Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days Review

I'll start off by saying that my only experience I have with the first Kane and Lynch is playing the demo on PS3 over a decade ago. I mainly remember the voice acting, dialogue and music. I decided to jump straight into Dog Days since it's easier to obtain, much shorter and doesn't have a section that is as a bizarre bait and switch where it turns into a tactical shooter where you are in a war zone. With that said, the sequel is a fascinating game all though not because of it's geniune quality more so because of just how committed it is to looking, sounding and feeling much more quickly slapped together than the first game. If you ever wanted to play a game that has the has the feel of a straight to DVD low budget sequel to a middling first movie, K&L2 sure is a ride.

When talking and K&L2: Dog Days, the aspect of the game that is hard not to look past is the presentation. It is shown as a found footage movie as opposed to it's more lavish and extravagant predecessor. Where Dead Men has an excellently composed score by Jesper Kyd, the only track in Dog Days that anyone could recall is the series of Chinese pop songs that plays at the end credits. Dogs Days plot is more like a highlight reel than a journey where you go from point a to b to c. The plot is almost too incoherently presented to follow. The game has an ugly filter effect, shakey cam when the player is sprinting, narratively calls it's level load times "buffering", censored body parts whenever it gets "too violent" and at times can almost be too hard to see due to how dark it can be when partnered with the filter effects.

It's so committed to looking cheap and visually appalling that it almost gives K&L2 a unique identity all to it's own. This leads to some unintentional comedic moments. One note worthy example is when you are running around in the streets bloody naked gunning down dozens upon dozens of full body armored police officers. The story's bad presentation can almost make me laugh due to how poorly told and terribly executed the seemingly "emotional story beats" are. There's barely any screen time or character interactions given for Lynch's girlfriend for the player to get invested. Then there are other bizarre story beats like the titular characters getting caputured not once but twice. The second time adding nothing to the story and pads out the already short run time since said second capture just involves a pointless building shootout on a helicoptor and inside a building where a corrupt politician dies...and titular characters end up at an airport with barely any clue on they got there even though they are wanted men by this point in the story.

The player controls Kane towards the end of the game with no build up leading to a hollow payoff.

When you ignore all this, Dog Days is a by the numbers cover shooter of the era. However it has issues that some of those games avoid. For one, the only options for offensive is to duck behind cover, aim, shoot, get hit, wait for health to regen, rinse repeat. There is is no ability to throw grenades, all you get are generic hitscan weapons to thin out the waves, and not even human shields are effective since you move too slowly when dragging them and enemies have no problems riddling your hostage and by extension you with bullets.

There is some flanking options early game when an ally can lay down supressing fire and you can catch enemies by surprise similar to Army of Two. You also get a crouch button in this like you do the aforementioned Army of Two however a big problem is that due to how large the on screen enemy count is, the much weaker level design, lack of combat options outside of shoot and ducking and covering and waiting for health to regen. You can die to a few bullets even on easy mode.

The guns do sound punchy at least. 

What helps makes all this bearable is how frequent the checkpoints are and how short the levels seem to be. With that said, in spite of most of the levels taking around less than 20 minutes to finish, it can feel much longer due to the amount of time spent waiting for health to regen. It also doesn't help that sprinting leads to an obnoxious camera shake and getting up after getting knocked can lead to disorientation since the button used to get up is also used to take cover too.

Overall, there have been those who bashed Dog Days for being short but I argue the game being longer would just make it even more insufferable to play. Due to the game being short, it's one of those sub par if not outright "bad" games that is worth looking into. It has to be seen to be believed. It is by the numbers cover shooter but it is memorable for opposite reasons that the Uncharted games are. Where Uncharted has high production values with simple yet memorable characters interactions carrying it. K&L2 is an ugly mess of a game that almost feels like it is trying to mimick a cheaply made and quickly put together film production. Uncharted is the Yin to K&L2's Yang.