Kane & Lynch: Dead Men

by Square Enix

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: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B000UUATJ2
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches ; 4.5 ounces
• Media: Video Game
• Release Date: November 13, 2007
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,941 in Video Games (See Top 100 in Video Games)
  • #52 in Video Games > PlayStation 3 > Action > Shooter
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Platform: PLAYSTATION 3

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 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars "Kane & Lynch - Dead BORED Men" is more like it., May 9, 2008

By 

The Matrix Fan "Video Gamer since 1979." - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

= Fun:2.0 out of 5 stars 

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

In all fairness, I really wanted to like this game. I gave it a fair shot and rented it out. After completing it, I've decided that Kane & Lynch had a lot of potential that got turned into a 16-level rehash of Michael Mann's bank robbery scene from the movie Heat.

The game description tells us:

"This is a 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."

The reality is: Yes, two men who hate each other are teamed up - but they should direct their hate towards the game control system. We can only change two buttons in the options screen, so if you don't like the layout of the controls, you've got to suck it up.
Passing a weapon to another character is not fluid - holding the R3 button and using the D-Pad to choose a weapon is simply not possible in a heated firefight.
In single-player mode, Kane shows up to the left of the screen, not centered, as one would expect. If you play as Lynch (which can only be done in co-op mode), he's on the right side of the screen.
It's usually standard for games to offer playability as either of the protagonists, but that wasn't done here.

The game description tells us:
"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."

The reality is: Yes, if you fire a bullet in a crowded dance hall, the characters start screaming like an 8-year-old girl who saw Michael Jackson in 1983. However, the crowd movement is totally inaccurate. Everyone is able to make it outside but mysteriously, no patrons are trampled to death, as one would expect.
I don't know what it means to use the crowds to complete objectives, as the crowds in this game act like medicated sheep that don't react to much other than gunfire.

The game description tells us:

"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."

The reality is: You can do all these things, and the variety of weapons is impressive. However, Lynch usually starts every level with the shotgun as his primary weapon. In a game where most of your adversaries are firing from afar with rifles, Lynch's shotgun is virtually useless. Sure, you can change the weapon out with a better one, but why is the crappy weapon always the default?
Also, the camera angles in single-player mode are agonizing. Since the camera has Kane left of center, if you're behind an object and try to do a close-up aim on Kane's enemies, you'll get a screen full of Kane's bald spot instead. It doesn't help that the targeting reticule is the size of the period at the end of this sentence.

The game description tells us:

"Fast and Intuitive 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."

The reality is: The description doesn't mention that the criminal mercenaries have no survival instincts whatsoever. If you don't keep them on a tight leash, they'll walk right into a heated firefight and try to stop their enemies with a devious trick: jumping in front of the bullets they shoot.
You will typically do most of the work yourself, while the mercenaries pick off the leftovers. As far as signature moves, once you've seen Kane break someone's neck for the 79th time, it gets boring.

The game description tells us:

"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."

The reality is: I don't see what they mean by playing the full story in co-op mode - the only real difference between single player and co-op mode is seeing some events from Lynch's perspective, which we can already deduce from Kane's reactions in single player mode.
Playing previous levels or present levels is a standard feature, so there's nothing innovative here.
I haven't come across 8 players who want to tackle Kane & Lynch, let alone 8 people who want to play it at the same time.

Kane & Lynch is entertaining for a little bit, but the gameplay degenerates quickly into a repeating loop of showing a major gunfight - then another - then another - and then another. Excessive gunfights and generous heapings of cursing can't save this game. I wouldn't recommend Kane & Lynch for anything other than a rental.

23 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Worst let-down ever!, November 22, 2007

By 

Mitchell Westwood (California) - See all my reviews

= Fun:2.0 out of 5 stars 

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

I was really excited when I first heard about this game. It was made by the guys over at IOI (Hitman series), and they have never let me down . . . until now. The trailers and hype make it seem like this is a high-budget game, but the actual gameplay comes out incredibly short:
The sounds and environment are bland, so there is really no sense of urgency or intensity. The cutscenes are choppy and lackluster and they don't add to the "action-movie" style that this game could have achieved.
The graphics are incredibly poor for a game of its time. I shot a window, and it cracked. The next time I shot it, the entire window just disappeared. And this wasn't because of a glitch, the animation is just that underdeveloped. When I died, my teammates came up and their big blocky arms went through me when they adminsitered the adrenaline shot. This game really looks like an early PS2 game at best . . .
The gameplay is the most underdeveloed part of the game. Hit detection sucks, and even though it claims to have a cover-system, it also sucks. In fact, there is no cover button even. Walk up to a wall and jiggle the joystick around and hope that your character will eventually take cover. It really is annoying. Your character constantly pops in and out of cover whether you want him to or not.
Stay away from this game. I really wanted to like it, but I had to return it after about an hour and a half of play. With game prices as high as they are, you'd expect to have some half-decent quality delivered. Kane & Lynch fails. If you really have to play this game, rent it and you'll be happy you read this review.
This game had everything going for it: a quality developer, a quality storyline, and very capable next-gen systems to support it. However, laziness and greed on the developers' part totally ruined everything this game could have been.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Here is whats right with Kane & Lynch, January 29, 2008

By 

A. Monaco "Morguebabe" (NJ) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

= Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars 

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

First lets start with what is wrong. Yeah the game play is a little laggy, I personally hate the controls, and I thought the story play was totally unbelievable. One second your in a prison, then to a bank, then to amazon rain forest. Seriously?! The aiming is messy, and I found the zoom on most weapons to be sub-par. I also personally had trouble aiming while in cover, or getting into cover for the matter as well. But I do love this genre of game. So onward -
I played most of this game on the split screen co-op mode, on Aspirin setting. I found it a little hard in some parts.
But its not all bad, here is what I really liked about the game. First off, its violent, and the cursing is fine with me. But What I really liked which I found to be unique to this game was when you play on co-op Lynch and Kane sometimes have different missions to complete on story mode, they can't help each other, and if one dies the mission is over. I thought that was pretty unique and cool. I also like that the game has two endings, based on what Lynch picks. Sure, maybe the game was slightly a let down, OK fine I'll give you that. But at the same time, I still think it's a decent game.

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