KANE & LYNCH: DEAD MEN - HAND’S ON

First Drake’s and now Kane & Lynch - Chris Burke has been getting all the good jobs recently. Here he is with his thoughts on K&L.

Eidos’s anticipated third-person shooter is on its way, and ThreeSpeech is lucky enough to have been playing it on PS3 to the exclusion of things like family, social life and work. You play primarily as Kane, a hard-case ex-Merc and trained killer who’s managed to upset his former bosses, an enigmatic bunch called ‘The Seven’, by stealing some loot from them. Now they’ve sprung him from prison and they’re holding his wife and daughter hostage until he recovers it. To keep an eye on him, The Seven have assigned Lynch, a man on some serious medication to keep him from going totally psycho – which he does quite a lot, with murderous consequences.

The first level involves Kane being busted, along with Lynch, from a prison van, and having to shoot it out alongside the heavily-armed mob that have sprung him. It’s a tense and chaotic shoot-out with the cops, climaxing at a donut shop, that sets the pace for the rest of the game. From there, after a cut-scene with The Seven and an introduction to your minder, Lynch, you’re into a deserted shopping mall for a bit of tutorial time.

Combat is straightforward, right and left triggers to aim/shoot, with some handy melee tricks, and grenades. You can make use of cover, of course, and blind-fire or take more time to aim from cover. You’re going to be in a good many shoot-outs with multiple enemies, so it’s good practice. Health can be recovered by getting behind cover and waiting until your screen stops being red. If you should die, however, Lynch or occasional other team members will try to reach you and give you a shot of adrenaline to revive you. You can only do this once per shoot-out, however, or you’ll OD and have a heart-attack.

Kane’s next task is to rob a safety deposit box in a bank where he believes the loot is stashed. Naturally, the robbery goes wrong, providing the opportunity for a hostage situation and shoot-out with the cops that’s like playing all your favourite heist movies. It’s Dog Day Afternoon, Reservoir Dogs and Heat all rolled into one, an intense, action-packed chapter as the cops attempt to storm the bank. You have to cover all windows, throw back smoke grenades etc as Lynch goes nut-nut and starts shooting the hostages. At this point, handily, you’ve got another bank robber on your side, the safe-cracker, and you have to watch his back too. He’s also on hand with an adrenaline shot should you need it.

Once Kane and Lynch are out of that sticky situation, via a car chase where you and Lynch are shooting the pursuing cops from the back of a getaway van, you’re bound for Tokyo and a nightclub run by a former girlfriend of Kane’s. Still chasing the elusive loot you need to trade for Kane’s family’s lives, the desperate duo must now kidnap her to trade with her gangster dad. And this sets up what must surely be one of the best videogame sequences of all time.

Having knocked out Yoko, the club owner, Lynch has to carry her out of the busy nightclub while you, as Kane have to take care of the heavily armed security that are on high-alert around the club. The club is busy, full of punters happily dancing to pounding techno. It’s dark in there, of course, and your way is half-lit by strobing disco lights. The bouncers are carrying torches, so can be spotted pushing their way through the crowd towards you. Once they’re on you, they’ll start shooting Lynch first, so you have to stay close and protect him and Yoko. And this is where it gets really clever.

If you take down the bouncers using melee, or you’re accurate with your shots, the punters will be largely oblivious to what’s going on. However, if you fire into the crowd wildly, or deliberately target the punters, you’ll start a panic and everyone will stampede towards the door. There are several levels to the club, so it’s quite a feat to get to your escape point on the roof, but absolutely brilliant fun. And really that’s just the tip of the iceberg, the action doesn’t let up, and there’s plenty of hours of it to be had. It’s a pretty linear storyline, but you’ll have so much fun playing it you won’t mind.

The graphics throughout are lovely and the animations smooth, with a decent amount of background detail. The AI is impressive too, so you can’t simply work out your best way of tackling any level and stick to it, they will always respond differently, and quite cannily. The dynamic of the two main characters is an interesting one, too. Just when you think you’ve got things under control, Lynch may flip out and bring more heat down on you. It’s entertaining, original and the best third-person shooter on the PS3 so far. There’s online play promised for 4-8 players, too, where the aim is to steal as much money as possible from a bank and successfully make your getaway.

Kane & Lynch is out in time for Christmas, so get writing to Santa now.