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Video game characters within the action sector of gaming, for all their appeal, are hardly the most complex individuals ever to spring from the human imagination. Broadly speaking, looking across the board, we have Man With A Traumatic/Mysterious Past, Woman With A Traumatic/Mysterious Past And Large Breasts, and a healthy smattering of garden variety psychopaths. Kane and Lynch are a bit of everything (apart from the breasts), but it’s the relationship between them that makes these two action characters so much more interesting than the rest. These are two men ‘rescued’ from Death Row by a mercenary outfit known only as The Seven; as a consequence, they are effectively enslaved by them and are forced to embark upon a complex and dangerous series of missions to serve their ends. And to make matters worse, they absolutely despise each other.
This is hardly alien territory to Kane, who ended up on Death Row in the first place after years of working as a mercenary with The Seven; it was his betrayal that led them to pursue him even in prison. Kane and Lynch’s back-story is one of the most complex I’ve ever been treated to in a game presentation; indeed, about three quarters of developer IO’s time showing the game was spent explaining the characters and their various motivations, which demonstrates exactly how three-dimensional they are. Lynch is, in brief, a murderous schizophrenic who came home one day to find his wife murdered, and isn’t at all sure whether or not he was the culprit; more details of Kane and Lynch’s previous lives are revealed incrementally as the game’s story progresses. The player always controls Kane (with Lynch controllable in co-op play), and you are never entirely sure whether or not to trust Lynch, and don’t know what he and The Seven may have in store to make Kane atone for his betrayal. The plot and characters are gritty, complex and fraught with tension, and it’s this depth that makes Kane and Lynch especially compelling.
IO would hate me for saying this, as it is trying extremely hard to distance Kane and Lynch from its previous output, but gameplay-wise it’s rather like a mixture of Hitman and Freedom Fighters. Usually Kane works with a squad of independent mercenaries who have an irritating habit of pursuing their own goals rather than working in a team, especially once the objective is near at hand, but occasionally he works alone or with Lynch in more delicate situations. For every time you’re assaulting a building with an armed squad, there’s a mission where you’re essentially carrying out a hit – although unlike in Hitman, there’s ample room for improvisation if things go horribly pear-shaped and you end up shooting your way out of a situation.
A nightclub scenario featured in IO’s presentation was a particularly good illustration of this. Making it through the densely populated dance floor towards the owner’s office without becoming conspicuous was fairly easy, but making it back out again once security had been alerted was quite another matter. Shooting into the air cleared the dance floors of innocent bystanders pretty effectively, though, and the security staff were helpfully clad in bright white jackets, but there was nothing to stop you just shooting everything in site in order to make a quick and messy escape.
The nightclub also showcased the exceptional level of detail that is already present in the animation and setting. People – and lots of people, at that – danced convincingly with and around each other, and Kane had to slow down, shoulder barge and push people aside in order to get through the crowd. Kane and Lynch themselves, of course, are extremely well-developed within the game, and though they are hardly lovable protagonists they are certainly fascinating. Delving deeper into these characters will remain a central motivation for anyone playing through this game. Tantalising details are revealed ingeniously; when Kane’s health gets too low, for instance, his life begins to flash before his eyes, giving the player an enticing glimpse into what exactly made him the man he is.
Kane and Lynch is an action game with depth of character, heavily cinematically influenced but not limited by the linearity of film. This could turn out to be a very important title for Eidos (which is fast rebuilding its reputation as well as its share in the market), as well as for the Xbox 360, and it seems that IO is relishing the opportunity to break away from its established franchise and create something unique. Look out for Kane and Lynch in 2007.
