Game Overview
Kane and Lynch - Dead Men is a story driven, fully co-operative third person action shooter title, with intuitive crew mechanics, heavily populated destructible real world scenarios, a volatile partnership and brutal attitude. This dark tale of hate, loss and revenge, brings a cinematic look, violent action and slick hard edged gameplay to your console as players take control of both Kane and Lynch.

In single player you play the part of Kane, a very tough gangster who won't think twice about hitting you round the head with a shovel and definitely won't flinch when he pulls the trigger of a pistol. His "sidekick" is Lynch, not to indifferent from Kane but slightly nuts. Has occasional black outs where he can't remember things he does which leads him to doing some crazy things throughout the game and needs Kane nearby to keep him in order. The story line is all about revenge, a mob by the name of The7 break Kane and Lynch out of prison, Kane has a special job to do for The7 and if he doesn't comply then his family will be killed. You get the idea.

Lynch is along for the ride, although as you play through the game more and more unfolds about your crooked and twisted partner, some of which you really could have done without knowing. You seem to always be shouting at him, or arguing with him for no reason which adds a nice level of tension to the game and keeps the game lively when you are playing out some of the less interesting parts to the game.

Kane and Lynch Dead Men at times boasts some incredible high definition graphics that put the majority of next gen titles to shame, at times almost looking real, but for some unkown reason other times, the graphics take a big hit and become very washed out and last gen with the characters faces looking very faded and "generic" and the scenery going very old skool, in particular in the first level by the Donut shop when a plane comes in to land not only does it look very shoddy but just as it is about to touch down it disappears into thin air!

The controls can be a little fiddly and can result in you getting wiped out a few times as you frantically try and remember what button does what. You are able to give guns to members of your team, you are able to throw grenades, melee attack, run, check objectives, aim, tell your team where to run too as well as telling them to follow you (GRAW style) except everything feels a little loose and tacked on. To be honest it could probably have done without having the gun sharing option and the "send your team" option as it is very rarely used throughout the game and would make life a little less complicated at times as policemen and Chinese troops descend on your position throwing everything at you including the kitchen sink.

The AI leaves a lot to be desired, you'll try to be stealthy and be as quiet as possible but somehow a guard absolutely miles away will hear you and come running, that will alert other guards and all of a sudden you have World War 3 on your hands. On the flip side to this though sometimes you'll fire a shot and kill a guard, yet the rest of them seem to just stand about like lemons not doing anything. Very strange!

The gameplay is very varied, sometimes it's tricky and requires a few attempts other levels it's a walk in the park and you'll breeze through, bit of a shame to not have a consistantly tricky game that would create a bit of a challenge, the lack of an end of game boss is possibly the biggest disapointment of the game as there was huge potential for big twist and a difficult boss but neither of these materialise and the game just comes to a rather boring ending.

The game occasionally does make very good use of the power of next gen consoles to cram as many people on screen as physically possible, a good example of this can be seen on the Nightclub mission where there are literally hundreds of people dancing all over the place and you have to wade straight through them all. A gunshot goes off as you kill a guard and all hell breaks loose. This is very impressive indeed! Probably the best thing about the game along with the very cinematic story line.

It's a bit short and in truth by the end of the game we were just getting in to it and were hooked by the story line, luckily though you then have the co-op missions to complete so it's not all lost once you have finished. There isn't a great deal of replay ability in single player but co-op is extremely good fun and definitely worth playing if you and a mate are looking for something to do.

Our Conclusions
Kane and Lynch offers up some hefty gun fights and a very well thought out story line which makes playing the game almost like watching a movie. Don't let the kids play this one as there is a huge amount of swearing (more than we remember seeing in any other game) and a fair bit of blood............if that is how you like your gaming then Kane and Lynch is right up your street. It's no groundbreaking achievement and in all fairness should have been a lot better, but it should help you if you have a third person shooter craving.

Overall Score: 7/10

Thanks to Nick and Kazzoo and Eidos