The Scourge Project.

Well, it's been a while since I uploaded anything to the pain and suffering section of the site. Guess that had to change eventually. And you might be wondering why it is that I rarely put stuff in that section. It's because I don't like to post anything about games that I haven't actually beaten (WITH THE EXCEPTION OF FUCKING DARKSIDERS). But most of the games that I would normally toss into this forsaken section, are honestly so bad, so difficult, or so both of those factors, that they are almost impossible to really complete with sanity intact. So that said I'm going to forgo that condition and just get to the heart of the matter.

Looks like you've got yourself a pretty bad case of blood-crotch there bud.

The Scourge Project is bad. Really. Really. Really. Bad. And that's disappointing because on paper it sounds solid. It's a team based 3rd person cover shooter, intended to be played online with friends. You play the role of one of 4 mercenaries each with their own special ability, and you investigate the activity of a corrupt corporation. Standard stuff but it sounds like it would be hard to mess up right? HA. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Oh God.

So you start the game off being dropped outside of one of this corporations major facilities. You are given the most pathetic pea shooter of a gun ever conceived and are sent head long into battle. Here's where things go wrong! Aiming is nearly broken, remember the first Army of Two? Remember how hard it was to effectively aim your shots at first? Think of that times at least 2,000. You will spray wildly until you finally get locked onto your target, it's a little like the end of the night with your old lady but far less enjoyable and with bullets instead of... ahem, well anyways. The next issue rears its horrific misshapen head when it dawns on you that your enemies have far more health than you do, you might unload an entire clip into a bad guys head and he doesn't even twitch. Then a stray bullet clips your toe nail and you drop dead on the spot. But wait, what's that? You aren't dead? Your team could revive you? Well that doesn't sound too bad then! And so you watch as one by one your AI partners walk up to you with zero cover, lean down to revive you, and get fucking shot. If it weren't so frustrating, it would make a good Monty Python skit. One after another they will march forward and die. Even when there is only one enemy left, and they could easily dispatch him and revive you safely, they will do everything in their power to revive you immediately and your entire squad will cease fire because they all want to revive you at the same fucking time.

See the circle in the upper left? All the red things in there are enemies. Notice that my friend there isn't even close to in cover, And also please note the other asshole standing directly behind him doing nothing. Jesus.

You may be saying to yourself now, "why is this asshole bitching about friendly AI in a game that is intended to be played with multiple people?". Well shut up. I played this alone because I don't want to play online with anyone who would play this game for actual enjoyment, and I would never wish ownership of this game on my friends. I would even hesitate to send this to my worst enemy, but I'd prolly do it anyways. And honestly, just because your game is meant for multiplayer, doesn't mean you can just ignore the single player AI and say "meh! No one's gonna see that anyways!" I saw it you lazy assholes, I saw it. And the thing is, were it not for that horrendous AI and the inordinate difficulty combined, this might be a passable if extremely clunky and generic game. It would at least be playable for an afternoon of mindless fun. But those two factors are like a flood light drowning out the tiny half-burnt out incandescent bulbs that are the high points of this game.

Oh and did I mention the checkpoint system? It's a real hoot. I personally can't play a game unless it sends me back at least 15 minutes every time I get killed. And I love it even more when that 15 minutes is laced with painfully boring and completely unskippable (ITS A WORD NOW BITCH) cutscenes. This wasn't too much of a problem until I got to the first "boss" fight. Which was only difficult because the "boss" hid on the other end of the room and generic enemies spawn constantly until you kill him (often springing into existence directly behind you, from nowhere!). So anyways I got killed several times, and every time I got launched back to the beginning of that portion of the game, left to slog back through, and watch every god damned piece of shit cutscene over again.

Oh, the graphics are pretty ok I guess?


The Scourge Project is the property of it's respective owner. And I'm really sorry about that.
All else is ©Alex Jenkins 2011

Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days

Well I've been MIA for a while, a pretty long while, mostly due to being busy with school but also because I haven't been able to afford new games, as I have previously mentioned. So anyways, a steam sale popped up recently and they were giving away Kane & Lynch 2 for 3.50, so I figured what the shit, why not. And now here I am, to tell you about what MIGHT be the most underrated game of all time.

I didn't play the first game, I never had a reason to, thankfully that didn't come back to bite me here because the only consistent factor seems to be the 2 lead characters. Whatever happened in the first game isn't ever brought up in any concrete fashion, there are just a few events mentioned here and there, generally of no real consequence. So now that that's out of the way, we'll move on.

KL2 starts off fast, and it NEVER slows down, for those of you who have played Army of Two: The 40th Day, think of that game, but on crack. It even takes place in the same city. The plot essentially breaks down as follows, Kane and Lynch are reunited in Shanghai, where Lynch has been living the past few years, in order to pull a major arms deal. Before the deal Lynch needs to go rough someone up, to "teach him a lesson", the man is waiting for them, and a protracted gun battle ensues that sprawls out across the crowded streets of Shanghai. SPOILERS BITCHES A mistake is made and a girl is inadvertently killed. Turns out this is the daughter of the most powerful crime boss in all of Shanghai, who has not only the police, but the Chinese military in his pocket. As a result, nowhere is safe, Kane and Lynch can never stop moving, and they quite literally never find themselves in a position where someone ISN'T trying to kill them. Even their own partners betray them eventually, leaving them quite literally alone to fend for themselves, and to scramble for a way out of Shanghai.

This is obviously a fairly thin plot line, but what really carries you through the game is the characters, Kane and Lynch have this bizarrely charismatic air about them despite neither of them being a particularly likeable individual on the surface. Lynch is quite literally out of his mind and will frequently suffer breakdowns mid-firefight, and he has a murderous streak 5 miles wide. Kane is a bit more redeemable of a figure, he is the typical ex mercenary who wants to get out of the game and just wants to pull this one last job so he can give his daughter something when he dies. But it's the constant bickering and bantering between these two that elevates the game above others of the genre. They really feel like friends, as much as Kane seems to hate Lynch he can't bring himself to just ditch him, and Lynch genuinely likes Kane, but is a little bit too insane to express it in words.

The second really great thing about this game is it's absolutely brutal adherence to realism. This is a dark, honest, violent depiction of the seedy underbelly of the world that we all know exists in some extent. SPOILERS AGAIN YO There is a scene about half way through the game, in which the two leads are captured, along with Lynch's wife. They are tortured, graphically, and Lynch's wife is killed (it is also implied that she is raped). This is horrific and honestly fairly hard to watch, and for a short period thereafter Kane and Lynch are forced to run through the city naked, covered in truly horrific looking cuts, in search of clothing. And that brings me to my next point, the art direction.

Kane & Lynch 2 is awesome to look at, the graphics themselves are competent, but the real draw is the presentation. Everything is tailored such that it looks like you are viewing from the perspective of a documentary crew running around with cell phone cameras trying to capture the life of these two psychopaths. The screen is covered in mpeg compression artifacts, lights cause dramatic flare on the screen, and the more brutal moments of violence are concealed by on screen pixelation. An especially cool moment comes at a point early in the campaign when you blow up several propane tanks, the force of the blast and volume of the detonation cause the entire screen and all audio to distort to the point that you have no idea what's happening for a few moments. These small touches are really pretty awesome when you're playing the game. When you're watching someone else play it all seems kind of disorienting, especially the shaky cam that accompanies sprinting, but when you're in control of it yourself it feels much less like watching a drunken cameraman sprint through a hurricane, and more like you're just directly involved with the action on screen.

As far as gameplay goes it's a fairly standard 3rd person cover shooter. You move from cover to cover shooting your enemies when they make the mistake of sticking their heads out. It can be very difficult at times, as you have just about the same amount of health as your enemies on normal difficulty. I had a few moments where I made the mistake of running around a corner without looking, and my head would very abruptly go from normal to pixels as someone took a shotgun to it. It's typically not too frustrating though, as the checkpoint system is fairly solid and rarely sets you back more than a room or two upon death.

In final I think anyone who is looking for a dramatically more mature take on crime thrillers, and video games in general, there is really no reason not to pick this game up next time you find a used copy or it goes on sale, it's worth mentioning that the average gamer will finish the solo campaign within 4-6 hours. But I've already started replaying it and it does have the standard multiplayer modes with a few others added in, one of which places a double agent in the midst of the criminal team, whose job is to kill all of his team mates before they find out who is doing it. I haven't played the multiplayer, but it sounds like a really cool concept that I'd like to try out. All in all I'd give it an 8 out of 10, but those 2 points are deducted solely because of the relative brevity of the game. But to be fair, in comparison with the average 3 hour campaign of your standard call of duty game, I can't see why so many people are complaining about it being short.




Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days is property of IO interactive, Eidos and Square Enix.
All else is ©Alex Jenkins 2011