Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days - THE REVIEW!

Let's get one thing perfectly clear, this game is graphic. Right from the introductory scene of torture up to the very end, this is a non-stop gritty adventure. The camera gets you involved in the action in a way never quite done before. If you can imagine COPS but on a Discovery Channel documentary then you're getting close.

After the intro sets the mood, you're dropped back into Shanghai as Lynch, awaiting Kane's arrival so they can both do that one last job in order to leave this life of crime behind. Lynch wants to go and have a few words with a certain gentleman about his recent conduct and asks Kane to accompany him. After kicking his door down, as you do, a gripping rooftop chase ensues, which culminates in the gentleman in question along with his lady friend dead on the floor. Only problem being is the lady friend was the daughter of someone very high up in the Shanghai underground (see what I did there? High up in the underground? No? ...ok then), and as you might imagine he's not best pleased with Kane or Lynch.

And who would be? But anyway, as touched on before in the multiplayer rundown, the improvements made on this game over the first one are massive. Graphically it looks like the game is on an entirely different, more powerful system. Environments are amazingly destructible, with rooms full of tiles that can be shot off the walls in fascinating fashion. Gameplay wise it's much smoother, the covering system has been changed to button push as opposed to automatic detection and the clunky aiming system is replaced by a silky smooth feel that allows you to pop heads left right and centre. A big gripe I had with the first one, was in terms of Kane and Lynch, I didn't really care if they lived or died. Neither of them seemed to like each other, and the feeling was more than mutual. That's all changed too, as the gruesome twosome seem to harbour some ill feelings to start with, but over time it all melts away.

Awww. How sweet.

As graphic as this game is, a lot of the imagery is left to your imagination, with some of the more graphic moments being blurred out for effect. Nudity, torture and headshots all receive the censored treatment, but I feel it makes you sit up and take notice more this way. You think about every bullet, even in the most intense of firefights, of which there are plenty.

Due to the game’s fairly heavy subject matter, both Kane and Lynch suffer mental and emotional breakdowns throughout the game, including one section where you wake up naked and bleeding, having been cut to shreds with a Stanley knife. Make no mistakes, this is not a nice game. It's very gritty, and very real. The feel of the sweaty backstreets of Shanghai are perfectly captured, and everything the first game aimed to achieve is managed in this one.

There is a wealth of fun to be had with the multiplayer, co-op throughout the story mode (although there is no drop-in or drop-out ala Gears of War), but I've already spoken about that in my last big Kane and Lynch feature HERE, so if you wanna know, click the link and read!

All in all I'd say this is a worthy purchase. The story mode is kinda short, but like I said before, this game is so heavy and... for lack of a better word, bleak, if it was any longer it would be too much. So make sure you check out this year’s biggest sequel, summed up perfectly in the title: A story of greed, betrayal and revenge.