Thoughtful gamers; hear my call

I have never made any attempt to ever hide my sheer piss-pants excitement regarding the release of Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, and I don't plan to start now. If this instantly turns you off, please, I beg of you, try and repress your knee-jerk reaction this one time and read on.

I have followed the development of this game from the second that I heard of its announcement, which as many of you will know, makes for a long wait on my part. Its not as if K&L has had a particularly 'troubled' development, more that it has just taken its sweet time. The problem with this is that there are a few glaring issues with the game that just seem to put people off and quite rightly so. Due to its development time, it now looks quite dated in terms of its visuals. This, coupled with a lack of online co-op makes for alot of sore heads and "rental only" responses. Whilst I get frustrated at this attitude, I fully understand it.

If you are one of the aforementioned sore-heads, please consider this post as a gently persuasive argument. Despite its problems, Kane & Lynch has enough originality and style to compensate. I just want to look at the positives, so that you, the possibly undecided reader, can see the good in this game. I'm not going to list the features that make this such a potentially fantastic experience; they have been written about time and time again, and if your aren't aware of the amazingly original online multiplayer mode, Michael Mann aesthetic, fantastic characters and ingenious storytelling, then I probably already lost you in the first paragraph.

What I want to put across is that as gamers, we have the power to support and shape the future of the industry. IO have a fantastic back catalogue of games behind them and I for one, would hate to see their stock diminish because of a few minor errors. I want to see this game supported because of its glaring originality and sense of character. I want to see games like this succeed amongst the likes of bigger blockbusters, if only to convince publishers that there is a market for games such as Kane & Lynch. The game has a fucking colour palette for God's sake! An intended set of colours that set the mood and tone of each scene. Admittedly it won't be of Bioshock standards, but its nonetheless inspiring to see a game that pays such attention to detail. Also, don't forget that you get to play as complete bastards. No Hollywood-style redemption, no overcoming adversity, just two bad people in a bad situation.

Arguments like this will always be fraught with personal preferences and opinion and I understand how off putting this can be. But, if you are toying with the idea of buying this game, you have a relatively disposable income and you consider yourself to be a 'thinking gamer' then please, I urge you, as someone who already craves sequels or at least more games in a similar vain, please buy Kane & Lynch. If you're the kind of person to buy multiple iterations of the same movie, or who would buy another re-issue of Spaced on DVD, then consider smart and distinctive game design as another cause worth supporting, you wonderful Fanboy, you.

The Faux-Bot

P.S. Also worth noting is that K&L's release has been pushed forward a week due to it going Gold! Which is inspiring. Also, also, check out the very cool viral campaign in the form of this blog: http://www.peterstack7.com/page/4/ which concerns the investigation of the fictional, in-game criminal organisation - The 7 - for whom Kane and Lynch are forced to work.