Kane & Lynch Dog Days Trailer: Not Cheery

Well I'll say this for the Kane & Lynch 2 trailers: they're damned weird. They also make the game look about as appealing as spending a weekend in a rat infested opium den on the lip of a volcano. But they sure are weird. It raises an interesting point - the grimmest of films can appeal through dingy, murky trailers designed to unnerve the audience. But when you're playing a game, it's a simulacrum of you stuck in those conditions. Do I want to spend too much time pretending to be a thoroughly miserable 50-something criminal in a bleak, blue-grey world of poverty and misery? You know what, and I mean this quite sincerely, maybe that would be brilliant. I can't think of any game that's perpetually bleak. If it can manage to be more than just another third-person shooter underneath the bad times vibe, this could be properly interesting.

Nothing suggests happy-fun-times in the trailer below. But there's some absolutely fascinating photography used. The developers have said it's "inspired by documentary filmmakers and the user-generated era." Again, I'm both daunted and enticed. In fact, for everything I'm seeing and hearing, the main story - getting involved in the Shanghai underworld - sounds a bit of a letdown. I'm suddenly more interested in playing a game about the continued collapse of two awful men's horrible lives, and don't really want all that action movie nu-mafia stuff getting in the way.

Oh, who knows!