Kane & Lynch: Dead Men is a third-person shooter game released on Playstation 3 and developed by IO interactive. There’s a veritable onslaught of third person shooter games out there, and the hype before this game came out promised it was something special. So was it? Let’s find out.
Story : The story, in my opinion, is actually the main reason to play the game. Not that the other elements of the game are bad, far from it actually. The story in this game is just that good. Specifically, the two main characters are brilliantly executed and nuanced and they will be characters you remember for the rest of your life. Yes, that good.
Graphics : The graphics in this game meet and exceeded my expectations for it. Simply wonderful. The detail in this game is easily on par with other games released at the same time. You can tell a ton of care went into it. The lighting in this game is especially really nice and makes it very immersive. The animations are really noteworthy, they’re so smooth and realistic you’ll be blown away. Graphically, the game really delivers. The realistic nature of the graphics are just stunning.
Sound : The music in this game is seriously impressive. Jesper Kyd really outdid himself with this one, and it shows. The compositions, arrangements, and tones are all really appropriate and fit the game perfectly. A excellent job from an excellent composer. The sound effects are also all very good. The slight differences between weaponry is all very noticeable should you choose to pay attention, which means they really went out of the way to make the sound design very good. The voice acting in this game is also incredible and very noteworthy. Overall, this game is a masterpiece in sound.
Game play : This game basically plays like any other third person shooter out there, so if you’ve played one before then you’ll get the hang of this game very easy. The controls, at least. Unfortunately the difficulty of this game is staggeringly hard. Perhaps I’m just not good at third person shooters, but I found myself very frustrating with the difficulty in this game. There’s many checkpoints in the game at least, but even reaching them will take a ton of practice and patience. Perhaps a bit too much. It may sound like I’m being nitpicky, but I’m not. Unfortunately the game play here isn’t perfect, which is a shame because I really wanted it to be.
Re playability : The multi-player aspect is very good. Some people call it the best ever, but I can’t agree. It’s very good and will keep you interested for quite a bit not much more. Playing alone is different. The story is so well done, that it’s much like watching a 3 hour movie that’s epic in scope. You probably won’t want to watch it again for a long time.
Overall : 8/10. Game play and re playability fall really short, but all 3 other aspects are simply perfection. I wanted this game to be perfect, but it’s not. Eight out of ten.
