Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days Undercover Cop Hands-On

The last time we looked at the multiplayer offerings in the upcoming Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days, we checked out the potentially treacherous Fragile Alliance, a mode that welcomes villainy by inviting you to backstab your teammates for a larger share of the in-game loot on offer. The latest multiplayer mode unveiled for the upcoming action game, however, takes a different tack. While you can still play as a bad guy, the newly announced Undercover Cop mode will also let you join the side of the angels, but it comes with significant risks.

The mode starts off much as any Fragile Alliance match does--with a group of up to eight players online joining together for a heist. The twist, though, is that one of the eight has been randomly selected to be an undercover cop, with his identity being kept secret from the other players. The undercover cop's job is to stop the seven other players from getting away. While you'll have help from other AI-controlled police and security forces, you'll still need to play a fairly safe and tactical game to make it through alive.

The location we played in took place on a large bridge, with our initial starting point being a railway line running underneath the large structure. Some explosives were rigged to derail an oncoming train, and once the train was off its tracks, the mission started. We were met with a small force of security guards, but they were no match for the combined firepower of all eight players, who made quick work of the enemy AI before boarding the train to grab the loot (as in Fragile Alliance, there's $4 million to be nabbed). Once our team had the loot, the objective was to make our way through the ruined carriages of the train, find our way to the road level of the bridge, and get to an ambulance that served as our getaway car. Of course, this was all complicated by a large number of cops, particularly once we hit topside and found a police barricade waiting between us and freedom.

And of course, we had to deal with the undercover cop. The cop can take down the other thief players at any time after the actual robbery has started and will not be automatically tagged as an enemy. During our time playing as the good guy, we had to make sure we hung back and did our killing as discreetly as possible--away from the attention of other players.

We actually found it quite challenging to "win" as the good guy during our brief playtime with this mode, as many of the same elements found in Fragile Alliance can also be found in Undercover Cop. You can turn on your teammates at any time in an attempt to grab their share of the loot, with traitors being immediately tagged so that other players can get retribution. Many of the matches we played ended with teammates turning on each other. In other words, playing it safe as the cop and picking off targets one by one was difficult to do when everyone was already shooting at each other from the start.

While our time with Undercover Cop was brief, it was still clear to see that the mode has the potential to become quite tense, ratcheting up the paranoia even more than Fragile Alliance. We'll have more on Kane and Lynch 2's multiplayer modes in the coming weeks, so keep it locked to GameSpot for more information.