(WARNING: This post contains spoilers for the game Kane and Lynch: Dead Men)

Just the other day one of my friends and I completed the Playstation 3 version of Kane and Lynch: Dead Men. I’ve heard much mixed reactions to the game, some people enjoyed in greatly well others felt it was a huge let down.

Personally I found the experience of blowing through the game in two day period on co-op mode to be enjoyable. The game was engaging and had some nice variety. I will admit though that at times the game frustrated me. One such frustrating element would be the aiming system, which (for me at least) was a little unwieldy at points.

Periodically stubborn controls aside, Kane and Lynch: Dead Men is solid gaming experience, but there is one area of the game that personally let me down a lot: the ending.

The game has two endings, which ending you get is based on a decision you make in the second to last level. In one ending Kane decides to escape in the helicopter with his daughter, leaving all the other men (including Lynch) behind to die. The other ending, which is the canon ending, has Kane going back to help the men, ultimately leading to an ending in which only Kane and Lynch escape alive.

Both endings are well executed from a story standpoint. In the first ending, Kane may succeed in saving his daughter, but has lost in the fact she despises him for turning his back on those who helped them. In the canon ending Kane does the right thing by going back to help. He has redeemed himself through that action, but must suffer the consequence of losing his daughter, the very person he was trying so hard to protect the most. In a poetic sense, both endings are real gems.

Right now you’re probably asking yourself, well if the endings are such “gems” then why I am disappointed with them? Well the reason for that is because they are short. Both endings are very, very short. That sounds kind of petty I know, but let me elaborate:

In retrospect I can see that the bulk of my disappointment in the endings occurred initially after completion. My distaste for it stemmed from the fact I had just busted my ass through many grueling levels just to get an end reward of two short cutscenes. Seeing such an abrupt ending left me wanting more and feeling ripped off.

Now that I’ve taken a step back and realize the poetic nature of the endings, I can’t in all good conscience bash the game or game designers. Especially when I take into consideration that the abrupt nature of the ending could perhaps largely be attributed to the fact a sequel to the game is currently in production.

So while I no longer hate the endings, it can never be changed that my initial feeling of them was one of shear disappointment.

(On the issue of Kane and Lynch, I have stopped going to a certain gaming related website ever since Gerstmanngate and plan to never return. It is bullshit the way the website treated an employee with tenure who was undoubtedly the face of the site and the ONLY reason to listen to their podcast. -VaultDweller13)