Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days

[Roderick]

Kane & Lynch: Dead Men was the worst game I've ever felt compelled to love. Especially the second half was a huge letdown both in tone and gameplay. So I'm really pleased that they're trying again with a sequel. I hope the gameplay'll be far smoother, less annoying, and the focus will be more on cool heisting action and less on... guerrilla warfare crap.

But man am I digging the new style they're going for. That filthy, grimy handicam stuff, like the whole thing is filmed by a $50 camcorder handled by a guy who's just running along, or footage from some sleazy news station censoring nudity. Superb. Even the boxart features video artifacts and pixelation.

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/welcome-to-kane-lynch/64423

[Murdoc]

Presentation and marketing so far has been top notch, almost worthy of giving the sequel a chance. But something about IO's games don't ever seem to gel with me. Hitman 1 was awesome and it's sort of been leveled off or went downhill since then... at least to me.

[Quanta]

The pc version of the first was a mess. I rent it from a video store and wasn't able to play past the bank lobby scene due to a programming error. The game crashed at the exact same spot with a C++ unhandled exception error every single time I tried. As far as I know they've never released a patch to fix this issue.

[Jaraknarn]

All i want to know is if the 'florence and the machine' song is gonna be the theme music, maybe a jazz noir remake that floats in over old gramophone speakers

[brkl]

  Quanta said:

The pc version of the first was a mess. I rent it from a video store and wasn't able to play past the bank lobby scene due to a programming error. The game crashed at the exact same spot with a C++ unhandled exception error every single time I tried. As far as I know they've never released a patch to fix this issue.

Must have been a rare bug or something. Odd one, I didn't have it.

[Erkki]

  Murdoc said:

Hitman 1 was awesome and it's sort of been leveled off or went downhill since then... at least to me.

I wouldn't say so. I enjoyed the second one the most, but Blood Money is maybe even better in some respects. I don't remember what exactly was wrong with the first game, but for me and many others, the gameplay just wasn't as smooth.

[brkl]

  Erkki said:

I wouldn't say so. I enjoyed the second one the most, but Blood Money is maybe even better in some respects. I don't remember what exactly was wrong with the first game, but for me and many others, the gameplay just wasn't as smooth.

Whaaaat. Blood Money is easily the best Hitman game. It's the only one that isn't bogged down by really terrible maps or other concerns. God I want more Hitman.

[Erkki]

  brkl said:

Whaaaat. Blood Money is easily the best Hitman game. It's the only one that isn't bogged down by really terrible maps or other concerns. God I want more Hitman.

The overall quality of missions is the best in Blood Money, but I personally liked a few Silent Assassin maps more (but it also had some boring ones).

[Murdoc]

  Erkki said:

The overall quality of missions is the best in Blood Money, but I personally liked a few Silent Assassin maps more (but it also had some boring ones).

Don't get me wrong, Blood Money is cool, but Silent Assassin just felt a little more open world simulation or something. The plot/missions weren't the best and the controls a bit rough; but it was their first game so many I am a little more forgiving.

I dunno, just something about the map structure and the loose narrative seemed a little more interesting to me.

And the physics/etc at the time were incredible for it; where as it wasn't so ground breaking in their other titles.

[Erkki]

  Murdoc said:

Don't get me wrong, Blood Money is cool, but Silent Assassin just felt a little more open world simulation or something. The plot/missions weren't the best and the controls a bit rough; but it was their first game so many I am a little more forgiving.

I dunno, just something about the map structure and the loose narrative seemed a little more interesting to me.

And the physics/etc at the time were incredible for it; where as it wasn't so ground breaking in their other titles.

Wait, are you talking about Silent Assassin (Hitman 2) or Hitman: Codename 47 (Hitman 1)?

[Murdoc]

  Erkki said:

Wait, are you talking about Silent Assassin (Hitman 2) or Hitman: Codename 47 (Hitman 1)?

I don't know anymore, for some reason I thought hitman 1 was silent assassin, lol.

I think I mean hitman 1, but my memory has probably merged both those games into one that I really liked.

[Grippage]

So...are you playing as the cameraman?

[brkl]

  Murdoc said:

I don't know anymore, for some reason I thought hitman 1 was silent assassin, lol.

I think I mean hitman 1, but my memory has probably merged both those games into one that I really liked.

They're pretty different. Different engine, different gameplay. One has an iMUSE like music system, the other orchestral music. In Hitman 1, if you are wearing a disguise and your gun is holstered, you can muck about and run into people as much as you want. It doesn't care you well you do missions -- perhaps you just killed everyone on the map. Good enough.

It did have a lovely, unique atmosphere, but it just wasn't ready yet.

[Murdoc]

  brkl said:

They're pretty different. Different engine, different gameplay. One has an iMUSE like music system, the other orchestral music. In Hitman 1, if you are wearing a disguise and your gun is holstered, you can muck about and run into people as much as you want. It doesn't care you well you do missions -- perhaps you just killed everyone on the map. Good enough.

It did have a lovely, unique atmosphere, but it just wasn't ready yet.

They probably were, but that was also ten years ago and while I remember specific incidents they two games have blended together for me, so I can't say which one I liked more. But from what I remember I did like Hitman 1 more, but that could just be because I remember my initial reaction more to something different.

[Grippage]

I played through Blood Money twice. It's ridiculous that you can't return to a saved game, but other than that it's a really good game.

The sad thing is that the sniper rifle is pretty much useless. For instance, in the hillbilly swamp wedding (one of the coolest level ideas btw) you can shoot the bride/groom/whatever from the second floor. But instead of disarray, the guards know where you are instantaneously.

Also, it's selling point is that you can execute people in dozens of ways. But in reality, there are very few that you can use and still maintain a level of immersion.

Hitman 5 is coming up, but an announced 2010 release paired with absolutely no details makes it hard to believe it's gonna be worthwhile. It doesn't even have a wikipedia entry.

[brkl]

So why do you think it's coming up? I haven't heard anything about it and IO are doing Kane & Lynch 2 now.

[Quanta]

  Grippage said:

The sad thing is that the sniper rifle is pretty much useless. For instance, in the hillbilly swamp wedding (one of the coolest level ideas btw) you can shoot the bride/groom/whatever from the second floor. But instead of disarray, the guards know where you are instantaneously.

You can indeed shoot the groom with the sniper rifle from the roof of the glasshouse without beeing detected. But you have to sync your shot with the shots beeing fired by the wedding guests.

If you're beeing unmasked nonetheless, you're making some other mistake (wrong disguise or suspicious behaviour).

[Grippage]

FFFFUUUUUUUU enow I have to play through it a third time! Thanks Quanta!

  brkl said:

So why do you think it's coming up? I haven't heard anything about it and IO are doing Kane & Lynch 2 now.

This which links to this

Maybe they scrapped it, that article is pretty old. But I think Hitman 5 is inevitable.

This reminds me of the also-announced Commandos sequel by Pyro Studios. They've also been busy making that film, Planet 51.

[bd_monkey]

man that game was good, at first. but all of the endings where so harsh. they both made me feel like an ass

[Günter]

That's pretty awesome. Judging by the trailer the sound design has some real kick to it which, oddly enough, isn't something you hear in action games most of the time. It funny that the first Kane & Lynch was a just a mediocre game that I passed right by without a second thought, and now the sequel has me really interested. I hope they get this right; grim, brutal crime dramas are the kind of narrative I love, but haven't ever seen done well in a video game.

On the subject of theme songs, the tone of the game reminds me of some of Aesop Rock's grimmer

.

[Murdoc]

  Günter said:

That's pretty awesome. Judging by the trailer the sound design has some real kick to it which, oddly enough, isn't something you hear in action games most of the time

Blood Money had some of the best gun sounds and hit sounds on objects I've really ever noticed in a game. Hitman series was usually good for that, but that lobby room with the shooting gallery to hear all the guns and different surfaces hit was pretty amazing.

[Roderick]

I played the K&L2 demo and posted my thoughts here in the rant underneath the comic: http://www.captainaugust.com/them-again

[brkl]

Yeah, Kane & Lynch 2 looks like it could be really good. The aesthetic works and makes combat feel really chaotic. Plus it has local co-op which is most awesome.

[Murdoc]

  Rodi said:

I played the K&L2 demo and posted my thoughts here in the rant underneath the comic: http://www.captainaugust.com/them-again

You metioned theconros were tighter; but what specifically? Movement, aiming, cover?

And by tighter is it now accepable or awesome? Because thats really my main hang up with most IO games, it's not fun to move or shoot.

[Roderick]

Tighter means in this case that it actually appears that when you shoot a guy in the face, it hits instead of... randomly not hitting, as would happen in the first game. Cover seems sturdier too.

But the demo was so short (and admittedly chaotic too, which was one of its draws) that I don't dare formulate anything on how the gameplay will be.