Kane & Lynch: Dead Men (Playstation 3, 2007)

I bought this game looking for a satisfying co-op experience with my friends (and in this case, my brothers), but it fell short, and most of our time was spent mocking it instead. The actual gameplay was thoroughly enjoyable once we got familiar with the controls and knew what to expect, but other issues constantly broke our immersion in the game. Surprisingly though, the problems covered by most of the other reviews were no problems at all with us here. Graphics lacked polish and looked lower-budget, but not only did they satisfy my brothers and I-- we liked them and the feel they gave. Guns have some spray to them, and it's such a pain to lean against (some) walls for cover that it isn't worth the effort to try, but these issues are easily compensated with either skill or creativity.

The only real issue we walked away from this game with was the story. The story that I was sold (and the reason why I bought the game) was that Kane and Lynch were two good-as-dead men that have no choice but to rely on each other to survive after they escape a prison fate. The story of the game winds up entirely focused on Kane's daughter, and has you do some ridiculously complicated things (story-wise, not difficulty-wise) for what seem like silly things. Don't get me wrong, you do some sweet stuff. You escape police, you rob a bank, you bust back into and back out of prison, you invade Cuba, you rush a jungle hideout Bond-style, and you get to shoot down planes and helicopters. All these things are really fun, but I never felt like there was any valid reason for doing any of them. I essentially abandoned the story line altogether and just tried to enjoy the new locations and outfits we got to kill in.

The main issue my brother had with the game was a lack of stats/a score. We finished the game (co-op all the way, took three days casual playing) and the first thing he did was search the game menus for some type of tracking system to see how he and I compared in terms of how well we both did. There isn't any such system, which really robs the game of its replay value and meaning in general.

I am happy that I had a chance to play this game through and experience some delightful scenarios (for example, a shootout in a night club with a panicked mob running in all directions and bad guys seeded throughout, wading our way to come take care of bidness), but it's not something I would pay full retail price for. I'll be keeping it for awhile just because I have no other multiplayer ps3 games to offer my real life friends, but aside from that: This game is a rental, through and through.

P.S.: on the multiplayer note... there is online play and there is LAN play, but split-screen is not supported here. The only place two people can play together split-screen in this game is the Campaign; LAN requires multiple playstations.