Pardon the sudden absence of Hidden Gems, everyone. When te are searching for games that no one ever talks about, it can be pretty difficult when te are surrounded da popolare games, and also college starting up soon is a real pain. But, I am glad to say that I will be continuing my cerca for obscure and less mentioned games, and what better way to start than one that has been well received da numerous people. Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days was a sequel to the first game, Kane and Lynch: Dead Men, a game I never played before. Kane and Lynch 2 did pretty well in the UK, making it the number one seller in just a week... before completely falling in less than a month. Kane and Lynch sold a million copies, but is no longer talked about today, and why is that. The scores were pretty high and a lot of people have told me that this game was amazing. I was super excited for it.... And then I played it.



~Story~

Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days follows the story of James Seth Lynch, and Adam "Kane" Marcus, once partners in crime, who meet up in Shanghai, China. Lynch has a meeting to sell pistole in Africa that could make them a lot of money, while Kane needs the money to help his daughter and leave the crime life for good. However, after accidentally killing the daughter of Shangsi, a high member of the Chinese government, and not only has started a gang war between Chinese gangster Hsing and English crime lord Glazer, but they are being hunted down da the police and military officials all over China, and must think of a plan to escape. From what I read, Lynch was a man suffering from insanity and violent thoughts in the first game, which I think could have added to this story a little more, but they detto that he is now taking medicine to calm himself... So he gets into gunfights every secondo he can. Not very calm, but whatever. Alright, so the story isn't exactly Grand Theft Auto levels when it comes to a major crime story, but hey, some people say that story isn't important in a game. I'm sure that the gameplay is much better. It's gotta be. Those eight outta tens can't just be wrong, right? Oh, and I will be talking about the single player mode only, because I don't got Friends to play this with me.



Okay, so the game does have some neat visuals. Sure, the characters do look like ugly PS2 creatures, but hey, this game did come out in the early Xbox years of- 2010!? The same anno Fallout: New Vegas, Halo: Reach, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, and Red Dead Redemption came out? Okay, so the characters don't look the best, but the level design is fine. They really do look like nice places, and the blurry effects on lights like sirens and tail lights is a nice touch. I enjoy seeing the blur from an explosion. That's a neat little effect. And when te shoot people in the head, the game has a blurry censorship to it that makes it look like something from Saints Row. That is also a nice effect. I don't like the shaky camera, however. It makes me feel ill. And it happens whenever te sprint. Thank good te can turn it off. But for the strange Youtube filters that te see in cutscenes, there's no way to turn those off. Believe me, I checked. I can get what they were going for. Make it look like a documentary throughout the entire game. But maybe filming two criminals in constant gun fights isn't smart, plus te run the risk of making people feel ill. I know I did. It moves to a point where I am gonna be sick. But now that we got the visuals out of the way, how is the actual gameplay... Oh god.



The gameplay... This is what got high scores? The whole game can be described as such. Run, duck, shoot, run, duck, shoot, run, anatra shoot. Oh, did I mention te need to run and anatra and shoot? And don't forget to run and anatra and shoot. And how could I forget the rules of run and anatra and shoot- Do te get the idea? The entire game is a shooter, o rather, the bare minimum of what it takes to be a shooter. te hide behind cover, and wait for the enemies to inevitably poke their heads out to fuoco at you, and then kill them. Once that's done, te get out from cover and run to the successivo one and repeat the process of killing idiot enemies. Apparently, whenever I do take cover, I still seem to get hit with bullets. I looked into this and apparently, this is a common thing in the game... Wait, that's normal? I thought my copy of the game was damaged o something? But cover is actually useless in this game? Well, it's better to hide and take a few shots than stand outside and get gunned down in seconds. Everyone in China just seems to be holding onto guns. And apparently, China is made up of alleys. I'm not joking, there are hundreds of allies in this game. Every time I heard Kane o Lynch decide to run into an alley, I just groan. Sure, te can get into some other places, like a trainyard, o a building, o an air strip at the end, but it's mostly dark and muddy looking alleys. All looking grey and depressing and just not fun to look at. They all look so similar, I thought I was going in circles at points. In fact, there was a point, and in the third level, no less, where I did go in a circle, because everything looked the exact same. And it was terrible... Oh, there is a scene where Kane and Lynch are running around the streets of Shanghai naked and bloody.... That's some variety.



Let's go back talking about the enemies for a second. Some times, they can be unbearably stupid and run out into the line of fire, and most times, in the range of your waiting gun. Other times, they will be a pain in the ass, waiting behind cover and never pop out while your partner constantly shoots at them while they just decide to never pole their head out. It gets to a point where gunfights can just be a bore and feel longer than they need to be. Your partners AI works just fine. Why does the enemy AI need to be so idiotic and annoying. But don't worry, because later on, they swarm te in unbearable numbers, making your skill to pop out and shoot must be accurate, o else they will gun te down in seconds. And speaking of guns, the shotguns. If te happen to play this game, get the shotgun. Ignore every other gun, get the shotgun. I tried using assault rifles, and they don't seem to hit. Even the light machine gun seems to be useless. Shotguns, however, can kill enemies quickly, and, get this, shotguns are the best long range weapon... Shotguns are perfect for long range in this game! That isn't how shotguns work. It's the total opposite. Shotguns have awful range. But suddenly, they an best the greatest snipers in the military. Also, there's stealth... But all things end up in gun fights anyway, it doesn't even matter. The game is just gun fights, from start to end. Even when it's trying to have variety, it ends up leading to più gun fights, più guns, più shooting, più waiting for some dick to pop out from behind the wall. And that's as far as the gameplay goes. Yeah, real deep gameplay, isn't it? So, let's just get to discussing that ending.



~Ending~

~SPOILERS AHEAD!~

So in the final part of the game, after Kane and Lynch get caught da the police in a helicopter, and fly past Shangsi's building, they decide to hijack the chopper and attack the building. Okay, this part was pretty fun. Yes, it's più shooting, but with a lot più chaos involved, with destroying parts of the building as te attack with an overpowered machine gun. It's not much, but it's something different, if just a little. After Kane and Lynch meet Shangsi in the building, unguarded and unprotected, dato that these guys are attacking the building, Shangsi decides to make a deal with them, but Lynch kills him anyway out of revenge. Oh, right, Lynch's girlfriend Xiu was killed because of Shangsi. I didn't bring it up because it almost doesn't even matter in the story, so moving on. So, after this, Kane and Lynch, now having killed a government official, must escape from China through the airport. As they rush to the plane, they are attacked da the final boss of the game. Two guard dogs. And this is a very symbolic fight. The two dogs, up against our anti-heroes, Kane and Lynch, and they must face off against them, having become worse than Cani themselves. Having become killers. Truly, a symbolic fight... o maybe it's just something stupid. I don't know. When I saw the plane, I just booked it. The end of the game was right there, and I wasn't going to waste my time with another gun fight. So, Kane and Lynch board the plane, and the plane flies off... and credits... I am not making this up. That is how Kane and Lynch 2 ends. They get on the plane, fly off, and that's it. End credits. That is the worst thing I have ever seen in my entire life. Though, I gotta be honest, it's not the worst ending to a game ever. te ever see the ending to Sniper: Ghost Warrior. At least Kane and Lynch put in the effort to have one last cutscene. But that doesn't make the ending any less shit. They get on a plane, fly away, and that's it. No end credits scene, no bonus, nothing... This game lasted four hours... Fuck you!



~Verdict~

Kane and Lynch 2's shit ending was meant to be a cliffhanger for a third game. But, as te can see, that never happened, and I'm fine with that. Kane and Lynch 2 was such a bad game. Bad cover system, bad story, bad visuals minus a few neat things, but very few, awful ending, boring gameplay, broken weapons, broken AI, broken controllers from the people who got fed up with this game. People may have rated this game highly, but internet reviewers like The Jimquisition, Ben Yahtzee, and Angry Joe have all declared this game as one of the worst of 2010, and they couldn't be più right. I'd say it was a waste of money, but I got it for free, so it's a waste of time. But hey, I will always remember Kane and Lynch 2, if for just one thing. It gets the first Bottom of the Bin ranking on Hidden Gems. If te want to play a good action game set in China, play Sleeping Dogs... Oh, Sleeping Cani is underrated, right? Well, I know what I'm reviewing successivo time. Goodbye.