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Review: Kane & Lynch: Dead Men - Xbox 360

by Steven Williamson on 4 December 2007, 15:14

Tags: Kayne & Lynch: Dead Men, Eidos (TYO:9684), Xbox 360, Action/Adventure

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qakl7

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Violent heists

It then materialises that these mercenaries are from a group called The 7, who in fact are former associates of Kane and have been hunting for him since he left them for dead during a heist in Venezuela, where he took off with a fortune worth of diamonds. The 7 are obviously angry at Kane’s betrayal and are intent on regaining the fortune. Wife-killer Lynch has been put in charge of working with Kane for the duration of the mission and in return he’ll be offered a place working for the mercenaries. Kane’s job is simple. He owes The 7 money and in return for getting back the fortune, the mercenary group will spare the lives of his family.

From this point forth, the flawed mercenary Kane and the medicated psychopath Lynch head off on a number of violent heist missions, smashing into bank vaults, kidnapping a business man’s daughter, taking part in high speed car chases and generally causing as much carnage and pain to anyone who stands in the way of the loot.

Kane & Lynch: Dead Men is a story-driven third person shooter and whilst the gameplay follows the same vein as 101 other shooters, with a standard array of weapons on offer (snipers, pistols, shotguns, machine guns, smoke grenades etc), each chapter in the game builds on the last, there’s some decent voice acting and the gameplay never deviates from the story-line. This means that the game does flows in tandem with the story and everything you do and every situation you find yourself in has a real sense of purpose.

Click for larger image




Click for larger image


The subject matter is undoubtedly the game’s biggest strength and the scenarios you find yourself in and the environments in which you do battle are typical of many action movies of the same ilk. Although you’ve seen it all a million times before there are some decent locations for the shootouts, such as a night-club, busy streets with plenty of cars to take cover, and even a riot inside a prison. The developers have done a good job at bringing the locations to life, with crowds of people running for cover, but the semi-destructible environment also plays its part in creating an authentic environment.

So, the subject matter is good, the storyline is good and the scenarios are interesting, sadly though the good news doesn’t filter over to the gameplay and what starts off as a game full of promise becomes a frustrating battle against a poor control system.