While I was attending the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) in Seattle this year, I had a chance to stop by the Eidos booth. Eidos, whose contributions to the video game industry are numberous, including the Tomb Raider and Hitman series, are planning to launch a new game before the holiday season this year.

The game from Eidos is Kane and Lynch: Dead Men, and it created quite a hype with one of the biggest posters at PAX. Underneath that colossal poster of two tough guys were three giant flatscreen televisions with Xbox 360s set up to play the crime-related game, still under development. Oddly enough, the gamers had to sit on transparent boxes filled with guns and ammo, which I was surprised was allowed past PAX security.

Clearly, all the bugs had no been worked out on this game. At one point I saw a long line of cars driving on nothing but air where there should have been a freeway. However, I got a good idea what the game was about after a few minutes of playtime.

Kane and Lynch is about a mercenary and a psycho who have to go on a violent path for redemption and revenge. From what I seen, it looked like the latter rather than the former. It starts out with one of them escaping from prison, after being sentenced to death.

I was told by a developer that the part they were letting PAX attendees play was not the beginning, but a part players would normally play later in the game. The part I saw led you to rappel down the side of a building, and into a board room that was led by some crimelord. From there, everybody gets completely shot up as you go for the briefcase.

It is because of all this violence that Kane and Lynch is obviously rated M. Not only is there a lot of blood flying, but there are a great assortment of curse words. Apparently, this game is supposed to emulate crime movies such as Dog Day Afternoon and Scarface.

I asked the Eidos developers if Kane and Lynch is anyway related to the Hitman series, and his answer was “kinda”. I’m not certain why Kane and Lynch isn’t related to the Hitman series, and I’m wondering if it has anything to do with the up-and-coming Hitman movie. Personally, I think Kane and Lynch will ride the wave of Hitman’s success, and will definitely be a hit.