The literal vision of the world, presented to the player through the grainy lens of a shaky handcam, supports this aesthetic, and despite the game’s attempts at creating an “ugly world,” it is an incredibly beautiful presentation of such ugliness. I spent time earlier this week discussing the kind of realist aesthetic that the game is committed to presenting, one of a world where life just ain’t that pretty. The really excellent quality of this first level is only revealed later in the game when it is revealed that a seemingly incidental killing that occurs as a result of this chase has tremendously damaging and tragic consequences for our two ne’er do well protagonists. Again, the opening sequence is a promising one, featuring an adrenaline charged chase through the crowded streets and back alleys of Shanghai. However, Kane & Lynch 2 has some tremendously great moments.

My experience of the game’s sequel strikes me as an experience that is potentially equal in its ability to cloud the memory. The fact that I only played this game two years ago and yet I am only vaguely sure that I am even talking about sequences from the first game (I might be mixing them up with some other game), and I can’t remember what came in between these segments makes me think that the game was less than memorable. There was a time when you chased a plane? Then, there was some really silly level at the end, set in a South American country (I believe), that involved firing guns from a jeep or something. There was (again, I think) a really neat sequence near the middle that involved a bank heist gone wrong that worked very well.

What I think that I remember is really liking the initial level (a prison break(?), maybe), which launched the player into a near immediate overwhelming frenzy of violence and gunplay. I have only the vaguest recollection of the first Kane & Lynch game. I mean, they’re really great songs, but I just want to fast forward to get at them. Playing a Kane & Lynch game is a bit like listening to an album that has only two or three really great songs on it.

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