Shanghai, the product of empires and treaties, now a fully integrated city of Mainland China. It is a lovely place, bootleg game consoles, fake jewelry and outdated phones greet you from every shelf in saran wrap. The shoddiest apartments have the most beautiful ambient lighting from the adjacent neon lighting and every table has a used ashtray, some left over take out in a carton and a few empty bottles of Tsingtao. The only people who speak English are characters straight out of Guy Ritchie's SNATCH and they all dress like British sex tourists. The cops are corrupt, in the pocket of a bent government official known ominiously as Shangsi, ("Big Boss") and he also has a sizable force of paramilitary counter-terror units and the military on his side. Of course, he also has deep connections to go with his deep pockets, into the far from shallow, ever widening black abyss that is the Shanghai underground and its wretched killers, traffickers and murderous gangsters like Hsing. Oh! And to make matters worse, Kane and Lynch just killed his daughter. This is another one of those games that, in the public conscious, is often thought of as being terrible and surprisingly, it has even divided some fans of the old game. It just so happens that I love this game and have many core memories with it with friends and family, specifically my cousins. It is remarkably similar to Max Payne 3, as it is a subversive, anti-hero game and many would be surprised to know that Kane and Lynch 2 came out first. Max Payne 3 was praised for its shooting mechanics and style, whereas Dog Days was crucified for it. Kane and Lynch 2 was the first game I ever played that had visible alteration of fabric meshes and textures on the character's clothes, to simulate realistic movement, as well as dynamic body damage and permanent corpses and blood decals, all things that once again, Max Payne 3 is adored for. But I have to admit, as someone who also loved Max Payne 3, Kane and Lynch 2 simply does not have the gameplay to compare, but it commits far more further to the concept and presentation gimmick at great sacrifice (or simple inability to achieve) of other aspects. Not only that, but unlike the first game, Dog Days is far less derivative of its inspirations as and has a truly unique, unsettling and utterly fantastic little story that is blessed in its simplicity but ability to keep momentum despite all of its grotesque ugliness. Honestly, these same visual effects were strongly present in Battlefield 3 and to great effect. Dark shadows, lightbars to simulate compressed videos, specs and stains on the camera-lens filters and compressed, crunchy sound. I totally understand why people get nauseated from the shakycam. Thankfully, the cheekily named steady-cam option removes the vomit inducing, albeit immersive hand held presentation of the in game camera. It still works insanely effective in the cutscenes. Kane and Lynch 2 feels like a true third person game, as we witness events from a fourth wall breaking, unseen and unquestioned perspective of some camcorder recording of the events at play. I can see why this game truly failed financially and critically, it is, at its core, about two overweight, retirement-aged psychopaths with varying degrees of competency who are not nearly as redeemable or cool as Max Payne. But I think for a select few type of gamers, this is exactly the game we always wanted. A truly grounded game with only occasional breaks in realism for the sake of entertainment (one of these incidents being a helicopter section that is very similar to a few in the COD series, but primarily, feels like a bit of an homage to the first Matrix movie but also a near verbatim treading of a scene from Spec Ops the Line, another miraculous work of art restrained by merely competent third person shooter mechanics). But Dog Days is something else, it is one of the most remarkable recreations of a country I've ever seen in a game by people who do not natively inhibit it. The poverty stricken parts of Shanghai, to its industrially robust heart and eventually, luxury skyscrapers, is captured so realistically that the environments itself are a true testament to the art of immersive video games. Few games can ever convince you so full-heartedly of you being in this setting alongside the characters as well as Dog Days does. And all the sins of these sort of portrayals are surprisingly overcome by pure competence in how they were constructed. Every level and every bit of in-game cover feels real. None of these environments feel like they wouldn't exist in reality before us. This sometimes is a detriment to the gameplay, but the architecture of the game itself makes for a deep, immersive flow. Even the absolutely shoddy and inaccurate shooting mechanics (still wildly better than the first game's) elongates gunfights into a sparing realism and gravity. Sure, the LiveLeak Chinese-factory-explosion aesthetic is certainly used to hide the fact this game does not look as good as you may think without these filters and effects, but the game's commitment to this look makes it almost ageless to me. There is still some jank to the animations and especially the lipsyncing, but small details like Kane and Lynch physically pulling the triggers and occasionally flincing with their weapons or the the archaic way the simulate micro-manuever warfare in strictly real urban environments is to be applauded. Kane had the highlight last game, but Lynch is arguably the most realistically written, mentally ill, socially and occupationally impaired nutcase in interactive media. Gone are the first game's somewhat cartoony hallucinations and instead, Lynch's episodes are more true to actual bipolar type 2 than anything, mixed with borderline personality issues, unspecified anxious distress and possibly PTSD. He flows realistically between forced and fake empathy, to bouts of intense apathy, to manic rage and later in the game, mid-fire fight, you can audibly hear Lynch swing through several conjunctions of conflicting emotional states. In an instant, he could be grossly co-dependent on Kane's help or the emotional reassurance of his girlfriend's wellbeing, only to be spontaneously cursing and sociopathically taunting dead cops over how capable and deadly he truly is. I am still so surprised to see what this primarily Northern European team could do with just some help from Edios' Shanghai department. Even some of the in-game pop songs, which I swear were simply sampled and licensed from actual music from China, were actually commissioned for the game specifically. Thus, its on-point and genuine sound is entirely intentional and engineered. Honestly, the artistic integrity of this game's ugly vision of Shanghai is impressive. The game is just as insanely critical of the "le white man in le foreign country" genre as it is of the Chinese government, its autocratic and criminal elements that border on modern oligarchy, the implied corruption of all of its sectors and sections, all while being able to make a bunch of anglo-expats the occasional antagonist that show the heinous inhumanity that man shows to man is not exclusive to any race or national origin. In this setting, much like real life, there are few if any good guys, but plenty of bad guys and guys even worse than them. And it says all of this through the player's ability to simply digest and experience the game through the apathetic and unapologetic, bitter perspectives of the protagonists, never having to preach any of its criticisms nor explain its thesis. One of my all time favourite games and I will never pretend this was not peak. It simply is underappreciated and overhated, I hope some of its DNA finds its way to the hands of an ambitious developer once again some day.
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