Kane and Lynch - First Impressions

Finally Kane and Lynch finished downloading from Steam!

I am having a lazy day today and thought that after playing some Viva Pinata and before starting some Gears of War I would give the game that was at the heart of the Jeff Gerstmann scandal a quick whirl.

And boy do I mean a quick one! I probably played for five minutes tops before I closed it, I know that I am not qualified to give a detailed opinion on a game after only five minutes gameplay, but I want to express my thoughts.

It sucked!

The background video that was shown before getting into the game proper explained nothing, it looked like you were in prison and writing to your daughter...that was all I could get from it. Now normally in a game where it gives you some backplot before you start playing you will get more than that. I would've expected to see a few flashbacks as to why you are in prison etc. That into immediately put me off.

Then I got to start the game...and we have difficulty levels based around types of drugs. C'mon, seriously what is up with that? I know there is getting involved in the game, but at least make them more recognizable with the usual 'easy/medium/hard' difficulty levels.

So we get the first game video after starting the game, somehow you get busted out of a prison van by Lynch's henchmen, all ok...a bit too reminiscent of GTA3 for my liking but I could deal with it. Next thing we know we are outside and having our handcuffs taken off. I mean shot off. With a shotgun....honestly how the fuck can that work? Your hands are going to be blown off if the handcuffs get shot by a freakin SHOTGUN!

While that was happening you don't see anything happening in the background, but when you get to gameplay the whole are is full of cops and 'bad guys'...did they all magically appear while your hands were being shot to smithereens?

Next thing and we are in control of the character...(bear in mind I am using a 360 controller here on the PC) and everything is very blurry and slow. The police van was crashed so I can kinda understand that, but even so the controls are awkward. And the camera is utter shite! It was a camera I expect to have in a platformer not a bloody 3rd Person Shooter! Had a hell of a time getting it under control and figuring out where to go.

Then I get to the alley where Lynch pulls your character down...in a cutscene...no logic as to why we need a cutscene for that...and then you are magically out of your daze trying to kill Lynch and back-chatting a goon who comes up to. This results in a friendly gun butt to the face. When you get up then you are fine...that hit to the face did nothing to apparently effect anything you do and the effects of the crash have disappeared. Utter shit all sense there.

For the next few minutes I struggled with movement/camera etc. issues until I got fed up with it and quit.

Other impressions - the graphics are Hitman: Blood Money levels, thought there would have been a good improvement since then, and the sounds didn't really seem to be up to much either.

Five minutes of playing Kane and Lynch...and it all was shit!

Time to get back to Gears of War!