Done playing Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days demo. To be honest, I have mixed feelings about the game (mostly good). The demo is not the E3 2010 daytime street demo, in fact it's completely different part of a level. The intro begins with brief cut-scenes of Kane firing away at someone (possibly cops) & Lynch is shown in a shady apartment in Shanghai with his new new found girlfriend, Xiu lying on the bed. After, a few a jarred scenes later, we hit the main menu. Three game modes available for selection; Story, Arcade & Multiplayer mode. I didn't try the mutiplayer mode, but I'll give a short run down of what they all are.
First, we'll start off with the Story mode. I began the game pompously on Hard difficulty, got my butt taped to the ground with just a few enemy bullets. F*ck that! Let's switch to Normal mode. The cut-scene introduces Kane & Lynch dining in a restaurant when the cops barge and then begins our action. At first, I found the controls to be a bit tedious and the shaky camera work just added to the misery. Well OFF went the shaky camera movement from the options menu. Now that we had some stability, I could finally focus my fire power. Our default weapon is a shot-gun and AI is so tough that they have to take up half of my ammo before one goes down. Thankfully, we can pick up their weapons (Assault rifles, sub-machine guns & the likes) and ammo after they have been put to rest. Amidst all this chaos, we hear Kane & Lynch arguing about how the cops found them and Lynch suddenly realises that his girlfriend is back in her apartment. So we have to make our way through the congested alleys, constructions sites and busy streets of Shanghai to Lynch's gals apartment.
The graphics of this game has been revamped completely as compared to the semi-cartoon(ish) look of the first game. They have somehow used Glacier engine and have provided documentary style visuals. You instantly get the feeling that it's being filmed by a handy-cam and the only thing missing is the TCR clock counter. The visuals shifts between grainy and normal vision depending on the scene. People with motion sickness will need to enable "steady-cam" from the options. Although, it will take away the soul from the gameplay. I did the same thing in the beginning, but enabled it later to find out how much fun it was. You are literally in the action & feeling like it's a LIVE action sequence going on. The character models are shoddy, but the look of Shanghai is delivered brilliantly. The alleyways really look filthy and you can see civilians actually run away if you point your weapon. A few changes have been made to the gameplay, like you don't get adrenaline shots any more. So no more crying for help in a hope to be revived by your partner. If you die, well you just...DIE. At times, you get shot badly and fall to the ground & need to press 'A' to get back up. Cover system is the same as before, but behold, the physics have been improved dramatically. So don't expect to hide behind wooden crates and not get busted. They will destroy the entire crate and you'll need to find new cover spot.
This time you can also throw fire extinguishers & propane cannisters and shoot them to take out multiple or single targets. The explosions effects are amazing. The developers have also used face pixellation when some cop gets a head-shot or is lying on the ground. Not sure why this is done, but I'm assuming it's to give a more realistic approach to the game. The sound effects are really good, but some of the gun sounds aren't up to the mark. Also the volume of this game seemed to be extremely low on my 360. I had to increase my volume knob to more than half, which I don't normally do. It's a 30 minuted timed demo, so it ended pretty fast. It was fantastic, least to say. But my only concern is the "romantic Lynch" storyline aspect. Somehow this doesn't fit the bill and I hope there is more depth to the storyline than keep Lynch's damsel safe. The visual presentation is definitely top notch and it's certainly a very fresh approach to video games. I have never seen a game being directed so intensively. Dam! I almost forgot to mention the best part of the game, it runs close to 100fps, or at least seemed to run that smoothly. There is no frame rate drop whatsoever, although we do have minor tearing issues.
That takes care of the story mode. I briefly played 2 rounds of Arcade mode, so won't be able to give a complete insight. Rule for both Arcade & Multiplayer is simple "Get 4 million dollars & Get out in 4 minutes". In arcade mode, you get the loot and make a run for it. With each round the difficulty increase and your allies could turn on you if you haven't gathered enough Benjamins. In other words, you're disposable. So you need to gather as much cash as you can and turning on your allies won't be a wise choice as the others would then hunt you down. Multiplayer is divided into 3 modes; Fragile Alliance, Cops and Robbers & Undercover cop. If people have played the first game, they know what Fragile Alliance is all about. Here, the above rule applies and you just need to run off with the cash. If you die, you re-spawn as a cop. Under cover cop mode would have a cop being hidden amongst your team members, who is it? No one knows. Cops & Robbers mode is pretty much self explanatory. I guess someone who has played the mutiplayer properly would give you a better view of it.
