Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days

Of course, there will always be those who want their pound of flesh, as IO has found during focus testing. "It's different in the different territories where we test the game. Some people do want more blood and gore, but they can't have it. I just don't think it's very credible to have litres of blood pouring out of every... This just feels right."

Leaving the poor old pixellated pillow case behind, I head out into the city. These are the back streets of Shanghai rather than the bright lights, grey and grimy and full of shadows. Piles of whirring exhaust fans stick out higgedly-piggedly from the sides of buildings, while tangles of telephone wires criss-cross above. Kane and Lynch pound hurriedly through the alleys, but once again there's no dramatic music designed to up the tension - just the whir of those fans and the echo of sounds from the bigger streets.

We emerge onto one of these to find a bunch of parked cars and a big gang of cops. Now it's all about using the cars for cover, and trying out some of the new environmental interactions in K&L2. Lund shows me how you can throw a fire extinguisher into the air then shoot it, causing a huge explosion. Or fire at gas canisters on the wall of a garage, creating an even bigger one.

Once again, the camera style is more over-the-shoulder than cinematic. The motion blur and shakeycam elements are less pronounced than in the cut-scenes, and therefore much less noticeable, but they're still present. There's a menu option to turn these effects off entirely if you want, says Lund, although he feels this makes the game rather dull - and apparently he's not the only one.

"Our consumer testing shows it's not something players get tired of. It's a very exciting way to move forward in the game and figure out what's happening next," he says. "This isn't a low-fi experience, it's actually just as high-res as all the other games out there - it's just a different way of using that medium."

All the same, the fact remains that those blurry, pixellated documentary clips and YouTube videos never go on for long. Will this style work in an entertainment experience that lasts for hours rather than minutes? Will players put up with lower quality visuals over a prolonged period of time?

Our short demo is at an end, so that's a question we can't answer today. To finish up, let's ask Lund another question instead: how confident is he that reading the reviews for this game will be a nicer experience than the one he had previously?

"We're pretty confident," Lund says. "We're testing the game a lot and trying to make sure people enjoy it, that's my main goal. I guess everybody wants to have a high review score, but I really want to make an enjoyable product. And I really think we did it."