Hey Man, well this is Babylon

I tried playing a little more of Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, and it just further solidified my opinions on this game. I really like the game’s mechanics. I love third-person shooters, and I think the way that gameplay was implemented in K&L is perfect for the heist style of game. But goddamn, I hate both of the main characters in this game, and have absolutely no sympathy for them whatsoever. One is a mass murdering bank robber who misses his family (boo fucking hoo), the other is a mass murdering schizophrenic nutjob who is just misunderstood by everyone (boo fucking hoo), and neither of them have a single quality trait that makes them likeable. Seriously, designers, what the fuck were you thinking? Trying to cash in on the wave of lucrative immorality made popular by that terrible Grand Theft Auto franchise, is my guess.

I always try to personally gauge most games on four different areas of quallity, when applicable: Characters, Situation, Implementation, and Extended Play. Characters are important, because if I’m going to play the game for any period of time, I have to have some sympathy for the guys I’m playing, even if that “sympathy” can only be stated as “I like my spaceship because it looks cool.” The Situation, for me, is extremely important, because in order for me to stick with the game, the story and the approach to that story have to engage me. The Implementation includes the mechanics and layout and “HUD” and interface and character animations and such all merged into one classification. Extended Play, on the other hand, is more of a bonus feature for me. Having a reason to come back to a game is always good, and can help provide bonus points to my rating of the game, but is by no means necessary. I’m not the kind of person who usually re-reads books or re-watches movies, nor do I tend to find much time to re-play completed games.

The games I prefer the most are the ones in which I am in full control of a person, moving that person through a world, and following along with a story – preferrably a story that I can actually make an impact on, too. When the world/story/character is uninteresting, or my control over that character is unrealistic (goddamned turret controls!), or the story is a pile of turds, I can’t enjoy the game. Even if only one of these

Kane & Lynch, then, excels at the Implementation, but loses in Characters. Situation’s okay, as I enjoy heists, but the Characters are so terrible that they cloud even that. Not sure about Extended Play. The game has a co-op mode and a multiplayer heist mode, but I’ve not tried them out. They do sound a bit more appealing, though. If I knew anyone else who ownerd/played/enjoyed this game, I’d give it a try, but there’s no way in hell I’m going to try random matches with this game online.