| Kane & Lynch: Dead Men | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | IO Interactive |
| Publisher(s) | Eidos Interactive |
| Composer(s) | Jesper Kyd |
| Engine | Glacier Engine with Havok physics |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows PlayStation 3 Xbox 360 |
| Release date(s) | NA November 13, 2007 EU November 23, 2007 AU December 6, 2007 JP July 10, 2008 |
| Genre(s) | Third-person shooter |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
| Rating(s) | |
| System requirements
Minimum System Requirements[1]:
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Kane & Lynch: Dead Men is a cooperative third-person shooter developed by IO Interactive and published by Eidos Interactive for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The mobile phone version was developed by Kiloo and published by Eidos Mobile. The game was received with average reviews, and spawned a sequel, Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days.
A film adaptation began pre-production in 2010.
Contents |
The game opens with a voiceover of Adam 'Kane' Marcus, reading a letter addressed to his daughter Jenny. Kane is traveling to death row after being convicted of manslaughter. Another death row inmate, James Seth Lynch, lets on there will be a breakout. Their truck is involved in a head-on collision by a group of mercenaries. The two are taken to a construction site, where they are confronted by four members of a gang of criminals called The7, led by The Brothers and their henchmen Carlos (a close friend of Kane) and Mute. They accuse Kane of stealing money from them, and reveal that they have taken his wife and daughter hostage. Kane is given three weeks to retrieve the money or his wife and daughter will be killed.
After the meeting with The7, police officers arrive and the two are forced to shoot their way out of the construction site. Later, Kane explains that he did not steal from The7, but knows who did, and where they hid it. Kane and Lynch rob a local bank where the money is being kept. Though only half of the money is inside the safe, Kane believes he knows where the other half is. Meanwhile, Lynch, who suffers from periodic episodes of violent psychosis, blacks out and kills all of the hostages after his medication wears off, forcing Kane and Lynch to shoot their way out and flee in a van driven by their getaway driver. Losing the police in the subway after the van crashes, Kane informs Lynch that they need to go to Tokyo to retrieve the other half of the money.
In Tokyo, the pair go after Retomoto, a Japanese crime lord, by kidnapping his daughter Yoko as ransom. While Kane negotiates with Retomoto over the phone, Lynch accidentally shoots and kills Yoko while trying to stop her from escaping. Kane, Lynch and The7's hired guns then proceed to escape from Retomoto's hitmen. Kane is furious with Lynch, but he soon realizes that they are out of time, and must return to The7 with only half of the stolen money.
Lynch reveals to Kane that he made a deal with The7 to ensure his survival as well as a position within The7, but he is betrayed and knocked unconscious at the construction site where Kane and his family are to be executed. Kane's plea for extra time is denied, as The Brothers and Carlos depart for Havana, leaving Mute to carry out the deed. Kane's wife expresses her disgust with Kane but is executed by Mute before he has a chance to speak to her as promised. Regaining consciousness, Lynch snaps and attacks his kidnappers while Kane beats Mute to death. Kane and Lynch then protect Kane's daughter Jenny from The7's reinforcements as she cries over her mother's body.
Kane buries his wife and decides to finish off The7 for the sake of his daughter's safety. Kane and Lynch free a group of "dead men" from prison: Rific, Thapa and Shelly. These men had been wronged by The7 and join the duo to get revenge, although Shelly expresses resentment at working with Lynch and suggests that he may have killed his own wife. Before flying to Havana, they return to Tokyo and kill Retomoto, reclaiming the briefcase of money to finance their war with The7. In Havana, Kane keeps everyone motivated with promises of payment as they track down The Brothers and Carlos. Kane informs Lynch that The7 profit from assisting factions in civil wars, with Havana supposedly the last job needed for their retirement. They find themselves caught up in an ongoing civil war, joining the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces and battling The7's forces trying to stage a coup d’état. They find Carlos, abandoned by The Brothers. Kane recruits him, and Thapa, no longer trusting Kane, abandons the mission as a result. The Dead Men then fight their way through the Venezuelan jungle, and locate The Brothers at their compound. Carlos volunteers to go on ahead and open the gates with an explosive, but is killed by The Brothers. Kane and Lynch discover over Carlos's radio that they have again captured Jenny, so they storm the compound and in the process kill the Elder Brother. However, the Younger Brother manages to escape with Jenny and attempts to take off in an airplane.
Kane and Lynch follow in a car and disable the plane's engines before killing the Younger Brother. Jenny then pulls a gun on Kane and blames him for her mother's death. Kane tells her that whether she hates him or not he will get her to safety. Kane is then given the choice of rescuing Rific and Shelly, who are pinned down by The7's mercenaries, or escaping in a helicopter with Jenny and leaving them to die.
If Kane boards the helicopter with Jenny and leaves Rific and Shelly to die, Jenny will resent her father for leaving his men and tell him that she hates him. As they are escaping in the helicopter, Lynch, on the ground, says to himself, "I fucking knew it, from the first second I fucking knew it."
In the alternate ending chapter, Kane chooses to rescue Rific and Shelly, who are trapped in a burning church towering over a village. Kane and Lynch are too late to save Rific, but Shelly is still alive. He feels betrayed despite the rescue attempt. As they escape to the pier, Jenny is shot, and Kane carries her body along. Shelly loses his patience and attempts to escape on one of the boats alone but is killed by shrapnel from an exploding boat. Lynch is shot as he escapes on a undamaged boat with Kane, while Jenny's status is still unknown. The boat drifts slowly with the river, while Kane holds Jenny and whispers to her about the letter he tried to send her.
In campaign mode the player controls Kane. The player is accompanied by Lynch, and sometimes other hired mercenaries. Co-op mode is available, in which the second player controls Lynch. Though almost identical to Kane's style of gameplay, Lynch has short bursts of aggression in which he hallucinates nearly all AI characters are police, some sporting an animal's head. Lynch carries a shotgun and a revolver as side arm, while Kane carries an assault rifle and standard pistol, though it is possible to swap weapons. Additional weapons such as grenades, sniper rifles and carbines can be picked up, which can be swapped between allies. The player can take cover by standing next to a wall, and can blindfire. While having hired mercenaries, the player can issue orders such as follow, move to a specific position, or attack.
Fragile Alliance is the game's online multiplayer mode, which consists of four maps: Hot Coffee, Late Night Opening, Withdrawal and A Walk In The Park. A free-to-download map pack released on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live provides four additional maps. The goal is to finish a several round match with the most money. Each round begins with all of the players as armed, balaclava-clad robbers, and players who have reached TrueSkill rank 50 and 30 will play as Kane and Lynch, respectively. Money can be used to buy better firearms and armor. Resistance is met in the form of armed AI controlled security guards and/or police officers. A player's money acts as a shield, but will quickly be dropped on the ground as the player is injured. To escape the level, a player must survive to meet a getaway vehicle. All players who survive without turning on their allies will split stolen money evenly.
A player's appearance in the game is influenced by their TrueSkill rank on the Xbox 360. Unlike Kane and Lynch's campaign mode, players cannot sprint. If a player feels they have taken enough money to become a target for potential traitors, they can drop some of their money, becoming less of a scoring threat.
For the development of Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, Jesper Kyd was brought in to write the musical score for the game, having written scores for the Hitman series and Freedom Fighters. The single player was originally going to have online co-op[2] but was dropped at the last minute and limited to offline, due to time restrictions and difficulty. The game was originally going to revolve around Kane, with Lynch acting as a sidekick. But as the development went on, they decided to include Lynch in the story.[3] Martin Guldbaek, the art director for the game, said that for creating each of the locations, the team went to Los Angeles for photographs. They combined this with concept artwork to create "locations that matched the character's mood and perspective."[4] Anders Poulsen was the lead character artist. According to him, he wanted to make characters "like no other." Kane was the first character to be designed, but was very different from his final appearance. When Lynch was brought in, it added more "life" to Kane's character.[4]
The game went gold on October 31, 2007, making the release date a full 10 days earlier.[5]
Kane is voiced by Brian Bloom and Lynch is voiced by Jarion Monroe.
Downloadable content was made available for Kane & Lynch on April 17, 2008, entitled "The Dope Bag". This contained four new maps: Clean Cut, Hooker’s Trail, Flying High and Hasta La Vista, plus adding 250 Gamerscore for the Xbox 360 version bringing the total to 1250.[6]
The Kane & Lynch: Dead Men Original Soundtrack was composed, arranged and produced by Jesper Kyd and released on November 23, 2007. There are currently no intentions to release the soundtrack for sale, however, the special edition of Kane & Lynch: Dead Men contains a bonus disc with six tracks.[7]
| Track listing | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No. | Title | Length | |||||||
| 1. | "Kane's Family Portrait" | ||||||||
| 2. | "RetoMoto Death Squad" | ||||||||
| 3. | "Subway Fight" | ||||||||
| 4. | "Lynch Breaks Down" | ||||||||
| 5. | "Mall Fight" | ||||||||
| 6. | "Training Ambience" | ||||||||
The mobile shooter runs players through 38 levels across five different scenarios, such as a bank or nightclub mission. Player control one of the men while the other follows, offering cover and support.[8]
| Reception | |
|---|---|
| Aggregate scores | |
| Aggregator | Score |
| GameRankings | (PC) 67.95%[9] (X360) 66.87%[10] (PS3) 66.26%[11] |
| Metacritic | (PC) 67/100[12] (X360) 65/100[13] (PS3) 64/100[14] |
| Review scores | |
| Publication | Score |
| GameSpot | 6.0/10[15] |
| GameTrailers | 8.0/10[16] |
| NTSC-uk | 3/10[17] |
| PC PowerPlay | 8/10[18] |
Kane & Lynch: Dead Men received mostly mixed reviews. Aggregating review websites GameRankings and Metacritic gave the PC version 67.95% and 67/100,[9][12] the Xbox 360 version 66.87% and 65/100[10][13] and the PlayStation 3 version 66.26% and 64/100.[11][14]
Game Trailers awarded the game an 8.0/10,[16] stating that although there are some flaws, the package as a whole made it "easy to recommend." On the other end of the scale, NTSC-uk gave it 3/10, calling it "a sickly mess of a game with the multitude of negatives undermining every positive."[17]
The Australian magazine PC PowerPlay gave the PC version an 8/10, citing "great dialogue", "impressive locations" and "satisfying action" as highlights, while criticising its length and the final act of the game, suggesting it "loses ambition" compared to the earlier parts of the game which "[took] some pages out of Mann's notebook."[18]
A 6/10 score by GameSpot was rumored to be responsible for the firing of editor Jeff Gerstmann.[15] The controversy arose due to heavy and diverse advertisement of the game on the site, leading to suspicion that Eidos Interactive had a lot of influence over Gamespot with ad revenue. Advertisement included the site visitors being able to mix trailers, pick a variation of Kane & Lynch style theme, and typical flash-based ads. GameSpot denied that Eidos influenced the firing of Gerstmann.[15][19]
Eidos announced a sequel,[20][21] titled Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days. It was released in August 2010 on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.[22]
A film adaptation is in the works from Lionsgate.[23] The script was written by Kyle Ward. Bruce Willis has signed on for the film as the role of Kane and Jamie Foxx recently signed up for the role of Lynch.[24][25]
In May 2010, IO Interactive announced a deal that would see a comic version of Kane & Lynch published under the DC Comics imprint WildStorm.[26] The storyline is "not for the faint-hearted" and will explore the duo's criminal past, written by Ian Edginton and illustrated by Chris Mitten, with cover art by Ben Templesmith.
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