Max Payne, Kane & Lynch, and the Meaning of Ugly Games
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- Опубликовано: 12 июл 2020
- Extract ideas whose compelling force is identical with that of hunger.
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Podcast- Something Rotten:
-RUclips: • Something Rotten
-Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/6IwFIGc...
Script Consultation and Additional Voices by Laura Crone: / lauracrone
Script Consultation by Blake Hester: / metallicaisrad
Cinematography by Caroline Amico
Yes, A Games Writer Was Fired Over Review Scores: kotaku.com/yes-a-games-writer...
Jeff Gerstmann’s Kane and Lynch Review: • Kane and Lynch: Dead M...
Rockstar Spouse’s Letter: www.gamasutra.com/blogs/Rocks...
Experience at Rockstar Vancouver: www.engadget.com/2010-01-14-s...
Theater of Cruelty:
-The Theater and Its Double, 1958, Antonin Artaud
-Theater History Podcast #9: howlround.com/theatre-history...
-The Spurt of Blood: spurtofblood.com/
-Antonin Artaud and the Theater of Cruelty: Crash Course Theater #43: • Antonin Artaud and the...
Visual Media Used: Kane and Lynch: Dead Men, Kane and Lynch 2: Dog Days, Max Payne 3, Grand Theft Auto IV, Red Dead Redemption 2
Music Used (Chronologically):
DLC Arena War Track One (GTAO), Captain Toad Goes Forth (Super Mario 3D World), FUTURE, One Card Left to Play (Max Payne 3), The Doomed Commercial Area (Disco Elysium), Max Payne 3 Theme (Max Payne 3), Sweatshop (Kane and Lynch 2), 12PM Whirling-in-Rags, Your Body Betrays Your Degeneracy (Disco Elysium), Silent Heaven (Silent Hill 2), Escape (Kane and Lynch 2), Main Menu Variation 3 (Max Payne 3)
Thumbnail by: / hotcyder 
Игры
For a full-length director's commentary with more thoughts about these games, third-person filming, and experimental theater, join my Patreon at www.patreon.com/JacobGeller
I love ugly games. It adds to the aesthetic and tone of the stories in these games. The dull look to watch dogs 1 Chicago really adds to Aiden pearces revenge story, same with Max Payne 3, gta 4
I’ll be sure to check it out
You look like the guy from the "have you seen this man" creepypasta
never thought I'd see Artaud brought up in a video on video games. great video.
Can you do a video on Over the Garden wall
Just to do some justice to Max about the ending of the game:
Max acctually quit drinking. He was drinking brazilian soda in the beach, not beer.
That bottle of Guaraná Soda is kinda iconic here in Brazil
Good catch! It does look like a soft drink bottle to me, more than a beer. I didn't know Guaraná had a glass bottle, though
Glass bottles are pretty commonly attributed to alcohol in the US so I guess that’s what tripped him up
@@baronvonskeltal7550 they were pretty common back in the day, but you still can occasionally find them in beach kiosks and gloomy bars
@@ignaciovitalis3971 the best sodas are the glass bottled dude, you can almost feel the 8-ball in the coke lol
@@catiperere I try to get mexican sodas whenever I can for that pure sugar
I will forever love Kane & Lynch for one single moment that game gave me. I was playing with my buddy in co-op as Lynch and there was a level in which you have to run away through the streets with lots of civilians. Suddenly I've started seeing some people with dog heads, literally black dog heads and I've started shooting them down. My buddy then asks me "what the fuck are you doing?" over VoIP, and i told him "those are demons!"
"what? what the hell are you talking about?"
"help me idiot, we're gotta kill'em!"
"no, stop the crap, it's uncomfortable, you're shooting normal people"
"no I'm not, I'm serious, I'm seeing people with dog heads"
"really? like, in game your npc models have dog heads?"
And that's how for a moment we had an absolutely honest and real moment as literally Kane and Lynch themselves. I thought it was fucking brilliant game design and forgave all the flaws it had just because of that. Because it somehow walked the line between the reality and game world. I literally felt justified being an absolute monster because I saw some insane stuff. And buddy rightly gave me shit about it. And we even started arguing!
I still remember that moment sometimes. One of the most memorable gaming experiences of my life.
Hahahahahaha i have the same experience with my friend in Dead Space 3 those games are masterpieces
I wish I still had friends to play co op with lol.
I too Like this game i don't know why but i guess it is nostalgia
Thats so cool! I absolutely agree. Sometimes i watch movies or play games and just cuz of one brilliant idea the value of the medium is going insane for me personally.
I felt justified being a monster because I saw some insane stuff?
Wtf lol there's people who never see graphic stuff in person and they play video games like psychopaths as well
The problem is Kane & Lynch was the videogame equivalent of an indie grindhouse film marketed to the masses as a regular, polished hollywood movie. It requires a specific audience that likes making itself uncomfortable and is willing to offer up some quality for that often unique, real feeling of grit.
Good point. Kinda like how Drive, an arthouse film, was marketed as a Fast & Furious type film and disappointed many for that reason.
@@ZacticalZombie like nearly every A24 film. Great art with Psychological horror or mostly drama. But it gets advertised as a basic bland jumpscare festival. That’s why they are my favorite as they never ruin the movie and get you in a mindset that will be twisted out of you. Hereditary is my favorite example of this. It’s marketing is lying and yet it completely helps the twist in every way.
I agree. But that holly wood polish gives it a high octane feel that it’s a shit show
Just like Michael Mann’s Miami Vice, another arthouse type film advertised as being the 80s series or another Bad Boys II and that turned out to be a mixed bag as well.
Also Mann’s DV aesthetic reminded me of the visual style of K&L2.
This is not normal for vydia. fucking chill.
Fun Fact, as a brazillian, i can tell you, that what he drinks at the end is not beer, it's a glass bottle of "guaraná antartica", it's a kind of soda specific from here, that attention to detail is really impressive.
woah, nice.
He noticed and apologized for it on his socials
@@NecoLumi should have left a pinned comment imo
Me lembra mais as KS de sprite que tem em barzin e restaurante aqui
@@ayushsinghchauhan9558this entire video is filled with things that become more apparent with age.
"Jacob Geller is a beautiful, beautiful gamer."
Waaaaait a minute...
[pulls bag off of head]
Jacob Geller! You were Razbuten all along!
@@imveryangryitsnotbutter Jacob let me use a clip of him for a few of my videos and a handful of people assumed that it was me. Honestly, it one of the greatest compliments I've ever received. I wish I could grow a beard as full as Jacob's, but it just is not in the cards.
Woah its actually Razbuten, dude I love your videos
Both you and Jacob make what in my opinion I consider to be some of the highest quality videos on RUclips, and not just about videogames, but in general as well. It only makes sense you two know each other. I guess geniuses stick together.
You should make your wife play Max Payne 3 😁
23:16 "even both end with a shootout in an airport"
fun fact, this is something these games have in common with Toy Story 2: Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue
I fucking love that game.
🤣🍻
LM fucking AO
13:11 That moment when he says "and then the game starts" and you get an Animal Crossing ad right after watching a torture scene.
“Dog Days”
Kane and lynch to me was always an admonishment of violence and gore, they made it to disgusting on purpose to show you that it isn’t something to be glorified. It’s giving you what consumers want, violence. Violence that isn’t cartoonish but vile and gross like true life violence is. It’s not romantic it’s horrible
this is a major reason why i love both of the hotline miami games so much, they give you both of those
@@YinnYangGMD too bad everyone loves them exactly like all the glorified depictions of violence
What about games like doom, dusk, quake, soldier of fortune? Who gives a shit if violence is glorified or not. It's a game. Supposed to be fun. Something that we should be playing for fun without thinking about what we're doing.
@@beyondthegrave124 no thats why you have those games and this game so you have fun glorified violence and this realistic vile one
@@beyondthegrave124 that's why games like this should exist. because with how much violence is used as entertainment in media, it's good to be reminded once and a while what violence really is.
Nice video! Fun fact: I was one of the motion capture actors for the cutscenes and some in-game. I played Kane. I have fond memories of the shoot, and this brought it all back! Love your work.
For the Game's Trailer too ?
:O
Call your agent and ask him to ask them to make another one
@@Payvel Nah, just the cutscenes and some in-game
Good work.
I bet the cameraman in Kane & Lynch 2 learned his camera skills from Skillshare
You know it!
All within their 30 day trial
Best cameraman ever. 📷
Have to give him props for staying behind the whole time even with all the gunfire and not saying a word
punpun
I think I have an idea as to why Max Payne 3 has this dissonance between the ugliness of its world and the beauty of its combat. The only time the world looks beautiful to Max is when he's inflicting and threatened by violence. The world and its endless confusion and despair suddenly click into place. When the bullets fly, everything is simple. All of Max's internal conflicts disappear. For a few brief moments, his place in the world is clear and unambiguous: he must kill or be killed. I've read about veterans saying that once they reach a certain point in the carnage, they find they are surprisingly able to do their duty.The worst moments are those that happen on either side of that carnage. The terror before, and the remembering after, and all the corrosive, horrifying questions that come with that remembering. Only through chaos does Max find any order in the world at all.
Written like an excerpt from the series itself.
this is surprisingly common to people with combat-related PTSD, they will only feel "alive" during conflict and when they are reliving the war. everything else has become mundane and unimportant
The thing about vets is completely true. Actual combat is the best part - you get a huge surge of adrenaline and you do what you trained for. What sucks is the aftermath, especially if you lost friends, and the anxiety and fear before the firefight.
I remember this being a quote from max Payne itself, the when bullets flies around is when the world becomes simple... Idk maybe I could be wrong
@@cutehunter9659 another fun fact about Max Payne is that it's inspired by a specific genre of Hong Kong action films called Heroic Bloodshed that was very popular in the 80s and one of the biggest pioneers of the genre was Chinese Director John Woo who also invented "Gun Fu"... He himself is quoted as saying something a long the lines of attempted to find beauty and order in violence and chaos hence why he filmed all his action/gunfight scenes the way he did with lots of slow motion and wide shots in order to pull of the violence into one view almost like a landscape painting or like a Kung Fu fight in a martial arts movie, especially since John Woo himself started off directing 70s Kung Fu films, which had the same idea about how to film "violence" only in that case it was hand to hand violence
Kane & Lynch 2 is basically LiveLeak: the Game.
I'd say that's Manhunt, a game that should have made it into this video
@@tedthecommenter5364 nah Manhunt is Bestgore
@@unchartedrocks1 😅, manhunt is ugliest but the "camera-mechanicsm" of Dog Days ia iconic.
@@tedthecommenter5364 Nah, Manhunt is pre-internet "video nasties". No surprise that it was made by British developers who probably grew up under Thatcher.
@@cookieface80 I hate to be that guy but Manhunt is not pre-internet gore with sites like Rotten and Stileproject both popular places hosting real gore in the 90s, also "video nasty" was coined in the 80s referring to slasher and exploitation films of the time not real snuff, Manhunt does reference a lot of those films though.
I find “ugly” attractive. Glitchy filters, over-saturation, distortion... it’s somewhat beautiful.
Play STALKER. It doesnt look like its filmed from a camera but its a really bleek game that still looks beautiful.
While not as “ugly” as Kane and Lynch, Hotline Miami has a similar feel to the game. Hyper violence, bright, saturated colors, distorted backgrounds and visuals, a general sense of “something ain’t right” and futility permeated throughout the story, loud and energetic music blasting constantly.
The only thing that sets it apart from K&L is that it’s not all that gritty. It’s got it’s poor, run down areas, but it’s stylized and a lot of that thick layer of filth gets painted over with neon. Still an awesome game, though.
Condemned also comes to mind. The tone is pretty different from K&L, but it’s got such a dirty, oppressive atmosphere, it’s definitely worth playing. The sequel ramps up that style, but the story is awful and the gameplay is just as bad. But they’re both cheap and worth a shot if you want to.
@@Ckoz2829 I think HM is a beautiful game! Except for the excruciating difficulty...
@@myeyesaredrymylove Only if you don't know how to play right
@@Tycini1 Yeah, I guess you're right... The true HM experience is the constant R button pressing, and forming tons and tons of different strategies with each player death.
The aesthetic of Kane & Lynch 2 is so underrated. And the depiction of brutality and violence in that game is incredible. I wish there was more developers with the guts to do stuff like that.
So many R-rated games, so few games for adults...
It's because it's a hard medium to get right. The closest thing to this complete gristlefest I've seen done correctly is, ironically, Rockstar's content post MP3. Red Dead Redemption 2's story is a really good one where even the guys trying to turn coat and be good 80% of the time still are being bad guys. There's no real happiness that comes from it, and we know thanks to the first one that what little happiness will be fleeting away. GTAV, at least the not-Franklin side of it, does its best to mock games like these 'ugly' titles with a character completely caught up in his own self-pity (in Michael) that he doesn't even realize that he's a walking hollywood stereotype being paired with the loonie (in Trevor obv).
These characters, bar Arthur at least a little, aren't painted as good guys. They're the protagonist, sure, and they may have their motives that are respectable at least a little, but ultimately they're still deranged murderers who may TRY and be good people but their previous problems don't exactly let them. The closest non-Rockstar video game I can tie to this is maybe something like the Dark Souls series where there's just this unending expression of futility and dread that nothing matters. You're in a Hell where everything that happens doesn't matter in the long run, and so being existential out of self preservation is more or less your only go-to choice if you're to not just be a cog in the system.
Undertale even taps on that last theme pretty well. Sans the Skeleton does a really good job in a modest character with a big front cause he isn't interested in existing in the world he knows he'll lose, but he knows he has to and that if he tries he'd readily enjoy it... but then have it ripped away obv.
It's ugly.
@@NT-sx2bd that's literally the point
Last of Us 2 is up there, in some ways. But Kane and Lynch 2 is something of another realm
I'm not sure I agree about Max Payne 3. Max believes, in a meta way, that his life is a noir cliche. That he has no power over it and will be forever trapped in endless violence losing people in the process. So he drowns himself in alcohol trying not to think about it too much. As story progresses, he starts realizing that perhaps that was a self fulfilling destiny. That his constant self destructive habits are exactly what lead to this torturous life.
That's where themes of power and corruption come into play. Max thinks he has no power over his life choices, so he just goes with a flow. Becomes a tool for the rich to abuse. That's why you mostly fight small time criminals during first two acts protecting the rich, your bosses. By the third act, Max fights against the powerful - the police, the organ sellers, Branco, the system. He even has a moment where he and Fabiana's kidnapper find a common ground both relating to the fact that they were pawns in a big scheme. He also manages to save Giovanna while sober. You see, Max starts as a tool, but as he gains more understanding of himself and his life, he becomes his own person and fights against those who used him. Basically taking control of his life.
So story ends with Max gaining a new perspective. He comes to understand his venture wasn't some heroic journey to sacrifice himself, rather to find reason to live. Realization that self destruction isn't just a punishment of oneself, but everyone who gets close to you. Realization that he can accept what happened and move on. That's why story ends with him drinking a soda and giving no internal monologues. He finally is at peace with himself.
It would have been better if the game hadn't been the continuation of an existing franchise though, as some of those things were already dealt with, especially by the end of Max Payne 2. Kinda waters down the potential impact since it's first of all repeating itself, and second of all does so in a break in style. Imagine if it had been an original ip, with no overt trappings holding it back
@@sofielundsskolan yeah it always felt more like an alternative universe sequel to MP1 than an actual third chapter in the story because we've seen these events happen in some way.
@@dopey473 I've never considered this, but the more I think about it, the more it would fit. The explicit psychedelic stuff in the first could lead into a little bit of whatever, even including the break in style and tone, and it still hits on the stuff the MP2 does... kinda. It's worse by comparison for sure, but not everyone can write like Sam Lake
Really well said!
@@sofielundsskolan i have played all the games and i never felt like 2 ever ended on that note.
Crucially, theater of cruelty isn’t just about overstimulation or shock, but about destroying the idea that there is a fourth wall SHIELDING the audience from the action “onstage.” Overwhelming sensory onslaught is one way to do this, involving the audience’s physiological reactions to the degree that they don’t have a choice but to have an embodied experience, but there are other ways to approach it too. The shaky cam third person reminds me of a piece a friend did for an avant-garde class where they forced the audience to sit in wheeled office chairs so they could be grabbed and moved forced to interact with the piece at any time.
Kane & Lynch 2 is one of the most filthy and visceral games ever made, and its a fucking genius experience. Its a pulse-pounding Michael Mann nightmare and I will love it forever.
It's a shame too few people understood it's intention by cryng about it's shaky cam and asking for an option to remove it, they were basically asking for the painter of the picture to make it more bright because that's what they enjoy even though the artist's intention was to make a dark picture, this game is another proof that videogames can be art and most gamers just bashed it, t̶h̶e̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶y̶ ̶w̶o̶n̶d̶e̶r̶ ̶w̶h̶y̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶y̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶n̶i̶c̶e̶ ̶g̶a̶m̶e̶s̶ ̶ , the reception of this game is the prime example of most gamers not being ready to appreciate artistic videogames, it's exactly the same shit as the music industry if you don't make club music most people will never want to listen
@@Gilman93 the problem is that most people play video games to have fun playing them. Why do you think Mario Kart is a guaranteed hit on a Nintendo console? If the game isn't fun, why bother?
@@samt3412 Video Games are entertainment. Saying Kane & Lynch isn't Fun because of a dark/gritty atmosphere, doesn't makes sense.
Do we need only Disney movies? Should we stop making dramas?
Kubrick isn't "Fun" but its still regarded as a cinema genius for a reason.
@@samt3412 now that i think more about it adding the option to remove shaky cam isn't a bad idea, giving tools for the players to create a different experience they want should be a requirement for every game, my main complain was not about people bashing the game because of the shaky cam but rather on the game being bashed because of it's gritty artistic direction, the game is advertised as such but still most gamers joined the hate bandwagon for what it is, it's like bashing a military simulator game or an horror game for not being the kind of fun they want, the people that finds scary, complex and gritty games fun will love those games because they were specifically made for them, but kane & lynch 2 got reviewed in the most unfair way possible, instead of being reviwed as a gritty shooter it was reviewed as a fun third person shooter which it isn't, most gamers and reviewers were bashing the game for not being fun like gears of war or gta, that's the same as bashing an military simulator game for not having bright funny simple gameplay
2nd game is heavily underrated. Bought it the minute i played it
Jacob Geller can talk about a game I’ve never heard of and don’t care about for nearly 30 minutes and he’ll still have my undivided intention, if only for his great narration and voice.
You'll probably like this review of the Max Payne trilogy then. A nice solid hour of silky smooth narrative and punchy editing. ruclips.net/video/vCjWhIMV_4A/видео.html
i hope you dont mean max payne. pls, tell me you dont mean max payne
can relate, its almost midnight but HooHoo Good Video Producer
BeThomsen I’m talking about Kane and Lynch
Same
Spec Ops the Line is another game I would consider an “ugly game.” It’s well written and has stellar gameplay, but it’s story and themes are so damn “PTSD-inducing.” What starts out as a mere recon mission to see if people are still alive in Dubai quickly turns into a descent into madness and it shares many similarities with the book “The Heart of Darkness.” You think at first you’re fighting Terrorists only in this game, and then it turns into you fighting US soldiers which really took gamers and the media by storm when the game was released. It’s not until the last quarter of the game that you begin to realize you might be the bad guy, the American soldiers you are killing have good reason to fear you, and you realize it was all just a PTSD induced nightmare. The dialogue with your squad is also impeccable as they begin to realize how crazy you are to find this general that supposedly messed up the entire city and the entire rescue operation. Couple that in with witnessing war crimes, and you realize Spec Ops the Line is about the line between courage, valor, and heroism all the way to straight up depravity. It’s a commentary on US foreign policy in one sense, a commentary on warfare in another, and I’d argue also a commentary on mental heath as the main character is obviously suffering from post traumatic stress disorder he received in Afghanistan.
From a gaming experience perspective, it’s one of those games you have to binge. I played it over the course of two days, four hours each, in a dark basement in the summer of 2015 as I waited to go back and finish high school up for senior year. From other people I have talked to that played the game, that is the best way to play it and become engrained in the themes. By the end of the game your character is clearly tired and tortured, and in a way, that is how the player is also supposed to feel. Tired, tortured, and filled with nihilism.
Agree Spec Ops the Line was extremely nerve wracking. All I could say at the end........ WHAT THE FUCK!?😳
spec ops the line and far cry 3 help topple the white savior trope and i love them for it.
Actually iirc the voice acting was done in one sitting too so that the actors were just as tired as the characters.
@@evieraotacon the ending and everything in that game is just dark, love it
@@lewisgreen1725 Same here
Kane&Lynch 2 must be remastered. And there should be a genre that actually dares to implement such visceral madness with just this level of invision. It is Ugly, but also necessary.
I like the style of Kane and Lynch: Dog Days. There should be more games that look like the action was filmed on early smart phone cameras.
I've played Dogs Days a couple days ago for the first time ever, and I think it's one of my favorite 3rd person shooters now. It's absolute garbage, it makes you feel like absolute garbage and then it suddenly just... ends.
A large issue with the game is accessability due to that, I played through the game shortly after release and I had to play it an hour at a time, mostly just getting to the end because I bought the game, because the motion and sound design combined to give me physical motion sickness and headaches for playing too long.
@@AnastasiaThemis it sounds like you had the ideal experience tbh
The style make me dizzy.
The style makes me think of ”Ive Seen Footage” by Death Grips, early smart phone camera estetics can be really effectful in my opinion!
I hate Kane & Lynch. Understand that what I'm about to say is not defending it:
2:58 - Lynch shooting civilians is actually a pretty unique moment if you play co-op. I've never seen it done in other games. Whoever is playing Lynch sees those civilians as cops who are about to attack. I was playing with my brother and he started shooting everyone. I yelled for him to stop, then realized what he was seeing. Thought it was a neat idea.
Still a piece of shit game.
woahhh thats really interesting
I never knew that.
That's a genius move. For as much as the game does wrong, this is pretty incredible.
This makes me curious... what happens if he doesn't shoot at the fake cops (maybe by cross-referencing what's on the screen of the player playing Kane)?
Do they shoot Lynch or simply hold position? If they shoot, then what does the Kane player see?
Another neat trick is that after Kane's wife is killed, the game hard cuts out of the cutscene where he buries her to you standing in front of the guy holding a shovel so fast you don't fully realize you killed him until it's over. At least they fully committed to stuff like that in the sequel
You're right about the co-op thing. You're wrong about it being a piece of shit. I liked it.
Damn the way they implemented the literal third person CAMERA is super interesting. I'm not sure it would be enjoyable to play, especially for someone with easy motion sickness, but artistically it's FASCINATING. the fact that the camera person literal falls down when you die really caught me off guard, the way they feel detached enough to really feel like a separate person as they watch your character move away and fall....
the only time the camera man died.
Just finished K&L 2 and throughout the playthough I kept wondering, "Did the Safdie brothers every play this game?" The claustrophobic, handheld camera style paired with the gritty, never-ending bad luck motif really felt like shades of 2017's "Good Time".
Based comment
The safdies are amazing
There’s something about Kane and lynch 2’s aesthetic that I love so much I don’t know why
The whole handheld camera thing they had going on is so unique, visceral? Raw? Real? Immersive maybe? I don’t even know what words to use I just love it
Those are the words. You're using the right words.
liveleak-y
@@troglodyte8242 Game would have been even more brutal if there was a parody liveleak watermark on the hud.
@@whatwhat4052 the whole game reminds me that we need more liveleak-y type games and movies
I'm honestly glad someone acknowledged Dog Days' use of a third-party camera wielder and just the game in general. I found myself strangely appealed to it as well, but never understood why. You put it into words. Thank you.
the only time the camera-man died
Kane and Lynch 2 is really beautiful. There's two great interviews with the director about how the game ended up the way it did and it's honestly fantastic
Can you link them?
Please link them
Can you link them?
Can you link them?
For some reason the link I had put disappeared. The article is on invalidmemory wordpress called "player two interview with rasmus poulsen", the other is heterotopiaszine article 001
edit: youtube seems to be auto deleting the links whenever I put them
It is literally the very first time i see something even semi-positive about Kane & Lynch II as a game, as an experience.
As someone who grew up in a Chinese city similar to Shanghai, Kane & Lynch 2 has a twisted and nihilistic catharsis for me. Those cities are go-to examples of ugliness wrapped under material modernity. Spotless downtown hides staggering income inequality, fast deliveries are enabled by inhumane hours of service sector workers, all-in-one place online services are super convenient as long as you are willing to give up every bit of details of your life to Tencent and the government agencies sponsoring them. I lived for a period of time in the US and witnessed very much the same struggle for the working people. It isn't better but I found it easier to access support networks there in opposed to censorship and social pressures make it near impossible here. K&L2 is not a nice game, but being able to shatter the illusion in the most gruesome manner gives empowerment in the moment even though the violence I discharge in the game is indiscriminate and completely free of empathy for the suffering people.
I have to disagree, my brother from another mother. China is still in a transitory state and so much of this dramatic suffering are sensationalized in western media as almost porn. If you been living amongst the poorer people (mingong, street vendors, service people), you will find a lot of a lot of warmth, optimism and solidarity IN SPITE of a more authoritarian government. Like what you experienced, I witnessed the same in the US as well, but with a veneer of neoliberalism. Capitalist exploitation at the heart is the same everywhere.
@@Kavino For the record, comparing China and the US about which one is worse is a dick measuring contest that I did not want to start. Capitalism sucks life out of people everywhere it goes. Just different paints across the pacific. I admit I have an identity complex between my experience growing up in China under upper middle class helicopter parenting and becoming who I am through participating in progressive politics in America that distorted my views. My next job may very well change my perspectives as it requires me to work day in and day out with frontline construction workers, which I eagerly await. As it is right now, however, I feel quite hopeless for either.
While I do agree Western media often bash Chinese culture and policy. And many things the generalized "Western media" said about China is untrue. I only know English and Chinese so I cannot read what other parts of EU thinks. Most critics in English relies heavily on focusing the authoritarian government. Most praise in English heavily focus in China's fast development.
I think a lot of class divide is true for any country, yet the awareness within China outwardly is painfully low. (Because inwardly I think a lot of people are aware. That's why education is such a race for who can dump the most money on their child)
I lived in Shanghai for 7 years and I think it is utterly eerie that no one talks about politics.
Like people will complain about policies, yet nobody will say, "The government shouldn't have implemented that policy."
The strongest push against a policy I ever seen is Guangzhou's opening for immigrant Black and Brown workers moving back to Guangzhou to work. Even that push is just bunch of racists saying that Black and Brown people are "inferior" using eugenics and shouldn't have come and "conquer" their own country. There's is no one directly blaming the Guangzhou's government for opening. The racists part of the population blame Black and Brown people. While more sensible ones only blames the incomplete information causing strife. No one questions the opening policy of the Guangzhou government.
In my 7 years in Shanghai. I go to school. Use the transit. Visit other parts of China for historical monuments.
The most memorable location for me in Shanghai is a group of half broken old fashioned brick houses.
I saw this house on my school bus. My school route will pass a few undeveloped areas in Pudong.
On the walls of this stone brick house is a poorly spray painted phrase, "政府还我房子" (Government give me back my house)
This is the first and last direct criticism I've seen of the Chinese government from inland.
Perhaps all that I say and think about China is untrue. 7 years is not a long time for a child. Lot of this is just my personal experience as a high schooler after all. I seek to read more books and research about the world around me before making a statement.
cyncynshop I’m in Shanghai as a white disabled US expat, and I agree with you. Shanghai is beautiful but rotten. The operative word here is convenience. Things are convenient here. And I’ll admit, I’m thriving in this city because of it, but I see how people struggle for it. The waimai drivers are horribly mistreated, and no one here is allowed to truly unionize. Disabled people are ignored or shunned (or killed) as seen with what happened during quarantine. (A man was quarantined without his disabled son and died for it because he wasn’t taken care of.) Police brutality is rampant, and there’s discrimination and incredible xenophobia and homophobia (and racism.) I’m protected from most of it but I can see it here. There is a sense here of hyper capitalism, every family for themselves. It’s a desperate rat race. I love China for some things but things will never change if there is no external criticism. Western media is trash but the CCP ain’t blameless either. (And I live in Pudong, it’s a steel and stone wasteland.) Of course, I still have a tonne of privilege, however.
@@halfpintrr I am a Chinese and what you said about China are mostly correct. And K & L 2, even with slight exaggeration (no Chinese cop will blast bullets so casually on the streets), successfully captured the chaos, oppression, soullessness, materialism, and breathless lifestyle in a Chinese metropolis.
Since you are a disabled man, you may have noticed how unfriendly the Chinese public infrastructures are to disabled people. The lack of ramps for people with wheelchairs in Chinese cities is crazy. The tactile paving on sidewalks are so poorly designed that they are either broken within a few years or just blocked by parked bikes and even trash bins. This is a good example of how chaotic it is to live in a Chinese city.
I always thought there was something kinda fascinating about how relentlessly horrible kane and lynch 2 was on just every level. Felt like nobody actually understood that until now.
Is that a jojo reference
Edit: Jeez people got... overly angry at this. Sorry ig?
Mr.Mcnugget - you should watch something besides jojo and realize that not everything is a jojo reference
@@RatsFunHouse101 bro it was a joke this can in no way relate to JoJo with out pulling something out of my ass
@@RatsFunHouse101 You are right. I think flutterface's profile picture is a JoJo reference though.
@@probablymaybe2993 can you stop? its so annoying
I’ve come back to this analysis several times and have also obsessed over the themes of Mac Payne 3. I believe that the polish of the gameplay and clean shooting sections actually add to the character of Max Payne. He is completely at home and comfortable in the chaos of a gunfight or a the many violent altercations he finds himself in. After the events of the first two games, he has become accustomed to this chaotic state of mind. It wasn’t necessarily the addiction to alcohol that brought destruction to all that he loves on several occasions. It was his addiction to the chaos. He seems to be powerless to it’s effects throughout his life. In fact, it seems that in the third game the most horrific or difficult times in Max Payne’s story were the calmer moments. Times when he was alone, or what should be a quiet night to himself. Those are the most ugly moments for him. When he reaches the lowest of his lows. Not when he is gunning down his enemies. That’s when he is seemingly most at peace, and I believe THAT is what changes for him at the end. He’s able to walk off into the sunset alone and be at peace with that.
The End Of Evangelion really felt like a theatre of cruelty moment for me. Just this prolonged mind-fuck of overwhelming proportions that forced me out my head into taking in EVERYTHING going on onscreen. I'm a lot cooler on the _show_ than most fans, I think a large portion of it REALLY drags, but the ending (movie) is just phenomenal.
I feel like I see more examples of this in japanese media than western media in stuff I've seen and played, japanese visual novels especially do this so well
Same. I really felt sad after the movie. Atleast I could now fully understood what actually went on in the last two episodes.
But I still had to search what the ending actually meant.
It's a one of a kind ending for a one of a kind movie. Although, I don't think there is some kind of final cut for EoE with an ending or climax that sends you into an irreversible shock, I wonder the very first ending Anno and co. might've come up with.
The hospital scene
@@petrwarthursty2011 BRO NOO
Trying to forget, over here! So fucked up.
Are we sure that is a beer what Max is drinking at the end? I tought was a Guarana Soda like in the Club in the Favelas.
It's quite possible. Most of us "gringos" never see soda in a glass bottle unless you're luck enough to have a mexican market nearby. But with how broken of a person Max Payne is and the fact that his pain killer addiction isn't gone, it could be a hint that his walk into the sunset isn't as clear cut as it looks.
darknight910 I mean, he could've seen the bottle and thought "cool, I wanna try it" and didn't know it was soda
thought it was soda too lmao. I find it interesting how uncommon glass bottled soda is in "developed" countries
IT IS BRAZILIAN SODA
Im amazes me how people think that glass soda is a rarity in America. Im not trying to be mean but all you have to do to know thats not the case is look and pay attention. Glass soda may not be as common as plastic bottled soda or canned soda but its common enough to not be a rarity. You can buy them in store or online. They are not hard to find or get. Most of the big brands like Coke and Pepsi still sale their soda in glass bottle. There are popular brands that only sell their soda in glass bottles like Jones and Jurritos which both are commonly sold in stores like Walmart, Meyer's, Albertsons, Fry's, etc.
The absolute brilliance of mirroring the narration scenes with the 3rd person view of the game, shook me. Amazing work dude. Seriously.
I don't think it was implemented well, I don't really get the purpose of that section being presented like that. It wasn't similar to the theme of the games at all, it was a clean, well shot clip of a mild-mannered middle class man amongst a clean room full of expensive equipment... Except he was wearing gym shorts... _h o w u g l y_
(Also maybe the ruffled, creased suit was supposed to resemble Max's, the one he mentioned earlier, but I'm probably just reaching).
@@laurencebetteridge8633 it didn't work for me either. Maybe it was supposed to contast the well executed ugliness of the game? Like "see? this is how much /trying/ to be ugly can miss the mark"? But I'm probably just reaching as well.
I thought the cave presentations from the abyss video were nice though.
So gay lol
It’s a movement towards forcing us as viewers to step out of our passive consumption of media, like the concept driving the theatre of cruelty theory. It’s not about mirroring the ugliness, it’s about mirroring the rupture of conventional connection between viewer and subject.
@@laurencebetteridge8633 Damn, it was so out of place, man. I was enjoying the video until that happened. We watch video essays about games as a way to talk about art... not to experience it. I've never played Kane and Lynch 2 and for a good few minutes, I just zoned out. Did not realise that the well-groomed gentleman in a studio was alluding to the gritty VHS torture tape aesthetic.
Honest to God, it's so refreshing to hear this. I played Kane & Lynch 2 when I was younger and there was something so compelling about it despite the fact I had nothing but criticism the entire time, really made me think back on the feelings I had for it back then.
As a prospective theatre scholar, having this exemplary instance of Artaud in action is amazing. Thank you for taking such a nuanced look at the clusterbomb that is Theatre And Its Double.
Max Payne 3 was a fantastic ending to the franchise. It was a incredible experience. One of my all time favourite games ever. I played it many times.
He had a bad taste in gaming
The worker of max payne is overburdened.
So pain bring beauty is it.
Bullshit it is, that's the ending of Max Payne 2.
MP3 is like a fever dream of someone who didn't understand Man on Fire and barely remember the plot of Max Payne 2, and the results ends up with Max having to overcome things he already did the previous game.
I have fun with the game but the story sucked ass.
Max payne 3 sucks. Rockstar ruined the franchise.
In conclusion: the entire Death Grips discography is the soundtrack to Kane & Lynch 2.
Oh shit Im feelin it
I've seen footage
Noided.
I AM THE BEAST I WORSHIP
lock your doors
I remember trying to convince people back in the day there was value in K&L 2.
I was absolutely thrilled to see Artaud featured here. A wonderful surprise, as I just got my degree in theatre. Theatre of Cruelty was incredible and terrifying, and the implications it wrought can be felt even today.
If anyone is wondering the Max Payne 3 sound track was made by HEALTH. it's a fantastic OST used throughout the video and one of my favorite bands.
And the rest of the stuff playing in the background of Kane and Lynch 2's footage is Mona Mur's incredible work composing the original soundtrack for that game. Quite possibly one of the most unsettling ambient tracks ever made, more akin to Silent Hill than a 3rd person shooter. Oh and, the chinese pop is part of the soundtrack too! Really great stuff from both developers, Rockstar and IO Interactive.
Once again a brilliant untangling of the emotional centre of video game storytelling. Too much of "video game critique" culture seeks to be some "objective", impersonal take on the medium. I appreciate the willingness to center your content on you personal relationship to the art, instead of trying to create some impossible imagined neutral observer. Art has things to say, even art that didn't necessarily intend to say things, and we shouldn't ignore that in favour of "being unbiased", whatever that means.
Exactly this. Art is inherently subjective and personal, so how can there be some unbiased and objective view on art? Especially in art like gaming where the experience is so uniquely personal.
I think the trouble is often people treating games criticism as consumer reviews, like the way you would review a new car. Sure, the aesthetic matters in part, but the focus of the writing is on how fast it is, what's the gas mileage, are the parts reliable. Seems like a waste of time to me, to view art that way.
I think both forms have their place. You can never be completely objective, but trying to judge a game based on what you think the developers were going for and the parts of the experience you feel most people will share is a very useful thing for both the growth of games criticism and the medium. A very small amount of people will be thinking the thoights that Jacob felt while playing the game. His critique is very valuable but is not the only valuable approach.
I’m so tired of people on this site chasing the ghost of objective analysis. It’s such a toxic mindset to think your opinions must be correct because you only believe what is objectively true, and it must be objectively true because you believe it.
I have no idea how Mauler and his ilk came to dominate the scene as much as they have, but they’ve poisoned the well something fierce. It’s nice to get away from it once in a while.
Objective analysis is useful for purposes of review and recommendation, subjective analysis is useful for purposes of discussion and deeper understanding or theorising about a piece's intention and meaning. Both are valuable, one as a way to discuss a product, the other as a way to discuss a piece of art. Being reductive and eschewing either for the other is throwing the baby away with the bath water. There is obvious overlap but it's entirely valid to focus on one or the other.
Jacob chooses to stick to a mostly subjective analysis, which is great, however when I see a new game I'm not sure I should buy I will take an attempt at a more objective analysis. Objective analysis is more likely to tell me whether I will enjoy the game. Subjective analysis is inherently biased to the reviewer themselves, which is good for purposes of thought-food and entertainment, but not as useful for deciding whether a game is for you, because everyone's experience and understanding of a piece of art is subtly or not subtly different.
What I loved about Dog Days was that as someone who's lived in Shanghai was the sheer hilarity of some of the "rot" so to speak present in the game. It's highly unrealistic yet, in some ways the raw feeling while playing this game makes me feel as if the world and city I lived in was really that bleak.
About Max getting a beer at the end, I'm pretty damn sure it's a Sprite-inspired soda, I wouldn't use that against his effort to go teetotal. Look at the shape of the bottle and the label.
It’s a Brazilian soda
Kane and Lynch 2 is one of the most underrated, misunderstood games of all time. Nothing has ever even come close to what it achieved with its design
The camera is so horrible the game is a 0\10
@@eloisecole3579 You can turn off shaky cam in the options so only cutscenes are shaky but the gameplay is fine
no
0/10
You may say "no", but 91 people upvoted this comment so STFU and GTFO.
@@niko67780 By "gameplay is fine" I was indeed a bit vague. I meant in my early comment that you can toggle the camera shake off and then the gameplay has steady camera and you can actually play the game but the cutscenes keep that unique camera style.
I absolutely love what you did there with the shot of the quote highlighted when you were reading it, into a behind the scenes style shot, which perfectly mirrors what you had just described happening in the game, to put commentary on just how jarring it is when you really stop to think about it. Excellent.
With news about James passing I gotta revisit Max Payne 3. I love it so much it plays so well
It's interesting how there's been something of a flip on the general reception of the Kane and Lynch games over time. I remember when the first came out, it had middling reviews, sure, but there was this sense that it was at least a "good enough" game that did some interesting stuff with co-op. When the sequel came out it was universally panned as being ugly, horrible, and bland. But over time I've started hearing more people talk about how they actually like K&L2 for much of the same reasons covered here, and the first game is kind of forgotten, slipped in to obscurity. More known for being the game that got Jeff Gerstmann fired than anything about its own qualities. And I think that's pretty cool actually, that we are now at a point in games criticism where we can have discussions like this, and see the value in something ugly, that isn't just because it's trying to be edgy and "mature".
Honestly this is the only video where I heard this point.
@@mcjackstormer if they would make a third kane and lynch, i would play it. liked the first one and the second one was just 8 hours of madness. almost like a movie. the protagonists are two fucked up criminals, what do people expect? but the series is dead and with todays oversensitive cry babies a third one would just be yelled into oblivion.
Yeah i noticed that too. But I loved it from the beginning. I actually remember people asking me when I would play this game. "You're crazy" "Whats wrong with you?"
K&L2 is mechanically abominable but its arthouse presentation is stellar
I actually had the opposite impression! Everyone I know hated Kane and Lynch 1 back in the day, but when Dog Days came out they were willing to be like “okay, there’s something special here.” Like even if the shooting is kind of all over the place and the movement is stiff and the story is extremely short and nihilistic, it had SOMETHING compelling and unique. Even if it was just a really strong vibe.
The “Reverse Colosseum” description makes me think VR could be a an incredibly interesting way to bring this Theater of Cruelty to life, just imagine the mind bending things that could happen when it takes up all of your vision
I forced myself to beat Max Payne 3 on the hardest difficulty. God it was so damn frustrating but I also loved every bit of it and I'll never forget it
Kane and lynch kinda scared me as a child more than any other action game. Maybe I shouldn’t have been playing it at 10 but it went hard and made me realize the world isn’t all sunshine and rainbows
I adore Max Payne 3, it's a beautiful ugly game. Ultimate passion project done through severe pain, blood and tears from the devs and in the end was sidelined. It deserves more praise and recognition.
At the end of Max Payne 3, i always thought he ordered a soda or some other non-alcohol drink. Alcoholics rarely drink beer, they tend to go for the hard stuff like Whiskey, vodka ect. You see Max always orders whiskey when he's at a bar or drinks a big ass Jack Daniels style bottle at home.
In the ending, its the first time we see him order something different thats NOT a glass with ice and some brown liquid. It looks more like a glass bottle of sprite to me.
It would kind of ruin the whole sobriety-walking-into-the-sunset ending they where going for, and even if it as just a beer...one beer cant hurt :P
I thought it was some Brazilian pop soda.
A really popular Brazilian soda is this one called Guaranara, and typically sodas are served in glass bottles rather than cans in most Latin American countries. I believe Max drank soda as he quit drinking. He might have been a broken man, but he was willing to finally let go of his tragic past and walk into the sunset, literally. That’s why he didn’t even say a word in the end. He had no more reason to narrate his inner thoughts...
There's a scene earlier in the story where he meets up with someone at a bar and asks for a 'soda' instead of alcohol, and it has a similar bottle shape so I thought the same thing by association.
Don't waste your time mate, Jacob the leftist Jew boy will only mention details that agree with his worldview and not against it.
@@gaunterodimm3569 Bruh.
Shamelessly stolen from pyrocynical 2 years prior smh.
Pyro definitely saw this
Being brazilian and having lived most of my life in São Paulo, I remember playing Max Payne 3 eventually became almost unbearable. Not only by the endless killing of disposable bad guys that seem to have much more in common with me than the protagonist, but also by how weirdly alien Rockstar's São Paulo feel compared to the real thing (hard to put into words, but a minor example: why are there so many palm trees?).
I guess it's just the of the outside view of the city, or Latin America in general. How the 'civilised' view less developed countries and cities as sleazy, gritty and depressing. While this can be true to some degree it's often very over exaggerated and what you get is depictions like in Max Payne 3. I'm not sure it's a negative though in terms of telling the story they want, however in terms of the image it gives to the actual locale, yeah it's pretty bad.
Also about palm trees, maybe they just thought a country in a tropical area = palm trees lmao.
@@mclovinjr9086 Yeah, but it's still an odd choice that just seems to come from ignorance rather than a deliberate choice.
The aesthetics feel much more like Rio than São Paulo.
YES. My brother really dug the game, but couldn't even play, because there are some scenes that looked like where i lived, and the people there looked more kin to me, than Payne could ever be, it was like I was shooting my neighbors. But it fully captures the class dissonance we see in brazil, because he was trying to protect a rich woman by killing poor people.
The weird thing about the world building on that is that Rockstar actually went on tours and did some research in favelas and Sao Paulo in general, and still got it wrong hahsb
@John Chaser aren't we all?
I still think Kane and Lynch 2’s visual style is very interesting, I think given more development time and potential done in another medium, it could be quite entertaining, for example, I love the opening cinematic, with it’s juxtaposition between Kane’s chaotic failed heist and Lynch’s quite life. If they were even to make a movie out of this game (which is in development hell) the only way it would have a chance of being good would be if it took the visual style from the second game
Fun tip, the Panama museum in Max Payne is true to the actual real life one for the most part. I coincidentally went there when the game came out and was astonished to see basically the same exhibit rooms and designs
The part where Jacob suddenly breaks the fourth wall while talking about Artaud's ideas actually scared me a little. Not a "jumpscare scare" but a "real fear scare". It was chilling
Absolutely, I thought I was listening well enough before but with that he shocked me into giving him my undivided attention. And really, isn't that something Artaud would be proud of?
I agree, I got the same feeling man
These games may be ugly, but Jacob sure ain't
1 day ago?
His voice sure is.
@@violentabrahamlincoln1395 my best guess is that they are a Patreon supporter
dat beard tho
@@violentabrahamlincoln1395 patreon
ah, i remember when gamespot tanked because of a particular "gamespot bad" event that it never recovered from, but i totally forgot that it was the kane and lynch advertising/firing that did it
This is my favorite video game video essay ever. Ive watched it dozens of times and still get something new every watch. Its gained even more credit with me after having finally gotten to play Max Payne 3. Thanks for all your work Jacob!
“Stop thinking and over analyzing and just feel” he says in front of a white painting. Love your work, I’m glad I found your channel.
Kind of ironic to quote that in a 30 min long video about "ugly" shooter games.
@@FunkyEspelhoCat it kinda is and it caught me off guard for a second i thought my paranoia kicked in.
@@FunkyEspelhoCat or the fact some of his problem with these games is their treatment of women and enemies
For me, the depiction of Sao Paulo in Max Payne was one of the best I've seen, being a Brazilian. Of course the only out of place thing I can remember is the baile funk thing, which is more of a Rio de Janeiro thing (in Sao Paulo, the idea of the fluxo is a little bit different). But Max Payne shows how wealthy Sao Paulo can be, in skyscrapers, offices and dance clubs, while being chock-full of violence and suburban degradation that even Max know what is the cause, trickle-down economics and social inequality. It almost felt sometimes that a Brazilian made the worldbuilding for the game, showing to a "soft" American audience that they don't know what true hell is like. It doesn't paint poverty as this dignifying, character-building thing, but as the tragedy of living among your own trash. The croocked police is actually based on some real events, just look up about "favela genocide", "Black genocide", or anything about the "milícias" or "chacinas". It almost feels prescient that game acknowledges how an ugly society could elect an ugly president in the form of Bolsonaro, whose language is that of violence. And some people have thought that the favela looked unrealistic. The problem is that people think Brazilian poverty is only centered around hills, were the original meaning for the favela came from. But look up for example the metropolitan area around Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador or Porto Alegre to see the sprawling poverty that looks just like in the game. That for me is maybe one of the themes from Max Payne 3. How your personal problems, even though they are colossal and life-threatening, are nothing compared to the social problems felt by a foreign, poor population.
I've actually heard quite a few people say that MP3 tends to mix Sao Paulo up with Rio in a lot of ways
Sim, tem várias pessoas que dizem que o jogo parece mais com o Rio do que São Paulo e tals, mas isso pra mim é o de menos. Eu consigo imaginar numa boa a maioria dos cenários do jogo como sendo no Brasil. E, levando em consideração que é um jogo feito por pessoas de fora, isso é algo impressionante. Já perdi a conta de quantas horas já gastei nesse jogo na época que ele era mais recente (2013-2015) e os mapas do Multiplayer, principalmente o mapa "Alto da favela", são tão detalhados que até hj me impressiono.
The representation could have been much better, Rockstar dropped the ball in that aspect.
Sad to hear friend
Thanks for sharing a local point of view!
Cheers
This is just a small thing that struck me while watching: It pleases me that I'm not the only one annoyed at game writers who think all you need to give a character motivation and a nice, gripping emotional arc is a dead wife. Seriously? The human experience is so much more complex than that. There are loads of tragedies and triumphs you could choose from. Not to mention your typical hard-boiled protagonist man in games like these isn't the kind to settle down with wife and kids.
They are men beyond redemption trying to live normal lives, except normal lives don't want them. A dead girlfriend is a perfect story arc for Lynch
I would argue in Lynch's case, it's not that the "dead wife cop out" was a motivational tool but a product of his flaws and behavior. He gets people around him killed, especially those he loves.
With Max, it is perhaps a bit more cliche and in retrospect can provoke an eye roll, but his motivation becomes far wider over time. It also emerges from an era where people were less accustomed to story in games, so shorthand or cliche becomes a tool used in place of it.
Max Payne's wife and newborn baby get killed in the first game's prologue, but this doesn't motivate him to do anything in particular. It's just a personal tragedy that affects the character deeply.
it's not just a cliche "haha dead wife" Max himself admits that he is stupid and for some reason just decides to get revenge instead of moving on
have you ever seen the movie last man standing ? that's exactly what max payne is
He is clearly drinking a soda at the end bruh
Iv played the living shit out of Max Payne 3. I loved everything about it. The gameplay, story, narration, and characters
Same here it's the only reason why I want a ps3 controller for my ps3.
@@sonicx1298 if you have a ps4 controller you can use it thought usb or wireless
@@Ndrew556 no rumble, and cant go back to the menu. plus you need a ps3 controller in the first place to connect the ps4, its not just plug and play.
@@SpuddyWesker well then go and buy a ps3 controller, im just suggesting an option
@@Ndrew556 yeah well your option dosent work since op doesent have a ps3 controller, which you need to connect a ps4 controller thus negating connecting the ps4 controller since you already have a ps3 controller in that instance.
edit: well not op but mr "BIG TUT"
god i love K&L2, i played the multiplayer when it was in beta and loved the fact that the people you play with can straight up betray you and take your cash from you, only for everyone to be brought back in the next round and that feeling in your gut that you should take theirs in return. everything about the game i have only fondness for, a gem covered in shit ❤
Imposters
+2
Never played the multiplayer
I feel like I've listened through every Jacob Geller video multiple times including this video, but this is the first time I've watched through it too and from now on I'm going to make a point of actively watching each video at least once. The cinematography and direction of this video are stunningly inventive and well implemented
I've always labeled these games, Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days especially, as "Punk". They straight up embody the spirit of Punk: non-conforming; challenging; abrasive; and ballsy. And quite often in Punk, amateurish mistakes can be made. Or the material is too hot for people to handle. But that's also what's exciting about Punk. These "mistakes" can add personality into the mix, make the work stand out in ways it wouldn't have before. The scene embraces the crap out of those blemishes. With those blemishes, you can carve out your own niche, become unique.
But I guess "ugly" works too, haha. Ugly is the niche. Great vid, btw!
*Wonder what your thoughts on Manhunt are. Given the fact that it's one of Rockstar's least "polished" games and tries to overwhelm the senses in some ways (the 80's Horror Synth mixed with Industrial soundscapes, the violence, the heavy use of film grain, noise, and CCTV/Security Cam footage, the NPC dialogue often mocking the player, Pigsy, et cetera).
Wow, I briefly glanced at Kane and Lynch 2 while studying IO Interactive's history, and I just brushed it off as another 2000s third person shooter, but I would never have noticed how damn interesting it actually is without this video.
Among the other things you point out about it, the whole visual style is so fascinating to me. The strange jump-cuts in cutscenes, the entire unseen cameraman following the action thing, the way the lens distort at the sides to mimic a cheap camera. It's all so... eerie? I just love that off-kilter found footage style and aside from Outlast, I haven't seen many games try to attempt it in the medium.
Great video, Jacob.
I spent a few years living in Brazil before max Payne 3 came out. When I played it, I was blown away by the detail. I'm still never played a game that transported me to a place quite as well as that game did.
As brazilian, for me maybe the only part wich reminds me brazil well is the favelas
The other places its like an american vision of brazil, like i dont indentify what is like brazil there, its dystopian
Max Payne 3 São Paulo is almost uncanny, it's a mix of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and more big Latin American metropolis. I don't think that's obligatory for the game a 1:1 reproduction of the city, but at the same time as someone that know some parts of that city very well (I'm from a neighbor state, and have some close friends that live in SP) I think the game really fails in use the environment as a significant part in the storytelling. If the game took place in Ciudad de México for exemple, I bet we will got the same Max Payne, because unfortunately the developers focused more in creating this "look how Latin America city's have a big contrast between misery and fancy economic districts". In conclusion I think this game have some good aspects, but sadly I don't buy the "reality" proposed by the developers in this specific environment.
AC 2 and AC brotherhood are almost exact copies of the real cities
Is it true that everyone says "filho da puta" at least once per minute?
This has to be one of the best video essays I have ever watched. I am absolutely astonished at how much of a polished viewing experience this was. I truly thank you
I LOVE Dog Days, I don't even remember where I got it but I do know I was five. It was so gritty, and seeing those Shanghai neon lights was great. The theme song is seared into my brain after all these years. I love this game.
One of my main Drama exams was a devised theatre piece. We had the choice of Berkoff, Brecht, and Artaud for styles. Guess which one my group picked. It was about the Four Horsemen of the Apocolypse, and while it probably didn't even come close to the ugly madness that Artoud's plays seem to have, I felt like we did pretty good for a playscript pretty much entirely written the day before the deadline and only rehearsed the morning before the exam itself!
But enough about me. This video I think actually unsettled me to watch more than some of the videos you have made about horror games, and part of that may itself be the whole idea of the distance too - horror games are seperated from reality by the fact their setting and rules are that of the horror genre, or *a* horror genre rather. These games skim significantly closer to the ugliness possible in reality than many do, and the 'real film' sections you did to complement that really had a tension for me after your fourth(fifth??)-wall break moment.
Actually, now that I think about it, K&L 2 probably wasn't even marketed as a horror game was it? And yet for most intents and purposes the horror is probably the point.
Very well done with the video! :D
I must have played Kane and Lynch 2 at least 4 times and never really knew how to feel about it. Your video put words to my feelings, amazing work.
Yeah it's a weird shot em up lol, still a good game lol.
19:15 Gaspar Noé movies give me this exact feeling, especially parts like the bar scene in Irréversible or the opening of Enter the Void. That ear popping, nauseating feeling of uneasiness that just keeps on going just to taunt you to close it. Ugly games feel like a breath of fresh air in a gaming landscape where more sterilized and polished (for lack of a better word) experiences are the norm.
hey jacob, just wanna say thank u for constantly using amazing music in your videos AND putting all the credits in your descrion, I'm a DM for a horror centric campaign and like 80% of the music I use as soundtracks come from your videos
Dog Days is one of the most misunderstood games of its time and I wish we had more like it. It had an absolutely outstanding Industrial/Noise OST for it done by Mona Mur too. I can't imagine any other soundtrack working with this game: ruclips.net/video/kWNn7tKgYSU/видео.html
@@johnwerner6445 your opinion
@@subzu2733 I did not write that. I love Days Gone. I have already changed my password amf stuff
@@johnwerner6445 oh
@Shevek I love strange and upsetting music and that track is the first in a long while to properly give me a visceral upset reaction, bravo
@@jimmybean420 it's Einsturzende Neubauten logo, industrial band
I feel like Llamas with hats is a perfect animated representation of the Theater of cruelty
*1st episode:* haha, “Carrrrrlll!”
*last episode:* _sobbing_ “C-Carrrlll...”
I don’t know if the humor in the show diminishes or accentuates this theme honestly.
@@majorbruhmoment5711 it's the same kind of humour as Doctor Strangelove's: the kind that isn't there but that your brain fills in to avoid taking the atrocities on screen at face value
That thing... That show scared and scarred me
Both games were awesome. I liked the break from playing as 47, while it still carried the dark humor and atmosphere of Hitman. The level concepts were all pretty exciting, from a prison breakout to a shootout in a Tokyo nightclub. The second one really fucked with my head though, like why the hell was I taking on China's entire police and then military? It's a twisted nightmare. I'd play a third game, definitely.
I came back to this video a second time.
It just is a great way of explaining how the game feels when playing.
After the first viewing I played both games with a new view of them. It made it even more enjoyable.!
Well done man great video.!.
Thank god I'm not the only one who is amazed by Kane & Lynch 2's visuals and general style. I played through it in one session and it was great. The camera effects and compression artifacts really stand out among other games and this unique way of implementing the camera, allready a feature of every 3D game, is very immersive in my opinion. Nice video
beautiful work as always bro
hey man, love your work!
i love how most of rockstar games have subtle left wing themes to them and then you look at the studio and the working conditions their workers are somehow working under and you look back at the game and you laugh at the irony.
When i first played Max Payne 3 as a young Sao Paulo habitant i was terrified of how much the game scenarios reminded me of real places here. I still get a strange feeling when i see the stages of this game.
Who literally came here after watching pyros vid
Bro I was literally just rewatching your last video wtf how do you keep popping off like this. I can't find this level of passion for art that most people ignore anywhere else. Great shit man
I would love to hear your take on Alan Wake, how the fog makes you extremely paranoid and claustrophobic and the game scares you with almost 0 jumpscares. I love it
Hmm. I was maybe like 13 when my friend showed me and I got real hooked to it but it was never scary for me even though I don't really play horror games. My dad even told me it might not be suitable for me and I never understood why. I just loved it because it was interesting
I remember a couple of jumpscares in Alan Wake
@@bencezavarko7312 might be time to revisit it and critically analyze it like your old man probably did.
Honestly, all this talk of, overwhelming yourself to the point of feeling the violence on a more physical level than an intellectual one, is like, exactly how metal makes me feel, and why I like it. Extreme metal music, and anything else noises and overwhelming, is my absolute favorite, because it feels like it cuts right through you and shakes you to your core. It’s ugly, wonderfully so, I know exactly what you mean.
The Kane & Lynch games were brilliant, nobody will have the guts to make a game like that anymore
Makes gta5 look like the fucking teletubbies...
Attacking the audience by yelling at us directly in a moment of what felt like otherwise impersonal voyeurism really underpinned your overall point and I think you did it really well.
It also was kind of a moment of realization with your words. It was like "stop thinking so goddamn much" and for a moment I was just swept up in the shock. And that, above everything, really helped sell what you were saying. After all, I *was* just thinking about your choice of camera work and all that and the voyeurism you were just talking about... And suddenly I felt like I was being called out for my voyeurism. It felt shocking!
So yeah, really clever use of addressing the camera. Really helped sell it more than just the words alone would.
“and i wanted to make it as watchable as.. me in gym shorts can be.”
oh jacob, you gem of a man
University theatre student/gamer here and am so gassed that you managed to combine the two art forms so cleverly. I actually think there are many, often overlooked similarities between the two mediums.
I liked the characters and story from Kane & Lynch. The world is descending further and further into a battle royale witchhunt, with everyone with a social media account appointing themselves as morality police and attacking any and every ethical infraction they can find or even just make up. We have to walk on eggshells constantly and simperingly apologize for just being who we are, because it might not be inclusive to every human being conceivable, even if purely theoretical. We have to apologize to theoretical people because they could theoretically be offended. RUclips is full of videos where the person making them makes sure to proclaim how offended they are by anything that could possibly be construed as problematic, just to sandbag against all the sanctimonious condemnation comments that are inevitably coming anyway.
Kane & Lynch says "fuck that." Yeah, the gameplay sucks, but it's the attitude I find refreshing. I especially relate to Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days. It works as a perfect metaphor for a job I left and the traumatic events that led to my departure. It was a toxic, dysfunctional environment, but I thought I could tough it out because the pay and benefits were great. I actually did well there for years, and I advanced and was well-liked and got outstanding performance reviews. But then the manager changed and there started to be a lot of turnover and many new people came onboard. Then I had coworkers--new ones--doing their best to make life hell for me. They managed to get themselves fired for their unceasing toxicity, but they continued their campaign from outside the company. Even with them outside, there were other toxic employees in high positions. I left one department for another, just to try to get to somewhere better, but I ended up stuck with someone who was even worse. Other people had warned me about them, but I thought the situation had to be better than where I'd been. I was wrong. My mental health deteriorated, and my new bosses came after me harder and harder. I ended up put on a 6-week medical leave for mental health, and they tried to screw me out of getting paid during it. I decided life was just too short for this, and I quit in September 2020. My resignation caught people's attention because it was the point in the pandemic when so many people were suddenly out of work and those that had jobs desperately held onto them. But I'd had enough. I went somewhere with shitty pay and shittier benefits and the work was stressful and the environment turned out to be toxic, too, just in other ways. But I needed out of the company I'd been in and so I went anywhere I could.
Since then, I've changed jobs again, and I'm in a much better place now, though I'm still emotionally working through everything that happened before.
Then, last month, I came across Kane & Lynch 2, and something about it caused an extreme emotional reaction in me. And then it hit me: it felt just like what happened to me when I left that company. I'd felt under attack from everywhere, with no one on my side. My efforts to salvage something and keep my career there by changing departments were like Lynch wanting to rescue his girlfriend and get them both out of Shanghai, only to end up getting them and Kane captured by the bad guys. The torture scene was like the repeated meetings management hauled me into, after my toxic former coworkers went digging through my social media for things they could misconstrue as me doing drugs and kept reporting them to my bosses to try to get me fired. I was mortified by the deeply personal things I had to explain to people at work, and I ended up deleting my social media accounts, cutting myself off from the people I kept in contact with through them. Making them private didn't work to keep my attackers from finding stuff. I felt like Kane and Lynch, naked and cut up and bleeding on the streets of a foreign city, still being shot at from every direction. I did my best to be the model employee and do every as right as possible, but the attacks kept coming. I started having panic attacks. It got bad enough that my bosses told me I had to get an approval from a doctor to keep working, and the doctor put me on a 6-week leave. Then the company tried to get out of paying me for it. At this point, it was like Kane & Lynch trying to escape only to end up at the main villain's skyscraper stronghold, not even allowed to get away but having to confront the nastiness head-on. Finally, I quit. People thought I was crazy to leave a job then, especially one that paid so well and had such enviable benefits, and especially not to have a very good place to go to. But I. Just. Needed. Out. Like Kane & Lynch in Shanghai, staying there was simply not an option and I was ready to go anywhere and do anything just to get away from the place. When I think about leaving the company, I now flash on the image of Kane & Lynch high-jacking that commercial airliner taking off for Ecuador. It was insane, but it was either that or lay down and die. And I was going to get away. Fuck all those fuckers. I was not giving them the satisfaction of them ending me. So I got out. I made it.
Kane & Lynch 2 is all about loneliness and feeling like everyone is against you even as you're going through the worst time in your life. These two guys are entirely on their own. Every potential ally turns on them. After losing Lynch's girlfriend to death by torture, for Kane's sake, Lynch tries to make the deal happen before they escape the city, only to have it be an ambush by Glazer and his men. Kane & Lynch don't even get to have revenge on Glazer because that, too, is a set-up by the main bad guy's forces. A simple freight train leaving town also winds up being a trap.
Additionally, a lot of these games have some kind of "guy in a chair" character who talks to you through a headset or earpiece or something and guides you through the game. They give you direction and provide story points or emotional support or reactions to the events. Also, there's often some type of "store" during or between levels where you can restock or upgrade or buy new weapons and gear and supplies. Kane & Lynch 2 doesn't have either of those. The guidance and story come from the two main characters talking to each other and making up plans on the go, and the restocking comes from whatever ammo or weapons you can pick up from downed enemies. It really is just these two guys against the world.
The feeling of isolation and being overwhelmed by hardship until all you can do is escape pervades this game. At least Kane and Lynch bond in this game, unlike the first one. There's the scene when they're naked and cut up and Lynch breaks down crying and Kane talks him through it; even if it's mostly about finishing the deal, Kane's doing it for his daughter's sake, and he's asking for Lynch's help with helping her. Later, after the deal's fallen apart (for them, anyway) Kane says they can split up since there's no reason for them to stick together anymore, but Lynch says he's staying with Kane and going wherever he goes. It's not much, but these are tough guys, and they're not going to get too mushy with each other. Even still, their banter turns less slightly less snarly and more supportive for the rest of the game. At the end, when Lynch is ready to give up and die after yet another last-ditch escape attempt turns into a dead end, Kane won't let him. When all the world is against you, sometimes the only person you have is the one stuck in the same horrible shit you are. And maybe that person's not all that bad after all, if you really give 'em a chance.
The sad thing is I have this fan-theory that Kane isn't even really there but is instead a Tyler Durden-esque hallucination that Lynch is having because he can't stand going through this alone. Lynch's psychotic breaks from the first game are missing from this second one. But then again, maybe they aren't. The game starts with a video camera recording the torture scene in the bathroom, when Lynch loses consciousness, seemingly dying. Then we cut back to two days earlier, and the game is being captured in the same handheld video camera style, only the person holding the camera must be imaginary, a fourth-wall-breaking conceit of the game. There's no way there's actually someone there recording all this, a third person tagging along with Kane and Lynch who never gets referred to or spoken to and who survives the unending hails of gunfire without ever contributing to the fighting. There are a few moments where the imaginary person gets weirdly involved, like when they stumble as Kane and Lynch shoot the mob boss's daughter so you can't see who actually did it, or when the pair are captured on the freight train and a soldier puts his hand over the camera lens, or the very ending of the game as the phantom camera man finally leaves the two main characters, recording the high-jacked plane taking off before collapsing from being shot by the police. Also, if you die in the game, the view turns as the imaginary camera-holder seemingly falls down dead and drops the camera.
Anyway, my theory is that Lynch loses it after briefly dying and seeing his girlfriend killed and reimagines the whole chain of events with Kane having been there. Kane, the guy he worked with on a previous job/fiasco who was known for abandoning everyone, only this time he's the one person who's with him through a living hell. In Lynch's head, anyway. Because, like Lynch, he has no one else in the world. Everybody has given up on him--on both of these guys--but Lynch relates to him and hallucinates him being there out of desperation.
Just a theory. Also, alternately, Lynch dies in that bathroom torture session and, before his brain fully dies, he imagines the subsequent events as a version of things where he and Kane get away. It explains how he suddenly comes back to life in the garbage bin. Either theory gets at why there's the handheld video camera from the bathroom capturing everything else as well. Again, though: just fan theories.
Please look at Pathalogic!!! It is basically the perfect case study of what you are talking about. There is so much more to it tho. If you feel like there's something there I would LOVE to see your opinion of this game
honestly I feel like Jacob would do a better job of writing about it than hbomberguy did. I feel his personal bias and pretentiousness got in the way of a legitimate analysis in more than a few points.
It might be national pride speaking, but I feel like Max Payne wasn't always ugly game like it was with Max Payne 3. Max I remember from first two games was grim and anti-heroic, but never overwhelmingly so. Old Max Payne was this weird, at times almost poetic mixture of hardboiled noir, gratuitous pop-culture references and Norse-mythology. Sure, Max was a man out for vengeance, but he was so clichee and archtypical loose cannon police officer it always felt bit tongue in cheek. Hearing him go on and on in his private eye monologues was more funny to me than it ever was dramatic. To me, Max Payne is still that poorly rendered Sam Lake-lookalike from first game, with his face always seemingly etched into little bit too wide grinn.
I took much of Max Payne 3 the same way. I mean the game does seem to take itself serious but the gameplay alone is comical in the levels of violence, chaos and acrobatics it reaches and then there are the one liners.
Making fun of MP3's gratuitous violence and one liners was a running joke among my friend group for years. Another thing was the way the kill animations in the Assassins Crees series became more and more brutal and ridiculous with each new game.
Anyways I think the ugliness of MP3 can be as much attributed to the hardcore gamer/gritty action movie factor as it can be to any particular stylistic choice.
Rockstar's Manhunt from 2003 is a strong contender, containing voice acting from the original Hannibal Brian Cox and an industrial horror soundtrack that was rendered through a VHS filter to make it sound extra dirty.
Called internet people CHUDs.
10/10. Love your work, buddy!