Kane & Lynch: Dead Men Hands-on Preview

Only two weeks to go before IO Interactive’s interesting new heist game Kane & Lynch: Dead Men hits store shelves. We’ve already talked about how Kane and Lynch hate each other’s guts despite having to work together to survive. And we’ve seen how they’re about as far away from your typical chisel-jawed heroic marine type we see so much of these days. But there’s just enough time to have one last look at the unique multiplayer and the game’s never before seen 12th level. How convenient then that we were invited along to London’s plush Haymarket Hotel to do exactly that. It’s like Eidos read our minds.

The game’s 12th level, El Capital, sees Kane and Lynch taking on what feels like the entire Cuban army in Havana. You start by storming into a white-bricked building, taking out guards on your way to the roof where you need to deal with two enemy tanks on the street below. To do this you need to use rocket launchers that are conveniently dotted around your feet. It’s pretty difficult stuff, and it should be, since this is towards the end of the game – there are 16 levels in total. The tanks are spraying the roof with anti-personnel fire, and if you or Lynch stick your head out for more than a second it’s bye bye baby for you and your psychotic chum. The trick we found was to get the tanks in your sights as quickly as possible, let rip, then retreat to a safe area of the roof for another rocket launcher (each one carries only one shot). We did die a few times, which was pretty cool really because when you do Lynch comes along and sticks a syringe full of adrenaline into your chest, reviving Kane. In this way the game gives you a number of lives before you need to start the level all over again, which is a nice touch.

After taking out the tanks a Hind helicopter hell bent on handing your ass to you on a platter turns up. Again you need to use the rocket launchers to take it down, but this time you need to time your shots so they are just in front of the helicopter as it passes over the building. It took four direct hits before spiralling into oblivion. No rest for the wicked though – what look like hundreds of troops start bombing towards a city hall type building across the street. You’re then asked to parasail down from the roof to the street below and join in with the mayhem.

It was here that things got a little too difficult, which is fair enough, considering that the game should be getting tough by this stage. So we don’t know what awaits you inside the building. Nor do we know why we were doing what we were doing. With the story under wraps, our time with Kane & Lynch’s 12th level really was a jump in jump out experience. But it was enough to get the excitement juices flowing, more so for Kane and Lynch the characters than Kane and Lynch the gameplay. Even though we only got a sprinkle of their dialogue and a pinch of their love/hate relationship, we got enough of a taste for us to believe the game will rise above standard third-person shooting fare. It looks like it’s all about the story with this one.

So on to the multiplayer. IO is clearly proud of what it’s got in store for gamers here – so much so that they’ve given it its own name – Kane & Lynch: Fragile Alliance. The title is apt – it’s all about choosing the best moment to screw over your team mates and make off with the money. Supporting up to eight players online, FA initially puts everyone on the same team before ripping up the rule book and tossing it out into the cold, crime-ridden night.

You and your crew start poised to initiate a heist. Your goal is to battle past the AI, collect as much money as you can then make for the extraction point and safety. The winner is the guy with the most loot after a predetermined number of rounds. Simple huh? Not at all. Things start to get complicated pretty quickly. You can kill your mates for their money, which is great for your total loot count, but it marks you as a traitor, turns your name orange and puts a big target on your head. Even worse, in the next round you’ll start a little bit away from the others players, who you better believe will remember what a back-stabbing little git you are.

It gets even more interesting. When you die you team up with the AI and have to help stop the heist. So in a matter of seconds you can go from cooperating with your fellow team mates to being forced to kill them. Here you need to stop the remaining players from getting away with the cash, but at the same time you can indulge in some tax free dollar collection yourself and earn loot bonuses if you take revenge on the guy who shot you in the back.

What you end up with is these awkward moments where you and your mate are looking at each other wondering when it’s best to turn traitor. Should it be at an early stage, when the heist hasn’t really made much of an inroad into the enemy’s position? Or should it be at a later stage, when your fellow players will probably have loads of cash just waiting to be dropped? If you turn on your team too early there will be too many players helping the AI and your chances of escape will be reduced. Leave it too late and you might not get away with much loot at all. It’s not as immediately playable as your typical online shooter. Through years of shooter training we’ve all been programmed to assume the enemy is a consistent beast. In Fragile Alliance it’s different. You need to think like a pirate.

We played two of the game’s multiplayer maps – Withdrawal and A Walk in the Park, and both played out similarly. Withdrawal starts with everyone bombing it into a bank, slaughtering all the security and civilians before making your way to the back and the loot. You then need to fight your way out of the car park, through loads of SWATs, over a wall and into the getaway van. It’s actually pretty hard to survive more than a minute or so at first. Your default weapons are a machine gun, a pistol and a grenade (you can spend some of your loot in between rounds on better gear). Neither feels particularly meaty. Targeting is very difficult – there’s severe recoil on the machine gun, forcing your targeting reticule up as you shoot. We found the pistol better for more accurate fire. Grenades too have a less than satisfying effect. The AI are excellent shots and don’t take more than a couple of seconds of sustained fire before you’re out of the count and switching sides. But you do get used to the ebb and flow of combat after a while, and things become easier. We had loads of fun tearing into our fellow players at the first sight of loot carrying. Unfortunately this resulted in copious amounts of revenge killing, which is all part of the fun. Only once did we manage to escape to the van with any loot, but more often than not we’d end up shot in the back and fighting as a SWAT to stop the very heist we were just a part of.

While the scenery in A Walk in the Park is different, the rounds played out almost identically to Withdrawal. You’re charged with crashing a Yakuza drug deal in what looks like an idyllic Japanese back garden built into a car park. The AI is motorbike helmet wearing Yakuza goons, which you’ll turn into if you bite the dust before getting to the chopper for extraction. Most of the action ended up congregated on a bridge over a stream. Again, the computer bots are no slouches, and getting any money at all felt a lot harder than on Withdrawal. But it’s still killer, albeit different, fun.

We’d even go as far as to say it’s is a complete rejection of the slayer/capture the flag online shooter modes we’re so used to these days. The game’s lead PC developer Morten Heiberg told us how bored he was with the typical deathmatch. We’d wager he’s not the only one on the team – Fragile Alliance sticks a virtual v-sign up at other online shooters. However, while we should praise IO for its brave stance, there is a degree of risk here. FA’s game mechanic takes a good deal of explanation before its initially baffling dynamic starts to get rewarding, and we’re not sure whether enough gamers will be patient enough to get to that point. Time will tell soon enough.

Kane & Lynch: Dead Men is out for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC on November 23.