

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