On Halloween I received an invitation from Eidos to fly out to California and play Kane and Lynch: Dead Men a week before it came out. They had, so they say, given me an offer I could not refuse, and less then one week later I was aboard an airplane heading 2,000 miles from Philadelphia to San Francisco to get my hands on the title.

The wonderful people at Eidos showed me a fantastic time as I was whisked around from my hotel to a wonderful dinner to, finally, Eidos studios. Once inside I was given a run down of the history of Kane and Lynch by Senior Product Manager David Bamberger, followed by an explanation of the game's score by musical composer Jesper Kyd. After this brief introduction I was entered into the criminal world of Kane and Lynch: Dead Men.

I had a chance to finish the first few levels of the single player story, including the wonderful first level that should set the bar for plot driven games to follow. The game skips the typical tutorial and only gives you knowledge that is new or unique in a fast and cinematic way. There is no “this is how you walk, this is how you aim” tutorial. We know how to do that – we use the joysticks. The game kicks past all of the tutorial clichés and makes one that actually works.

The plot is a mixture of the great crime dramas of the last thirty years; Heat, Colleral, Resevour Dogs, and more - completely immersing you into the underworld of robberies, heists, and murder. You fight through levels killing enemies not for any greater good, but for selfish reasons. Even the Grand Theft Auto characters were punished for killing cops - in K&L it is mandatory.

I also had a chance to put a few hours into Fragile Alliance, the multiplayer aspect of Kane and Lynch. Eidos really did hit the metaphorical nail on the figurative head for me and created a fantastic multiplayer adaptation of the single player game. While there is no online co-op (a major bummer no matter how it is spun) the multiplayer tries its best to make up for that folly. While nothing for me can truly satisfy my love of co-operative play through a single player game, Fragile Alliance really does fill some of the holes in my heart that its exclusion leaves.

As the name suggests, you play along with a group of “allies,” to use the term in the loosest fashion it has ever been used, to complete one of four multiplayer levels. The best one to explain the situation is Withdrawal, which sets the team into a full scale bank robbery in a large bank filled with police and security. A team of eight needs to work its way into the innards of the complex and take all of the money from the inside and out the back door to a van that arrives in intervals. Everyone who makes it to the van splits all the money collected which can be used to purchase new weapons and armor.

That is, if you don’t try and make it out solo.

Fragile Alliance allows you to take out teammates and become a traitor, putting the entire team's aim on your head but letting you potentially walk out with millions of dollars. The developers said that the idea is to be manipulative and play like a criminal, not a soldier. They are right, and the gameplay is fantastic. Dying respawns you as the enemy and lets you seek revenge on the allies who had scorned you. It is an idea rarely went into but it ends up being a wonderful change from the capture the flag and deathmatch heavy modes of the competition.

Some of my complaints from the Penny Arcade Expo remained in the final build of the game but ended up being less important then I thought they would be. The cover system is still hard to get a hang of, being automatic and not always responsive like one would hope. It didn’t prove to be as bad as I had thought because the game really isn’t trying to copy Gears of War or Rainbow Six: Vegas in its fighting. While there will be battles with dozens of enemies the idea is to use your squad and take them out slowly. Again, you’re a criminal not a soldier.

Overall the trip was a good one and I have to thank everyone I met at Eidos, along with the new friends I made from blogs and podcasts from all across the internet. The game is a great one and hopefully the full version will prove as fun as it was when I played it there.