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ARMY OF TWO

Reviewed on PS3. Also on Xbox 360 Developer: EA Montreal. Publisher EA

“Well, well, well. Electronic Arts. We meet again. How long has it
been? Three years, you say?”

Well, it hasn’t bee quite that long since I played an EA game (it
would have been Godawfulfather on 360), but near enough. So first off.
Army of Two is not a bad game but not a great game. It is, however, a
good game. It’s been nearly a year and a half since Gears of War was
first released and it looked as though every third-person shooter
would mimic its ‘stop and pop’ dynamic. But here we are in early 2008
and so far only Uncharted has borrowed it wholesale. Army of Two looks
like EA’s response to GoW.

Now usually, EA doesn’t rip stuff off without just renaming things.
Look at Skate, they have a completely original control scheme for
that. Look at the aforementioned Godawfulfather, they added in some
extra control methods as well as the ability to browbeat people. So
here, they’ve taken Gears of War’s cover dynamic and also taken the
idea of Co-op and made a game where even the single player mode is
still a Co-op game. It’s been a while where you have to direct a non-
playable squadmate so thoroughly as you do in Army of two.

So in Army of Two, you have two guys Rios and Salem and you choose
which one you play as and the other tags along. You guys are old army
buddies working for a private military contractor called SSC. The
whole plot revolves around a, er, plot to replace government run
military with a private army. And it’s laid on very thick. Apparently
a lot of tone changes have been made to the game, it is fairly serious
and earnest compared to the more satirical tone of previews. The story
points are hammered home so bluntly and reiterated over an over that
its impossible to not know what’s going oon in the story. The story
just isn’t all that interesting, however.

So at heart a third person shooter with a team-mate, you must use
something called aggro to advance. Basically, one of you shoots at
the enemies while the other doesn’t. This allows the aggrometer to
swing towards one of the characters and most of the enemies will
theoretically shoot at them now. The other character, providing they
show restraint, can sneak closer to enemies and outflank them. The
designers were so in love with this dynamic, that they force it on you
in several places by having to use this tactic to get behind some
enemies who can only be taken from behind. Like A-G CEO Demi Demforth
IV in the prison shower. You also have some sections where you drive a
hovercraft (but it really doesn’t do much since you drive and your
partner shoots the gun). You can also hi-5 your partner or punch him
if you like (which seems a remnant of earlier builds). You also have a
rage mode when your Aggrometer has built up to make which is kinda
like bullet time (or gives you a stealthy advantage if your partner
goes into Aggro overtime mode). There’s also Back-to Back, which is
almost exactly like a similar bit in Stranglehold.

The only think I really disliked about the gameplay was the health
mechanic. You have recharging health like most games do these days but
at some point you get hurt so badly, you need your partner to heal
you. And nine times out of ten, you’re getting shot at whilst your
partner Tries to heal you (meaning he has to start again from
scratch). You also can only use weapons you buy at certain parts of
the game (at some checkpoints and from the main menu. Though you can
swap weapons with your partner. Which is nice. This is just the
single player and I enjoyed it. But this is a game that has co-op so
baked into its heart that you really need a friend to play the
campaign to get the most. There are some versus modes but irts really
single or co-op where this game will spend most of its time. Again,
its not a long game, but it will provide fun for the co-op fans.

Graphics are decent on PS3, running at (or near enough to) 30 frames a
second. Sound is pretty good, though the voice actor for Rios (the big
bald white guy) talks very slowly when he’s trying to reiterate the
plot. The story is a bit over the top but the settings are well
realised. I particularly love the locale of the last level (a
hurricane ravaged city), which made a change from relatively generic
Iraq, Afghanistan and Chinese levels, which were good, but have been
kinda done to death (and better in the case of Call of Duty 4)

So overall, a good buy on 360 or PS3 for guys looking for a game where
they can play through with pals. Probably not worth it for single player alone.

Would I want to play Army of Two II? Hmm, depends on how they build on
this.

C1 Rating: 1/3 for SP (2/3 for coop)