Kane and Lynch: Dead Men
- September 14, 2007 17:04 PM PST
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The Hitman guys plan their next attack, a gritty new third-person action game.
The makers of the Hitman series have a new baby. A new third-person action shooter, Kane & Lynch: Dead Men is set for release this November on new consoles and PC. Eidos stopped by for a demo of a couple levels.
Here's a little background, first. Mentally tortured by the death of his son, Kane flees the country and eventually joins up with a mysterious mercenary group called The Seven. It's a good deal of you enjoy cold hard cash, but the Seven has some strict rules that must be followed, or else...Long story short, after more than a decade of service, Kane and the rest of The Seven blow their retirement mission back in the United States. Kane survives, and thinking the rest of the crew is dead, he escapes with the loot.
Of course, not everyone died, and four surviving members of The Seven want the loot back. Kane had fled to Venezuela with his fortune, but eventually gets hauled back to death row by the proper authorities. During a prisoner transport, Kane meets an unstable inmate named Lynch who tells him to prepare for a breakout. Right then, the bus crashes and the two are seemingly free, though Kane quickly finds out he's been had by The Seven. They tell Kane he has to return the money and they'll spare his family, but kill him. Kane accepts, and it's Lynch's job to watch over him. The dynamic between the two will guide the plot throughout the game.
The core gameplay involves Kane and Lynch working together with other members to form a squad. You can control a team like most squad-based shooters to follow and attack, but you can also just fend for yourself most of the time, if you'd like. The first mission on display was set in L.A. After the prison transport crash, Kane and Lynch are on the run from the cops, and a Heat-like gunfire scene breaks out. We guided Kane from cover to cover, using the game's innovative cover system to stay out of harms way and fire back at the cops while sprinting to stations with the dedicated sprint thumbstick click.
It's kind of like Gears of War, although you don't have to initiate cover in any way. You simply walk up to a wall or post and Kane automatically attaches himself to it. There was usually enough pistol ammo to use at any time, but finding machine gun bullets was tougher.
After blasting through L.A., the game picks up in Tokyo where we rappelled Kane down, with the rest of the squad following, an office building (here, we got a nice view of the city and the impressive tech. in the game) to blast into the windows and take out a group of Japanese "business men". After putting the suits to rest, we wandered Kane through a little stealth sequence in a crowded Tokyo nightclub (nudging through the hundreds of dancing club-goers was really cool) to find some intel, and that's where the demo ended.
The gunplay and cover system were the definite high points of our hour-long demo, not to mention the impressive graphics engine that makes it all easy on the eyes. Hopefully things will tighten up even more before November.
