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This is one game that the industry and gamers might benefit from skipping...

When Karsten Lund of Io Interactive boldly claimed that the reviews for Kane Lynch 2: Dog Days were going “to be a lot better” than the franchise’s first title, most thought that that outcome was a given. After a month of reviews from every man, woman and child, Dog Days has in fact only received a score of 64 out of 100 on Metacritic, 1 point worse than Dead Men. Should Lund reconsider his career choice, or should we as an industry stop placing so much faith in these decidedly subjective scoring systems?

Lund isn’t the only one to put their faith in hitting a predetermined Metacritic score, with Peter Moore of EA Sports famously asking the FIFA 10 development team to deliver a 90. Unlike Lund, though, Moore’s prediction was surpassed, as the annual football title scored an impressive 91. However,...

The summer's gaming market is heating up...

Where was I before I was so rudely interrupted by the embargo? Oh yes, Kane & Lynch 2 is, and I quote, “immeasurably better than its predecessor in almost every sense”. Let me expand on that: this new iteration is “immeasurably better than its predecessor in almost every sense”, but to be better than the first can hardly be considered an achievement—especially for a developer the quality of Io Interactive, the developers who gave us the Hitman series.

Nearly one month ago to the day, I was lucky enough to venture over to Square Enix’s HQ in London for an intimate pre-release testing session. Coupled with a hidden demo, I feel like I’ve played through the majority of the game without spending a penny. Whilst playing it’s obvious that the team did indeed concentrate on fixing the three main negatives from...

It's hard to imagine a game with worse post-release publicity than the first "Kane & Lynch." While it was widely considered mediocre, it wasn't until the controversial dismissal of Gamespot's reviewer, Jeff Gerstmann, that the game became a larger-than-life symbol of The Man. Without the controversy, the game probably would've been forgotten about a week or so after release, but even today the stigma surrounding the franchise remains, which makes the existence of its forthcoming sequel somewhat unexpected

I recently spoke to the game's director, Karsten Lund, regarding the sequel and why he thought it was worth bringing the franchise back. His answer was surprising.

"We don't see it as the failure that the rest of the world saw it as. It sold a lot of copies; actually, it was one of the best-selling new IPs of the year. We're still in love with the characters and the whole gritty tone...

Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days director Karsten Lund knows about the less than awesome reviews Kane & Lynch received when it first came out, but he is much more hopeful that the sequel will be better than what the prequel was.

“I expect reviews [of the sequel] to be a lot better. I hope it’s going to be better, at least. That’s what we strive for, right? To really give people that experience they should have had with the first game. I think the first game did a lot of things right. We’re trying to enhance those as well. So I do expect higher scores.”

I did play the first Kane & Lynch game and I think it was mostly successful in delivering a gritty crime-drama that Michael Mann could have been proud of. The biggest problem was the gameplay, which I’m sure many people who played it would agree with.