In a world where it seems almost every modern-day shooter sticks you in our armed forces, tasked with attacking communists, Islamic ‘rogue’ states and generally anyone who speaks English with a bit of an odd accent, it’s deeply refreshing to play a game that doesn’t try and force any political sentiments down your throat. There’s no attempt to make out that either of the protagonists are saints, they kill for money after all and, while not sadistic, if you get in their way or pose a threat, they have no hesitation in pulling the trigger. Yet this isn’t some tale of knuckle-dragging gangster wannabes, either – Kane is a career criminal, the kind you see in slick Hollywood heist movies and while this second game takes a much more action-oriented, visceral path, it still retains that level of intelligence and directness that made the two charismatic anti-heroes in the first place.
This time around the game explores the gutters and back alleys of urban decay, juxtaposed against the backdrop of Shanghai’s skyscrapers and neon glow, weaving a dour, bloody story. There are some truly shocking moments and the developers don’t pull any punches when it comes to reflecting the brutality of the world these figures inhabit. This is made all the more effective by the game’s home video-style visuals that cover the screen with filters, ranging from simple colour-wash distortion, replicating the camera’s sensors being overloaded by bright lights, to sound cuts for particularly loud explosions and all kinds of muck collecting on the lens. The way that scenes of extreme violence, such as head-shots and dog maulings are mosaicked out lends the game a particularly uncomfortable, voyeuristic angle that is both striking and unnerving at the same time.
When you are taking damage this all gets ramped way up, with the colours de-saturated, blood drops smearing the screen and the camera shaking all over the place. It’s a very effective tool that lends a real griminess to the environments and makes the hectic fire-fights feel truly scary. This is helped no end by the high rate of damage the players take. If you miss an enemy and let them flank you, it’s game over. And thanks to the way that most cover is destructible to at least some extent, whilst generally failing to provide complete protection even when undamaged, players can’t get away with just ducking back behind a wall of concrete every time things get a little hairy. This is very much a title where if you over-extend yourself in the midst of a shootout just once the game will punish you for it.
The campaign is extremely short and an initial playthrough in single player mode will clock in at around three-and-a-half hours for most players on normal difficulty. Despite the superb storytelling and a few novel set pieces – such as navigating the penthouse floor of a half-destroyed skyscraper or sprinting across a train yard to reach a rapidly departing freight carriage – there’s no hiding the fact that the brevity of the game mixed with the cliff-hanger ending leave the player feeling somewhat short-changed. To get the true experience, however, it’s best to play the game in the on- or off-line, two-player, co-operative mode, with the difficulty cranked all the way up. Suddenly that street war you breezed through the first time around becomes a truly engaging and challenging, tactical problem. In combination with the visual techniques the developers have employed, this makes for one of the most hectic, immersive shooting experiences around. It’s just a shame that there really isn’t more of it.
On the competitive multiplayer front, Fragile Alliance has been tweaked for this second outing and has been joined by the team-based Cops and Robbers mode and an alternate version, titled Undercover Cop. While the single-player and co-operative elements of the game have come on leaps and bounds from the first, it’s fair to say that Fragile Alliance has suffered a significant regression, with many of the strategic layers that made the original so deep completely stripped out.
The setup is simple, a bunch crooks set out to pull a heist with AI-controlled cops trying to stop them. At any point players are able to kill their team-mates, thereby stealing their loot and ensuring that they don’t have to share their ill-gotten gains with any of the other players, who by default split the winnings equally. The twist in the tail is that any dead players get to return as the police to try and prevent the heist.
The core mechanics of this remain the same as its initial execution in the first game, but the problems with its implementation here are numerous. The game is now incredibly hostile towards traitors, they no longer respawn as cops when dying and, more importantly, the amount of loot you have acquired no longer acts like body armour. This was an integral element that forced a high degree of analysis and tension between players mid-match. Furthermore, when playing as the police, all officers now share any money they recover equally, removing yet another competitive angle from play.
When combined with the new 'yellow card' setup, which gives players who walk into your sights free reign to kill you without repercussion, you almost wonder if the developers actually intended anyone to make use of the traitor system. As a result play has become far more predictable and less dynamic, the points of viability for turning on your team members have been restricted to a few, limited moments and you’re left with an experience that lacks all the variety and tension of its initial outing. It still offers something unique and different to the rest of the market and it’s a testament to the core idea that it still manages to remain entertaining when played with small numbers of players, but when compared to the original incarnation it’s a much shallower version.
There’s a few other niggles, too: as player’s rank up they gain access to far superior weaponry, which remains locked for others, even in unranked play. The game also gets particularly laggy around the eight player mark and grabbing other players as hostages is a ridiculously easy way to take them down. The other main mode, Cops and Robbers, is fundamentally broken, with 90% of matches won by the first team to play as the criminals, as they will gain access to upgraded weaponry at the expense of the opposition, setting up a vicious cycle that lasts for several rounds.
Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days is a thrilling and exciting shooter, with a creative and innovative visual style, but one that is far too brief for the lone gamer. Adding a second person into the mix significantly extends the title’s lifetime but the competitive multiplayer is a dumbed-down disappointment, and gamers would be best served picking up the original if this is where their interest lies.