Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days Review
Short Version: Its amazing how little effort went into this sequel to the notorious and mediocre Kane & Lynch: Dead Men. A unique visual style cannot mask a boring, aimless, and insultingly short story (4-5 hours) that has one of the worst endings in recent memory. The best part of the game is still the fragile alliance multiplayer mode but even that is just a carry over from the original game back in 2007. This game is just plain Lazy and doesn’t care in the slightest to offer anything new or even interesting.
What you’ll Like:
• The hand-held digital camera style visuals lend to a unique realism.
• There’s lots of shooting if your a fan of constant shootouts without any breaks or story bits.
• Best Part: Undercover Cop and Fragile Alliance multiplayer modes (both nearly the same thing).
What you’ll Hate:
• Insultingly short game length at 4-5 hours.
• An ending that makes the whole story feel pointless – probably setting up some DLC B.S.
• Why are shotguns better than any other type of weapon? No grenades?
• Boring drab locations that feel nearly the same the entire game.
• Stiff and plastic looking character models with average graphics made worse by intentional video artifacts.
• Some serious opportunities were passed up by not exploring Lynch’s Psychotic tendencies as a unique game mechanic.
• Worst Part: Realizing that naked over weight men running through the streets is the “unique feature” of this game as opposed to a full weapon customization or more varied mission types.
Final Verdict:
3/10
Terrible!
- Related Posts:
-
Good Dev, Bad Dev #1
May 22, 2013
-
Xbox One Reveal: Angry Rant
May 21, 2013
-
Metro: Last Light Angry Review
May 17, 2013
-
Guns Of Icarus TGS Battle Royale!
May 11, 2013
Gaming Comics
Good Dev, Bad Dev #1
Glue
Unjust Battles
The Confessionist
Fight the Biscuit!
Recent Reviews
- Metro: Last Light Angry Review
May 17, 2013 
Star Command iOS Angry Review
May 6, 2013
Star Trek The Game Angry Review
April 30, 2013
Injustice Angry Review
April 19, 2013
Defiance Angry Review
April 12, 2013
Partners
144 thoughts on “Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days Review”
“Now, we have the excellent Giant Bomb. That really blew up in their face!”
Please don’t use puns.
IGN gave this a 7,it pissed me off -.-
reviews like these are what make you the AVGN of modern gaming
OXM’s review didn’t even note the 4-hour long campaign. They just wondered if they milked it for DLC.
AWESOME REVIEW JOE! I love that you tell the TRUTH in your reviews. Right on for raging at IO/Eidos for making such a shit game and also at the review sites who care more about bribes than the community.
The worst f*#*king game eva,come on is this why we got a ps3 ,to go back in time !!! whats next gta top view. I didnt even complete the first stage I thought there was something wrong with my ps3 or my hd telly, I shat in im pants!!!! Is this the reason why we spend money and buy all the lastest techno gagets to get let down,i can understand making a game that has depth but f*#k off with that plot,i wasted and lost money on that one ,id rather go back to ps1 if thats how they r going to carry on trying shit like that!!!
I’ve played the original Kane and Lynch, and yeah, it isn’t the best game around. But there was still this draw it had, like some great levels like Retemoto tower and the bank robbery. Though it did have squad tatics, I found myself rarely using them, as I would usually get a response such as “F***you!” and “Quit barking orders at me!” But through all it’s flaws, I enjoyed playing it. But on to the sequel, which just seems to be a huge middle finger to the players. Bye bye squad based tatics, Bye bye interesting levels, and bye bye Lynch’s phsycotic episodes. That really pisses me off, and you won’t find me going to a Gamestop to get this shit anytime soon, if anything, I think I’ll stick to the original.
I Give It 6/10 Not The Best Game, But NOT The Worst Game, Is An Ok Game, And Is One Of The Rare Games That Has Not Make Yell At The TV Screen Of Some Of The Things That Happen. I Sometime Yell At The God Of War Trilogy, Not That I Hate Them, But Sometime, Thing Happen That You Not Wantet To Do^^
It’s not that bad. I was a die hard fan of the first one, even with its flaws/Gamespot guy getting fired/drama – The game didn’t try to be better than it was, then considering a small company like Io Interactive, one year after Hitman Blood Money.
Even with its flaws, it’s a game with quite a unique aspect story-wise. M. Mann’s Colleteral meets Heat in some of the missions.
A second game, which is a sequel, but not story depending in any way, as if we started to care a bit more about Kane, and Lynch, that would honestly not be good for us.
As developer Kristan Reed said in the interview before release: “Kane, and Lynch, these guys… they’re idiots.”
Not hyped, not containing any critic-love; it seems like most reviewers ain’t sure exactly what this Kane & Lynch game is, and that makes them point out all the technical and its flaws; and of course say “Poor story, the two protagonists hate each other.”
If you’re looking for an evening for some gritty, unique; 5 hour ride in the worst mob turfs in Shanghai, you have Kane & Lynch: Dog Days.
so this game is sooo bad because its 4hours??? big deal the multiplayers fun and cod4 was like a 3hour campain n had fun multiplayer aswell but yets its one of the greatest games ever?!? doesnt make much sence to me
worst game ever 0 out of 10 …. The review rates are meaning less
To tell you the truth….I can see where they wanna take this game. I like the story for Dead Men, and this one because it’s feels gritty and dark, i can understand the storyline of 2 Hardened criminals with one too many life issues, yet suicidally run through any army of baddies with guns, they pretty much put their story in your face. But the thing is it fails in so many levels if its not executed the right way. On Dead Men, it felt like a Michael Mann crime saga, with what you can do so much with! But with the glitches, aiming, and it’s shortened excitement ruined it, but it still had some weight on it. Now wit Dogs Days, you would’ve figured the problem be resolved by now. Actually, no. Not only is the mistakes from the first game there, but now theres bland repetitiveness, and a short gameplay time of 4 hrs they put in. And my god, the environments…lol, Shanghai may have a shithole area, but its also a major big city in China with alot of tourist destinations, and they could’ve displayed more newer areas around the city, but instead, you in some alleyway, or goin’ down some lit-up street with cars parked or scattered and the same ol’ stores everywhere…it just makes you look at the game as if everything around you is a one-color contrast or tint, and the character and their enemies are the only colorful thing on screen. Of course we all know the best thing on Dog Days was the youtube cheap camera effect on the game, which was so exciting to look at first. But even that gets tiring after 1 hour of looking at it. The Multiplayer was meh, despite it having newer multiplayer gaming modes, which they all played the same. And of course the ending sucks, but its obvious they wanna leave it open for it’s 3rd edition to the series. All and all, the point is, this game may not be for ya average hardcore gamer, but its mostly aimed for a selective division of gamers that feel more intrigued with it’s story and grittiness then its gameplay (kinda like Assassin’s Creed, which is incomparable by the way because the gameplay was just as good as its story on AC). So I accept it for what it is on it’s dark story, but for over-the-top bad gameplay, lets just say I don’t wanna fall for that cheap-ass trap when the 3rd one comes around. Or IO interactive should just focus on Hitman 5 because K&L aint working for them.
SEARIOUSLY! Its wose than Dead Men!?
F**K this one i’m sticking with Dead Men till a better Kane & Lynch game comes by.
Joe, it isn’t a slap to the face, it’s a jump kick to the fucking balls.
I give this game a 4/10,
1 for the game and the other 3 for the chinese music.
It should be illegal to sell a 4 hour game, its litteraly stealing, especially when those 4 hours suck.
Look… i love FPS. I love any shooting game. i even went out of my way to get spoonys swat 4. (seriously funny BTW). and i can say, without a doubt, this is THE MOST BORING SHOOTING GAME EVER MADE. its like mass effect 2 (doesn’t deserve this comparison) except completely sapped of all the fun. complete waste of time. I disagree with Joe on this one. not even hardcore fans of shooting games will find this game interesting enough to play all the way through.
Thank you for the review joe,
I seen loads of game reviewers who seem to be paid for the good reviews.
Damn they find even this crappy game good.
And SC2? wasnt so great and C&C4 got a 7.5? WTF?
they must be paid by them
Thankgod for people like you who dare to say the game stinks!
Well cut the paid reveiwers slack, they gotta do that for a living, joe here can risk saying the truth because he isn’t getting paid to do this.
Just noticed something, if you look real close at the ‘naked’ part, you can see that the model hasn’t changed at all, and they’re really just wearing slightly more skin tight pants and suit.
Lynch’s psychotic tendencies were toted as a game mechanic in interviews for the FIRST game. This is just stupid.
To be honest I don’t really think this game deserves such a low score. I mean the story is downright ridiculous but i had some fun playing it, the coop is good and overall is an average singleplayer. I haven’t seen this “glitchy cover system” that Joe talks about while playing the game and to be honest i had way more fun playing this single player rather than the BF:BC2 one but in that review Joe focused a lot more on the multiplayer. Granted that KL2 is NOT a multiplayer oriented game, i would never say that multiplayer in this game is an afterthought. Fragile Alliance is one of the bast multiplayer modes i’ve seen in a while (yeah it’s in the first game too but that doesn’t mean it isn’t good. Also Cops and Robbers and Undercover cop are a lot of fun too. I know the maps are not too many but hey BFBC 2 has 10 maps with different game modes available and CoD MW2 had the same amount of maps before the DLCs came out (i guess Gears too) and KL2 has something like 6-7 maps plus the new DLC’s ones. Yeah the ending is crap but AoT: the 40th day had that too but Joe gave it a 7 out of 10 even if the game wasn’t that good and the multiplayer wasn’t worse than KL2. So IMHO the game deserves more than a 3/10 it should be a 5 or 6.
I hated this kane and lynch….
Don’t get me wrong, i love the online, and K&L Dead men was amazing but this is just a downgrade…
You cannot control allies, never mind that you hardly get any other than Kane, No grenades, less weapons, less missions, cannot melee (BIG downgrade) and Enemy bots are just retarded (they run at you when you’re hiding behind cover
joe. you should give kane&lynch 2 dog shit an 1/10
For the love of….I freaking hate all these crap shooters. 40th day, the single player of bad company 2, cod 5, and now Dog Days!!!!!!!! All those other reviewers don’t give a crap about the viewers!
u are the only one i trust now joe i watch x-play i like then a little bite i dont trust reviews on the run any more EP and i like your reviews there awsome and it is trusting thank god i did not buy this game i was thinking about it thank u joe for your hard work !!!!!! and your team
This is why I love Angry Joe! HONEST REVIEWS!!!!!
I played the Demo and I could already tell this would be an average game AT BEST!
Those reviews pissed me off.
Thank you for being there gfor us Gamers AJ.
Never played the first game and when I saw the ugly picture on steam I was actually looking for ways to remove it. This is the first time I have bothered to even take a look at what the game is about.
4 hours is pathetic and all the people at SQUARE ENIX, Eidos Interactive and IO Interactive should carefully think about why they became a part of the gaming industry in the first place.
Seriously.. i hate short games.
I dont know if you know still the game SoF3?
Well before i played Sof2 (who kicked ass back then) SoF3 worked on so long and then it was soooooooo disapointing…
and yes 4 hours.. makes me remid of that C&C4 game.. that is even less.. i think in about 2 hours the campaign mode.. did you ever do a review about that game? or didnt you even bother..
you know you gave SC2 a 9/10?
I dont know if you ever give a minus score but i did.. and i was a real C&C fan till then.
Wow, 4 hours?
Has anyone played Metal Gear Solid 3?
Somewhat similar but the game lasts about 25 hours.
MGS taking 25 hours….. what did u do sit through the 24 hours of movie!?
Maybe played it the way it was meant to?
Hell, I was running through all encounters not even bothering with stealth and it still took me a good 20-hours to finish.
I’m glad to see that he is showing in game footage now
lol finally a bad game u could get rip on yay LMAO funny but i forget how long it went for
i thought this game was great but it still has flaws
1st the single player camping is very repatriate they reason i was still playing was becasue of the story and even that had fucking problems the mp is great and like you said joe some games shouldn’t be just about muitplayer ex( modern warfare 2 ) its pissing me off and your also right about games being short like wtf when did this thing happen have game developers got really lazy and said hey lets make a very short campaign and just fouces on the mp fucking idiots man any way joe good review i give dogs days a (7/10)
thank god for halo reach cause i heard the camping is the longest halo campaign ever lets hope so
Four hours? They could have sold if as a twenty dollar downloadable title for a game that short.
Still might not be worth the money, but at least you get to act like a jackass and pwn n00bs with a super-accurate shotgun.
We need too get huge add on to Just Cause 2, and I’m not talking more weapons(tho those should be standard too), but a ton more missions, and maybe a new faction.
I agree on the singleplayer, but I do like the multiplayer. Especially Cops and Robbers.
I wish they had a lobby system of some kind though.
ps. I have that gamestop controller.
I had a nightmare where Kane and Lynch were naked and…… OH MY GOD IT’S HAPPENING AGAIN!!!!!!
oh yeah another thing, all other review sites cannot be serious that this game is good, they were bribed!!!!!!
paid, my friend, they’re being paid.
somebody please get joe a good game, like NOW! before he blows up the HQ in a fit of rage over this game!
joe i didnt see a review on the multiplayer mod in kane and lynch 2??
is it worse or better?
3/10 eh? Looks like the demo really did the game justice because that is the impression I got from it…
Does not live up to the original which was pretty ok…
Oh and about the gamespot rating, you must take in to account that on gamespot, ign and most such sites 6/10 is really bad, i mean take a serious look, the average is 8/10 or something lower score than that is reserved for the really sucky indie pc games
FOOOOOOOOOOOURRR HOOOOOOOOURRRSSSSSS. Lol. Thank God I wasn’t interested in this in the first place.
I had a nightmare last night that i bought kane and lynch 2
K&L2 Dog (4/10 to me) Days isn’t bad, it worthes only for the multiplayer games (6/10 for the single multiplayer game) and i agree with you joe, a multiplayer game shouldn’t be the main part of a game. it feel more than to be a add on for the price of a full price release game ! why they didn’t just sell a multiplayer mode for $20 on xbla or steam ? hope the 3rd wont suck… err it will suck indeed, yeah io interactive said that K&L will be a trilogy.
lol at ending what a load of bullshit the game sucks so bad you have to laugh
Thanks Joe for telling us about gaintbomb.com. I dislike IGN’s reviews – they gave this game a 7.0, WTF! Another example of IGN’s crappiness is that they gave ODST a 9.0!!! I will be getting my reviews from you (ofcourse) AND giantbomb.com from now on…
I loved the first game despite its problems. I really did feel like a badass commanding a crew of guys who would repel down buildings shooting up swat teams, gangsters, and even the entire Cuban army (though it was changed to Venezuela in dog days)! That game had potential and this game ruined everything.
Do a top 10 worst game endings you ever had Joe ^^
I know you dont do that stuff, or I havent see you done any, but I think it wuld be awesome to see ^^
Joe couldn’t handle being Spoony.
Disgusting game, i would give 1 out of 10
Kane & Lynch has never brought anything interesting to the gaming world, and they dared to brought this shit?
I played this throught in 3 hours… good thing i didint buy it. They just should forget this crap and focus on HITMAN! Like they should done it when they even thought about Dead men!
Funny review Joe but seriously, a 3/10? On par with GI Joe:Rise of Cobra…mmm I think not. No better than 5/10 I’d give you that.