YOU SHOULD HAVE LET ME TALK TO THEM!

My review on Kane + Lynch:

Ah, Kane + Lynch, a game so bad it's funny, until you realize that you have to play its multiplayer for around 50 hours, and go through the story twice, once playing local co-op by yourself, since no one you know in real life is stupid enough to play that piece of shit.

It's a shame actually, since the story is pretty interesting, the game takes place in a varied set of scenarios, and on paper it really captures the whole feel of being a mercenary. That's not to mention the brilliant cooperative/competitive multiplayer, which again hits home perfectly.

The only problem is that the game is so damn lacking in basics that it's a chore to play it for any more than a few hours. Every single gun recoils horribly, and crouching doesn't help. The cover system is automatic, at least in theory, since you NEVER snap into cover until you fumble around for a few seconds first. Blindfiring leaves you just as vulnerable as regular shooting, with the added perk of being about as accurate as Micheal J. Fox with a sniper rifle.

The characters are completely unlikable, so even though you're following an epic revenge saga, you don't really care one way or the other. Not to mention a horrible dialogue - the title of this post is from a section so laughably stupid it's amazing. Basically, Kane beats a guy to death with a shovel while screaming "You should have let me talk to them!" repeatedly for no reason. The only thing worse than the arbitrary dialogue is the fact that there's about 4 sentences in the entire game that don't contain the word "Fuck". It's like a bunch of Halo-playing 8-year-olds wrote the script.

That's not to mention the shitty A.I. - the game in theory is supposed to be a Rainbow 6-like experience, except in 3rd person. Only problem is that the AI is SO bad, you're better off doing all the work yourself. If your ally is on one side of a kiosk, in cover from enemy fire, and you tell him to go to the other side, he will go AROUND the long way, and get cut down, forcing you to run out and revive him lest you fail the mission.

To sum it up, Kane + Lynch is a fantastic game in the making, but it needed about 4 months more of polishing to make it one. As it stands, it's a complete piece of crap. It's altogether a horrible game, not worth suffering through for the 1250. If you don't care about completion and a copy of the game fell into your lap, play through it once on easy (or Asprin, as the Hey-Look-At-Us-We-Named-Our-Difficulty-Levels-After-Drugs-We're-So-Cool developers insist) then burn it. Otherwise, stay far away.

Oh yeah, and there's 2 0-point achievements for being first and second on the global leaderboards. I'm actually going to have to spend 300-odd hours on them at some point in the future when they're the only achievements I don't have. Fucking assholes.



Also, I completed Civil War a few days ago. It actually wasn't too bad, but definitely had room for improvement. First of all, there's a reason no one ever made a game about the Civil War, half the guns take forever to reload and the other half barely do any damage, even on Easy. Playing through it on Easy consists of running around stabbing people, partly because it's the most efficient way of killing people, partly because of the stupid accuracy achievements. The achievement list, although easy, is a bit stupid. I say this knowing I was lucky enough to play on an unglitched copy - apparently the weapon kills achievements are buggy as hell and vary from copy to copy.

The manual saving is good in theory, and definitely compensates for the annoyances of Hard difficulty, like being shot when you're behind a wagon, two boulders, and a tree. Only problem is that it's hidden in the Pause Menu. Assigning it to a button would've made it better. The controls are awkward, but you get used to them about a quarter through your first of two playthroughs.

All in all, it's actually a sort of enjoyable game, and I actually recommend it, for the easy achievements, the gameplay, and the fact that you can probably find a used copy for $15 somewhere. In theory, I don't recommend it to a completionist because the achievements can be buggy, but I didn't have any problems.



Penultimate section, I finished off the Gears 2 DLC. First off, they better come out with more DLC to even it off. Having a 1175 on my card will make it impossible for me to hit 100,000 with 100% completion. I'd have to play the original LOTR, which I'm not doing. Secondly, I didn't appreciate having to spend $10 on three maps Epic probably had done before Gears 2 went gold. Just for that, Gears 3 comes off my "Must-Have" list. Really.

Third, the already-broken multiplayer was made worse by the patch. I had to win EIGHT Annex games, which, with the horrible lobby system, forced me to spend about 5 hours total just getting into matches, let alone winning them. But, as it's all said and done, I'm still the first on x360a to complete both DLC packs, as I was for the original 1000. Fingers crossed I can do it for the next 75-point DLC.



Finally, I currently stand at 83% completion, with 41/61 retail games complete (excluding DLC) and 10/14 arcade. My cousin's been bugging me to play Prey with him, so I'll be putting that on my card and completing it within a week or so for a change of pace.

WORKING ON:

Prey (the whole thing)
Aegis Wing (I've come within 1,500 points of getting Ace solo. Not even a second controller. I'm determined to finish it.)
Saint's Row 2 (possibly)