Right vs Wrong: The Good Bad

Simultaneously, Only Slightly Delayed: Kane and Lynch 2 Dog Days

My first accomplishment of 2011 was a rather odd one indeed. I rang in the new year by beating one of the worst games of 2010. That's right, I subjected myself to the four dreary hours of Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days (half of that was co-op with Jeremy). Of course that begs the question; Matt, why would you do that to yourself and a friend!? First and foremost to test the waters, see if the game really was as bad as people said, after all, even I had some strong words for it in a previous article. Second was to teach a lesson, if it really was bad, then I had just the right game to compare it to that did the same thing, but actually succeeded.

Kane and Lynch 2 is a bad game, but you probably already knew that. Granted, it was not the train wreck I was expecting. It was a playable, albeit painful, experience. For starters KL2 is an ugly game. This normally wouldn't bother me, but to make up for how piss poor the graphics are the developers used this god awful cell phone camera quality filter, it has neither charm nor purpose. I suppose this was to add to the "gritty realism" the game was going for (and failed at miserably). At one or two points in the game they actually try to play it like there is some masochistic-deaf-dumb-camera-shy-mute they don't like to talk about following them around and filming their escapades.

Adding to the "realism" is the fact that your characters shoot about as accurately as a hardboiled cop egg. KL2 is a cover based third person shooter, so all the gunning is done from quite some distance, so inaccuracy becomes a huge issue. The ultimate catch 22 of this game comes in the form of the core mechanics, it wants you to stay in cover, but you have to be 3 feet away from your enemy to do any damage. Basically, bullets will kill you, fast. Your enemies however are only mildly allergic to bullets. This is a formula for frustration and ends up being a lazy way to pad the length of the game through cheap death. While playing the game co-op it is easy enough to manage, provided your friend is smarter than the brick they emulated for the AI. Simply put, the AI is incompetent. It will not kill enemies, and you will die because of that.

Washed out colors and excessive bloom lighting! Sign me up!

The final place this game falls flat on its face is the story. There is no believable connection between Kane and Lynch, and barely a hint of humanity (though the game does try, offering a daughter and girlfriend as collateral, but it doesn't work). You start by killing thugs, which is fine, then you kill cops, which is odd, then the army comes after you, then special forces. There's no two ways around it. You are evil in this game. Evil.

(NOTE: Thats the end of the brief review, not much to say about it really. The following is a comparison to a game that succeeded where KL2 failed) Now is playing as a bad guy a bad thing? Not at all, but there is a right and wrong way to do it. So lets look at a good example shall we?

There are many good examples but this one matches quite well in theme: Call of Juarez 2 Bound in Blood. This is an old west FPS that tells the story of two brothers gone bad. Mechanically it is a very different game from KL2 so I'm not going to touch on that, I want to focus on the story, or specifically, how we as a player are drawn in.

KL2 assumes that you are the lowest common denominator, you are the loyal G4 audience, you gawk at breasts and absorb violence like a sponge and all the art you need is applied in a simple filter. You don't mind killing cops, army men, or special forces, because your playing as the misunderstood heroes… who are not at all misunderstood, they're pure evil. KL2 is like two incredibly violent kids in a sand box, and honestly, that works for some people (read above). To tell an engaging story from that perspective though is much more difficult than one might think.

Unless you are the person described in the above paragraph you will always feel detached from the characters in KL2. What that game is missing is a proxy, an entry point into the story for a normal person with regulated testosterone levels. Call of Juarez has not one, but two proxies. The first is Thomas, he is a bandit like his older brother Ray, but not quite so aggressive. The next proxy is William. He is not a playable character but has an incredible story arc none the less.

I'm sure you can guess which brother is slightly more evil

With Thomas, Ray, and William we are given an entry point to the story so we can enjoy it on a much deeper level and actually connect with all the characters. They all suffer from flaws and deal with deep emotional conflict; Love, family, selfishness, revenge, contentment, envy. Death has weight and consequence in Call of Juarez 2, something sorely lacking from Kane and Lynch 2.

There are plenty of games and movies that play up the angle of being a bad guy. Some succeed and some, like Kane and Lynch, fall terribly short. You won't leave this game feeling like a badass, heck, you won't even feel entertained. No, it's much more likely you'll just leave Kane and Lynch 2 Dog Days feeling dirty, very, very, dirty.

Integrity for some, Money for others

I have three other articles waiting in the wings, but I had to get this out.

I visit several sites to keep up with the games industry, one of the better known is IGN. They have an amusing cast of characters that review all platforms though they tend to have a bias, I won't say for what though. I use IGN only as a means to get hard news and to get a taste of what people are saying bout games. Their reviews are… alright generally, but I would never go on that site's opinion alone. Previews and Rewind Theater are where they really shine.

That said I have found another editor to cross off my list of credible writers on that site. Here's looking at you Michael Thompson . To understand my current distain I have to take you all the way back to the year 2007, and the debut of a little game called Kane and Lynch. The Editorial Director of Gamespot.com Jeff Gerstmann gave a less than shining review to the game. Well Eidos wasn't to happy with that, as they were currently paying money hand over fist to Gamespot for advertising, and Jeff was fired. Of course Gamespot would later refute the claims that his termination was related to the review and offer other reasons as to why he was fired, but it was laden with the stench of corporate BS.

Flash forward to 2010, we have a black president, Justin Beiber is the new hot thing, and Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days just burst onto the scene… to reviews ranging from average to abismal. People did not like this game, it was over stylized, short (> 4 hours), and had buggy mechanics. This game was set to drift into the discount bin, hopefully abolish all chances of a sequel, and be forgotten. That's what I thought, until I logged on to IGN this morning.

Edgy right?... Right?

There was an article posted on the front page (You can read it here, though I suggest you don't waste your time: http://ps3.ign.com/articles/112/1123230p1.html ). The article was written by one Michael Thompson, though to be fair the bulk of it was just the words of Karsten Lund, Creative Director at IO interactive. It boils down to this, Karsten is defending his games against the bad reviews by saying that he didn't fail, it was just that no one got it. I have some bad news for you Karsten. If no one understood your point it is because you failed. Ouch, I know. If you are trying to get a point across or deliver something, anything, and your audience is left scratching their heads it is because you did a poor job in translating the message you wanted to deliver. Don't blame it on your audience.

The article is clearly an attempt to drive of sales of the dismal game, and I'm not surprised to see it on IGN with all the banners and full page ads they had for Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days. Need more proof, IGN has never done this before. They have never given a developer a rebuttal against reviews as a whole. As far as I see it, the game is already the defense of IO's credibility as a developer, and their defense wasn't up to par.

Your defense is supposed to speak for you, so when it doesn't do that you have done something wrong, not the public, not credible professional reviews, but you the developer. Even Shia Lebouf had the doodledingers to admit a lot of the crappiness of Transformers 2 and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was on his shoulders. He didn't go out whining about how the movie going audience didn't connect with his character because they didn't get what he was going for, or that his performance was revolutionary and simply beyond the average mind to comprehend.

I played the demo of Kane and Lynch 2 and I thought, "eh, it's alright." The visual style was unique but it was so much style over substance. That and the game play mechanics (ya know, cause its a game that you play) just weren't very good. I had an easier time with Dark Void, which got pretty dismal reviews as well. Honestly I bet I could pick up Kane and Lynch 2 and have an ok time for an afternoon, but to read this article… to talk about this game like it's an evil-ish-anti-hero-kill-fest Citizen Kane. No. No. No. Go back to writing reviews of Halo games please.

Also, don't say it's an acquired taste and then present that taste as being intellectual. I once saw a video on the news of a man that ate only expired rotten food, seriously, his body was acclimated to it. Guess what he said: "It's an acquired taste" why? because it tastes like crap. Just because you get used to something doesn't make it good. Remember that IO.

Your defense has failed, court is adjourned.