Kane & Lynch: Dead Men

Kane & Lynch: Dead Men
Developer(s)	IO Interactive
Publisher(s)	Eidos Interactive
Engine	Glacier Engine with Havok physics
Platform(s)	Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Microsoft Windows
Genre(s)	Third-person shooter
Mode(s)	Single player, Multiplayer, co-op

Kane & Lynch: Dead Men is a cooperative third-person shooter developed by IO Interactive and published by Eidos Interactive for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and gaming platform Games for Windows. It has been confirmed that movie studio Lionsgate has bought the rights for a movie adaptation.

The game is considered as something of a spiritual sequel to IO's previous Freedom Fighters due to many similarities in the game's control style, recruitment and management of the player's squad, overall gameplay, and use of its game engine. It has sold more than 1.7 million copies, as of April 23, 2009.

Plot

The game opens with a voiceover of a letter, addressed to a girl named Jenny, which is being written by her father, Adam 'Kane' Marcus. Kane is traveling to death row after being convicted of crimes he committed in Venezuela. Another death row inmate, James Seth Lynch, hints of a mid-destination breakout unbeknownst to Kane. Their truck is involved in a head-on collision and an unknown group of mercenaries (later revealed to be the game's antagonists The7) set them free. It quickly becomes apparent that this isn't a rescue, but a kidnapping. The two are taken to a shopping mall still under construction. Here it's revealed that the remaining survivors of the botched Venezuela job, The7, are behind the breakout. They plan to take revenge on Kane for apparently leaving them to die and taking the group's 'retirement' reward, and ignore Kane's claims of innocence (Kane says to The7 he did not know they were still alive however The7 ignore this). They make him an offer; retrieve the stolen item in three weeks or his wife and daughter will be executed. Even if he is successful, he will still be killed. Lynch acts as a watchdog, reporting in to The7 (now only four: the villainous leader Older Brother, Kane's nemesis Younger Brother, Kane's best friend Carlos, and the quiet sociopathic killer Mute) on Kane's movements.

File:KaneAndLynchGroup.jpg

From left to right: Thapa, Lynch, Kane, Shelly, and Rific.

The7 wants the money that Kane stole from the retirement job in Venezuela. Kane reveals to Lynch that he did not in fact steal the money, but he knows who did, and knows what bank they stashed it in. Using the assistance of an unnamed vaultbreaker (who has apparently worked with Kane on jobs in the past) they break into the bank's vault, while Lynch secures the hostages in the lobby. However once they get to the vault area, Kane uses a code to unlock the deposit box. Kane discovers that the deposit box is empty, and orders the infuriated vaultbreaker to blow open all the safety deposit boxes. Seeing that the money is not in any of the deposit boxes, Kane angrily realizes who has taken the money. They make their way to the lobby to discover that Lynch has gone crazy, shooting the hostages in the lobby indiscriminately. After a wild police chase, Kane reveals that they need to go to Tokyo to retrieve the briefcase. They head for a nightclub owned by the daughter of Retomoto, a Japanese crime lord. Unbeknownst to Lynch, Kane plans to kidnap Retomoto's daughter to get the briefcase from Retomoto. It is later revealed that Kane and Retomoto's daughter may have had a relationship in the past. After kidnapping Retomoto's daughter, Kane reveals to Lynch who Retomoto's daughter really is. This infuriates Lynch, as he would have never kidnapped the daughter of a crime boss knowingly. As they escape the Tokyo nightclub, Kane and Lynch arrange a meeting with Retomoto to trade his daughter for the briefcase. Using the assistance of a pair of unnamed mercenaries, Kane and Lynch proceed to what seems to be a Tokyo park. Lynch is ordered to watch over Retomoto's daughter from a distance while Kane makes his way to a gazebo in the center of the park. However Retomoto is not there, leaving a cellphone instead for Kane. Retomoto, on the phone, tells Kane that he knows what The7 have done, and offers to work with Kane to get his wife and daughter back, as well as solve the problem of The7. Lynch, becoming infuriated, shoots Retomoto's daughter suddenly with a shotgun, proclaiming rather calmly that "Well I was aiming for her leg." - Kane and Lynch then proceed to escape Retomoto's bodyguards and snipers and make their way to the escape van. Kane's anger toward Lynch is only temporary it seems, as he realizes that they are out of time to get the money back.

Kane heads back to LA in an attempt to renegotiate with The7. Lynch questions his decision, while Kane claims that Lynch is a dead man too. Lynch denies this, in that he has secretly made a deal for his survival and even a position within The7. However they betray Lynch as well, and knock him out. Lynch awakens and feigns unconsciousness while watching Kane inside a shallow grave at a construction site; Kane's plea for extra time lands upon deaf ears, as The7 prepare to execute him. Right before Kane's eyes, his estranged wife is executed. The Brothers and Carlos depart for Havana while Kane tries to talk with his daughter, who is pulled into the hole. In turn, Lynch lunges at one of his captors, serving as a distraction while an enraged Kane brutally beats Mute to death with a shovel while screaming, "You should have let me talk to them!". As The7's reinforcements arrive, Kane and Lynch defend Jenny from further waves of attacks and a large mining truck. After the coast is clear, Kane tells Jenny to flee the scene and to continue to run no matter what.

After burying his wife, Kane decides to finish off The7 for the sake of his daughter's safety. Kane reluctantly allows Lynch to join his cause, after Lynch explains his own wife's murder and his supposed inability at that time to save her. With the help of the mining truck, they manage to break through a prison wall, inciting several prison riots and, most importantly, perform their goal of breaking out a group of 'dead men' (people who went against The7 in the past and were in turn disowned) from prison, forming their own band of ragtag convicts to challenge The7. It is during the breaking out of Shelly, one of the convicts, that the murder of Lynch's wife is brought into doubt, with Shelly suspecting Lynch of killing his own wife, which Lynch denies.

Kane starts his revenge by returning to Japan, killing Retomoto in his own company's boardroom, and retrieving back the missing briefcase he was looking for. The contents are never revealed. Through a fight out of the office complex and Japanese police officers out at the streets and into a bus terminal, the group finally manages to escape in another van.

Days later, Kane, Lynch and their 'dead men' - Thapa, Rific and Shelly - follow The7's remaining members to Havana. Apparently, it is mentioned from Kane, that The7 reap financial benefits from assisting sides in civil wars, with Havana supposedly the last job needed for their retirement. There they find themselves caught up in an on-going civil war. Throughout the battle in the war-torn streets, Kane constantly assures the group members of rewards beyond even their retirement needs. On their way Kane killed both balaclava members working for The7, one of them who broke Kane's nose during the mid-destination breakout earlier. They eventually track down Carlos, Kane's only friend in The7, who tells the group that he too has been betrayed by The Brothers after the Havana operation fell apart. Thapa deserts the group abruptly, with mistrust of the promised payment and the imprompt alliance formed with Carlos. The remaining group fight their way through the Cuban jungles and drug operations, managing to locate The Brother's base of operations. Over radio chatter, it's revealed that Jenny has been kidnapped by The Brothers and is being held hostage. Serving as a distraction, Carlos decides to detonate a mine at the entrance of the base, but is actually planning to betray Kane and Lynch by actually knocking at the entrance, asking to be let in. Kane and Lynch then overhear The Brothers speaking to Carlos over their ear piece and hear him being murdered by the younger brother because he "shouldn't have listened to Kane". With the assistance of Rific and Shelly, Kane and Lynch manage to storm into the building and find Jenny in a courtyard, which is set up as an ambush by The Brothers. While The Brothers are distracted, Kane manages to shoot the mine left undetonated beside Carlos' corpse, killing the older brother with the resulting explosion. However, the younger brother manages to escape with Jenny amidst the confusion.

Meanwhile, Rific and Shelly are pinned down while trying to secure the airfield (The Brothers' means of escape). With the assistance of a driver from the resistance that Kane was helping in the aforementioned civil war, he and Lynch manage to hitch a ride and chase down the plane before take off. After Kane manages to shoot down the pair of the plane's engine, he confronts his old nemesis, the Younger Brother as he holds Jenny hostage at the cockpit of the sabotaged plane. Kane finally kills the younger brother in a shootout on the plane. Kane then rescues a traumatised Jenny, who hates her father's betrayal of everyone, from leaving his grief stricken family to his double-cross of The7. Rific and Shelly call for help, but Kane doesn't care, trying his best to ignore Jenny and Lynch's pleas. At a helicopter pad, he has to make a choice whether to save his men or escape with his daughter.

In one ending, Kane boards a helicopter with Jenny and leaves the remaining men, including Lynch, 'to burn'. Jenny resents her father's actions, saying to herself that she hates him.

In another ending, Kane and Lynch head to Rific and Shelly's position. Kane takes Jenny with him, despite Lynch's apprehensions. They're too late to save Rific, but Shelly is still alive. He feels betrayed, despite the rescue attempt. As they escape to the pier, Jenny is then shot by a guard. Kane carries her body, in denial of her seemingly dead status. Shelly loses his patience and attempts to escape (resulting with either escaping or dying), leaving Kane, Lynch, and Jenny behind. Kane and Lynch finally escape together with Jenny's body on the last boat. Lynch ends up getting shot in the shoulder, while Jenny's status is still unknown. As Lynch tells him to deal with his mistake, Kane whispers to Jenny about the letter he tried to send to her.

Gameplay

In campaign mode the player takes the role of Kane. The player is able to play through 16 stages with Lynch by his side, at times accompanied by other hired mercenaries. Co-op mode is available in which the second player will assume the role of Lynch. Though almost identical to Kane’s style of gameplay, Lynch has short bursts of aggression in which nearly all AI characters are police, some sporting an animal's head. Lynch carries a shotgun and a revolver as side arm, while Kane carries a sub-machine gun and standard pistol, although this setup isn't exclusive, as holding the right analog stick near another ally allows you to swap weapons. Additional weapons such as grenades, sniper rifles and carbine rifles can be picked up which can also be swapped between allies. The player can take cover by standing next to a wall, and can blindfire outward. While having hired mercernaries, the player can issue orders such as following, moving to a specific position, or attacking.

Fragile Alliance

Fragile Alliance is the game's only online multiplayer mode, which consists of four maps: Hot Coffee, Late Night Opening, Withdrawal and A Walk In The Park. A free-to-download map pack released on PlayStation Network and Xbox Live provides four additional maps. The goal is to finish a several round match with the most money. Each round begins with all of the players as armed, balaclava-clad robbers, and players who have reached TrueSkill rank 50 and 30 will play as Kane and Lynch, respectively. Money can be used to buy better firearms and armor. Resistance is met in the form of armed AI controlled security guards and/or police officers. A player's money acts as a shield, but will quickly be dropped on the ground as the player is injured. To escape the level, a player must survive to meet a getaway vehicle. All players who survive without turning on their allies will split stolen money evenly.

A player's appearance in the game is influenced by their TrueSkill rank on the Xbox 360. Unlike Kane and Lynch's campaign mode, players can not sprint. If a player feels they have taken enough money to become a target for potential traitors, they can drop some of their money (thus becoming less of a scoring threat.)

Development

For the development of Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, Jesper Kyd was brought in to write the musical score for the game, having already written score for the Hitman series and Freedom Fighters. The single player was originally going to have online co-op but was dropped at the last minute and limited to offline due to time restrictions and difficulty. Director Jens-Peter Kurup said that Scarface and Unforgiven were inspirations for the characters. The game was originally going to revolve around only Kane, with Lynch acting as a side-kick. But as the development went on, they decided to include Lynch in the story also. Martin Guldbaek, the art director for the game, said that for creating each of the locations, the team went to Los Angeles for photo shooting. They combined this with concept artwork to create "locations that matched the character's mood and perspective". Anders Poulsen is the lead character artist. According to him, he wanted to make characters "like no other". Kane was the first character to be designed, but was very different from his final appearance. (He was minus the scar on his face, and originally smoked a cigarette.) When Lynch was brought in, it added more "life" to Kane's character.

The game went gold on October 31 2007, making the release date a full 10 days earlier.

Downloadable Content

Downloadable Content was made available for Kane & Lynch on April 17 2008, entitled "The Dope Bag". This gave out 4 new maps, plus adding 250 Gamerscore for the Xbox 360 version bringing the total to 1250.

Sequel

A sequel has been announced by Eidos it will be out before 2010. It's been announced for a possible release date in September, 2009. On July 14th 2009, a trademark was discovered for a game titled Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days.

Film

A film adaptation is in the works from Lionsgate. The script was written by Kyle Ward who also penned the upcoming film Fiasco Heights which is being produced by Platinum Dunes for Universal. Bruce Willis has been mooted for the role Kane in the film, and Mickey Rourke is rumored for the role of Lynch.Simon Crane, a stunt coordinator on films including Stardust, Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Troy, will make his directorial debut. Variety magazine has reported that the plot involves Adam 'Kane' Marcus and James Lynch retrieving a stolen microchip.

Reception

The game received mixed reviews upon release. As of December 5, 2007 on the review aggregator Game Rankings, the Xbox 360 version of the game had an average score of 67.5% based on 42 reviews. On Metacritic, the Xbox 360 version has a metascore of 65 out of 100, based on 57 reviews. On Game Rankings, the PS3 version had a score of 65.8% based on 19 reviews. On Metacritic, the PS3 version has a metascore of 64 out of 100, based on 23 reviews. One reason cited for giving the PlayStation 3 version of the game a lower score is the lack of voice chat during the online mode, a feature the Xbox 360 version supports.

GameTrailers awarded the game an overall score of 8.0/10 (Design, 8.5; Story, 9.0; Gameplay, 8.1; Presentation, 7.9), stating that although there are some flaws in the game, the package as a whole made it "easy to recommend". On the other end of the scale, import-centric site NTSC-uk gave it just 3/10 calling it "a sickly mess of a game with the multitude of negatives undermining every positive".

A 6/10 "fair" score by Gamespot was rumored to be responsible for the firing of long time editor Jeff Gerstmann. The controversy arose due to advertising for the game being bought on the site prior to the game's release. Gamespot, however, has denied the two are linked.

Electronic Gaming Monthly awarded the game a 7.2/10 rating, saying it had "great story, pacing, and variety" yet complained about the absence of online co-op and poor aiming.

The Australian PC games magazine PC Powerplay gave the PC version of the game an 8/10, "Excellent", citing "great dialogue", "impressive locations" and "satisfying action" as highlights while criticising its length and the final act of the game, suggesting it "loses ambition" compared to the earlier parts of the game which "[took] some pages out of Mann's notebook".

References to and from other IO Interactive games

• In the IO video game Hitman: Blood Money, one of the after mission newspapers mentions Kane & Lynch's escape from the prison van, referring to them as Adam Marcus (Kane's real name) and "Mr. Little" (presumably Lynch).
• The standard issue handgun SLP (Heckler & Koch USP) is the same as the standard issue police handgun in Blood Money.
• There is also a reference in another Blood Money newspaper, where a small side advertisement shows a hardware store holding a weekly special on a push dagger, one identical to Kane's.
• In the 'Hitman: Blood Money' level "A Vintage Year" there are several portraits hung around the mansion house. Some are concept art for both the 'Retemoto Tower' and Cuba levels.
• In the background of a promotional poster for the game, there is an insurance advertisement featuring Hitman's Agent 47 with the captioning "Is death sneaking up on you?"
• The game's Achievements in the Xbox 360 version contain two references to the Hitman franchise, one being that there are 47 achievements. There is also an achievement called "Headmaster", which requires the user to show his skill by scoring 47 headshots.
• Narrating one of the TV spots for the game is David Bateson, the voice actor who played Agent 47 in the Hitman series.
• In the multiplayer mode "Fragile Alliance," there is a level called "Late Night Opening." One of the stores in this level is "Mr. 47's Menswear." Also on the same level, the elevator music from Hitman: Blood Money is played in the background.
• There is a reference to Hitman Contracts in the streets of Tokyo.
• The last garage in the building next to van in Streets of Tokyo mission is numbered 47
• The name of the game's 11th level, "Freedom Fighters", is an obvious reference to one of IO's previous titles of the same name.

Audio

File:Kane and Lynch score cover.jpg

Soundtrack

The Kane & Lynch: Dead Men Original Soundtrack was composed, arranged and produced by Jesper Kyd and released on November 23, 2007. There are currently no intentions to release the soundtrack for sale, however, the special edition of Kane & Lynch: Dead Men contains a bonus disc with seven tracks.

Track listing

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Kane and Lynch Theme"
2.	"Kane's Family Portrait"
3.	"RetoMoto Death Squad"
4.	"Subway Fight"
5.	"Lynch Breaks Down"
6.	"Mall Fight"
7.	"Training Ambience"

External links

• Official website
• Fan site
• Kane & Lynch Review Unscripted 360, Nov. 28, 2007.