Zero Punctuation: Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days

[Porecomesis]

Holy crap, I've never seen him review a game like this before. Even 'Too Human' and 'Sonic Unleashed' got off lighter than this! How could a game be THIS awful?

I do not understand how people think this a shitty game. it isnt great, but its not bad either. The storyline is simple, how is it in anyway confusing? Thats just bullshit.

"Derp, Chest high walls" I agree on this, but it seems like you're going for a quick laugh by making more chest-high walls puns.

There is an option to turn the shaky cam off you know, not that hard.

I liked this game, it was fun even though the gameplay seemed to linger-on for the longest time.

It's not the plot's coherence; it's the plot's logic. Let's rewind a bit. Instead of escorting Kane and Lynch via one car and hand cuffed, they are instead shipped away in a fleet of helicopters that'll chew up their fuel budget like no tomorrow.

Curious; why would the shaky camera be on by default? I know it makes sense because your vision wobbles when you're running, but this is a THIRD-PERSON shooter!

And how is it fun? Aren't there better games to be playing that are more fun than this? 'Gears of War'? 'Painkiller'? 'Bioshock'? 'Call of Duty 4'? 'Half-Life'? 'Dark Void'? 'inFAMOUS'?


By the way Yahtzee, if you wanna play a game that is not completely crap and you wanna blow off some steam and mellow out, I recommend '3D Dot Game Heroes', provided Europe actually decides to bring it here! Christ, we have Michael Atkinson complaining about everything related to gaming. How about not giving him anything to complain about, Europe?

 

[romxxii]

He hit all the major flaws of the game, except maybe for the silly mechanic of throwing the heroes protagonists villains wankers into relatively difficult shootouts from a cutscene only to restart from said cutscene if you fail to live up to the challenge, meaning you'll be forced to watch the same 30 seconds of Kane and Lynch's brain-hemorrhaging stupidity over and over again if you don't wise up. You could say that I've been playing at a difficulty level beyond my own chest-high-wall-shootarama skills, but I finished Mass Effect 2 several times on insane with very little effort, so that theory falls flatter than the jokes in this review.

For all of his critique's accuracy, there just wasn't enough funny. He doesn't go off into a rapid-fire vitriolic rant the way he did with Borderlands, the similes and metaphors were forced, and the visual puns were uninspired, if not entirely nonexistent.

Yahtzee, please don't go on holiday again, the stress relief hobbles your nerd rage. I was expecting so much more creative hate for K&L2D, especially since the double irony of enforced-shittiness-for-purposes-of-immersion conceit making the game suck even more than your average caveman-IQ cover-based shooter was such a comedic goldmine of possibilities.

 

[Jai Deliete]

I did forget to touch on the ridiculous story. Yahtzee covered the essentials, there, but there is also a long part that goes "There is some other girl, and I guess she's Kane's (Or Lynch's? I can't keep them straight) daughter, or his girlfriend, or his mail-order bride. Somehow K&L's kill-as-many-Chinese-as-possible, whoops-killed-a-girl-and-will-later-regret-it-in-hindsight day trip turns into Kane (Or Lynch) constantly whining about his girl and that she's not safe. Now spend FOREVER trying to get to her". The entire story is centered around (As Yahtzee said) staggering coincidences and worse-than-moronic character choices. And just how do two big white guys, one of them who's been living locally for some time, manage to keep such a low profile in Shanghai (I assume. Maybe it's somewhere else in China; doesn't matter) when they seamlessly transition from "Shooting up Chinese gang members real quick" to "Shooting every Chinese police officer that arrives on the scene"? They are constantly getting away (Usually over the bodies of every law enforcement officer and gang member within ten miles), and never have a plan beyond "Act surly and old, complain about your situation, and above all don't ever clear up the plot for the player in any way!"

At first i didnt like the story but when i started to just go with it i realized that is was brilliant. cant really explain why but it's the same thing as watching lost highway and try to explain that. Also the weaponhandling was really good the moment you realized that is isn't modern warfares shitty rodeospray but a quite good realistic recoil that pushes the gun upwards and needs to be constantly adjusted to hit something. Something new for most consolers i think ^^

The only shame is the game being so short and lacking in variation.

Yeah, great weapon handling in K&L2.

Except that shotguns are more accurate (And at longer range) than ANYTHING else, sniper rifles introduce a delay between shooting and the bullet reaching what you'd shot at (So you miss most of the time, thanks to enemies constantly twitching back behind cover), handguns are so weak that you sometimes have to empty an entire clip to permanently keep a enemy down (I'm not sure what bullets are made out of in this game. Rubber? Enemies climb to their feet after being shot until they fall down multiple times, leaving you constantly guessing as to if you really killed them or not), SMGs and rifles are woefully inaccurate (Almost equally, and SMGs pack less of a punch than handguns), and ammunition tends to be handled Halo-style -- i.e., you'll need to pick up a different gun before long.

So, yes, other than how completely ridiculous and counter-intuitive everything else about the shooting is, the recoil effect is decent (And not new at all).

 

[DiscoAtThePanic]

The only honest man in Game Reviewing, well him and Shamus. Its great to have reviewers that will call a turd a turd without worrying that Microsoft or EA or Activision might pull an add if they get off their knees. K&L 1 had horrible player reviews, despite their forcing the pros to praise it, and this one will be the same.

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

I laughed so hard at that review. Vintage Yahtzee at his best trashing a game from beginning to end, the best way to experience a Kane & Lynch game.

 

[city cider]

Still vomitting from the amount of Yahtzee cock sucking I read in the first 20 replies alone, but just posting here to say I'm thankful of everything he said in this review, I finally have something to cite when I express displeasure at my friends referring to Kane and Lynch as "gaming's most notorious". Fucking marketing.

 

[daxterx2005]

Yahtzee! what happened to dolphins!?!?!
I demand more dolphins!

 

[Ashsaver]

I wish the guys at other forum I'm also a member of,who are basically praise Kane & Lynch 2,watch this review.

I was like a blacksheep over there being the only person who hate K&N 2 guts.

 

[dragonmoony]

what a load of bull
this game was 999999x better than the previous game (K&L 1)
it was awesome, the characters were awesome and the whole camera recorded effect was awesome
very immersive.

yahtzee just sucks at "grown-up games"

 

[matt87_50]

can't wait for your review of DNF now! honestly, I look forward to it way more than the actual game.

 

[wooty]

I guess this kind of expalins why only 4 days after its release, I saw it in Gamestation with 50% off already. It must be really bad.

 

[GrizzlerBorno]

i love the awkward Duke nukem reference at the end.

 

[Jaranja]

You can tell when Yahtzee is simply being a prat for the sake of Zero Punctuation, and he was clearly legitimately ripping on this game. He's never been so openly mad at a video game as he is in this video.

Maybe, but the game acctually is bad.

I inferred that.

No, you implied that.

Actually, you'd have to really dig into my post to find any implication. I inferred the quality of the game from the actual ZP video, so I felt it was excessive to remind me that the game was in fact bad.

I thought, when you said "I inferred that.", that you meant in your original post, not in relation to the video.

My apologies.

 

[EchetusXe]

Marvellous.

 

[cefm]

"K&L sucks so many d*cks it now breathes spunk instead of air"

That's a memorable line. Will have to steal and use again.

 

[politbureau]

Well well. Another derisive rant against another shitty game using more expletives than a bingo hall has dentures. Shall I swoon now?

However while I heartily applaud your gritty Tristram Shandy-esque mockery, you have earned my ire in one area.

Ardbeg, sir, is not whisky. You know of what I speak. To label it such would be using the perjorative; perhaps you were ostensibly describing it for the drivel-headed viewers, to whom 'whiskey' is something to be drank in 1oz increments while under the effects of loud music and large-breasted women.

But I digress.

Good review though.

Toodle pip!

 

[cefm]

Can someone explain to me what happened with Gamespot and the first one? Were they bribing them for good reviews or something?

Apparently Jeff Gerstmann (a 10-year Gamespot veteran) was fired shortly after giving a highly accurate negative review of the first Kane & Lynch game (6/10 counts as negative, these days, I guess). Internal leaks indicate that the developer of the game (IO Interactive) had paid a large amount to GameSpot to make this one of the site's "sponsored" games. In a disappointing change from the way the site used to work, that now means not only does the game get advertising space, but it also is supposed to get positive reviews. So Jeff goes bye-bye. He still does reviews at Giantbomb.com

Some theorize that this wasn't just an individual firing but more sending a message to the rest of the wage-slaves at GameSpot that there was a new way of doing business.

The funny part is that the GameSpot review for the sequel also got panned for pretty much all the same reasons - and was lucky to get a 6.5.

 

[itf cho]

Well, wow... that certainly wasn't a ringing endorsement. Has he ever disliked a game more? Seriously, if there is a more negative review, give me the link. I'd love to watch it.

As for K&L... initially, I'd be tempted to say, darn... Kinda late to be reviewing this, isn't it? I mean the game has been out for how many weeks now? But since I haven't as yet purchased it, for which I'm quite grateful now, I guess he's done a solid since I have zero chance of ever buying it now. I was initially thinking this might be a decent buy once it goes on sale... But I saw another review about how the graphics were intentionally crap. Guess this one is a must-miss.