The game hinges on a thing called the Aggro Meter. Up in the top middle
of the screen a little meter flops back and forth between you and
your buddy like you were playing the Tug of War mode on Rock Band.
When you’re shooting enemies the meter will come towards your side, and
if you keep making lots of noise and making life difficult for them,
your character will turn red. This will make you stronger, but much,
much more of a target. Meanwhile, your partner will be turned
semi-transparent and not take much notice from the enemies. It makes
sense- you see someone shooting at you in real life, are you going to
be paying attention to the other guy sneaking up on you?

If you keep up the aggro you can go into a power mode, where you do
twice as much damage, but you’ll move really slow- making it fairly
useless unless you’re surrounded by enemies. Your partner (or you, if
your friend sets up the aggro, natch) will move twice as fast and be
basically invisible to enemies. It’s a great way to scout ahead and
take out any potential threats, as long as you do it before time runs
out. There’s nothing worse than being stuck out in the open, surrounded by pissed-off terrorists.

You need to rely on this back and forth to get past later levels,
especially when you start going up against heavily armored foes who can
only be taken down by being shot in the back. It’s a great system, and
makes each firefight that much strategic.

Along with all that, there’s lots of other nifty little moves and
features. You can feign death to have your enemies start focusing on
the other guy, then jump back up and shoot them as they yell in fear.
There’s a GPS system that allows you to quickly find your way and
ensure that
there’s never a moment where you get stuck (as you know happened to you
in Gears of War…. looking for that one damn door you had to go through). It’s
pretty clever, but I can see it taking away from the experience if it’s
used too much.

So the gameplay is solid, of that there’s no doubt. But the actual
game? Well for one thing it’s a decent length at about 7-8 hours, but
it doesn’t have the kickass ending you’ll be hoping for. It sorta ends with a whimper.

Single player is fun, and your computer buddy handles himself well, but it’s just not the same without that human interaction. The game doesn’t hold nearly as much excitement or tension as when you’ve got your friend’s life on the line… digitally, of course (although I play games with my friend’s lives all the time…) It’s almost boring at times by yourself, and if that was all the game had to offer, this would be a much different review.
 

But grab someone else, and you start to understand what they were going for here. It’s pure gaming bliss for the short time it lasts.
 


THE PRESENTATION
 
The game looks fantastic (yet another next gen game powered by the
Unreal Engine 3), but I was honestly upset that the levels don’t have
more interactivity. It’d be nice to be able to shoot chips off of the
pillars your enemies hide behind, and vice versa- it’d make the
gunfights much more visually exciting. Stranglehold showed
us how easy it was to make an otherwise standard gunfight
stand out just by having debris and dust fly around everywhere. But not
even many windows are breakable here.

The music does its job. It’s very cinematic, big swelling type stuff,
and crammed with metal guitars for the more exciting parts, but
ultimately forgettable.
 
The voice work is decent, although the characters are pretty bland
despite the developer’s intentions (They listen to Wu-tang and root for
the Cowboys! They’re so hip!) and the storyline is stereotypical,
mindless stuff. You can see where it’s going right from the start.

The
menus also needed some more work, but more on that in a second.

As an aside, the Achievements have some of the most clever names ever…
mostly ripped straight out of films. Who wouldn’t like getting the
“Flip you. Flip you for Real” or “Big boom. Big bada boom” achievements?
 
THE REPLAY

Once again, Co-op makes this game. Immediately after beating the campaign mode in
single player I got a request from a friend who wanted to start a new
one up with me. I did, and played through 2 of the massive levels,
staying up till very late at night. It’s like playing an entire new
game with a human on the other end. No longer will you have to wait on
your human AI to hit their targets. (By the way, the AI in this game is decent, but
your guy’s not that great of a shot) It’s just so much more fun with
a friend, when you can strategize and help out.

In fact, I can see going through the main storyline a bunch of times
with each of my friends, just because it’s so much fun and there’s so
many ways you can go at a fight. As an added bonus, you can play
split-screen locally with a friend, and even play versus matches online with
him or her.

It might give you pause, but the online multiplayer is only 2 on 2. Before you close this page and turn away in disgust- think about it. It works a helluva lot better than you might expect, and besides, it’s much easier to grab one friend and head to battle than trying to round up a whole team for Team Fortress 2 or Call of Duty 4. Think about that- bullshit free online gaming. Ahhhh.

There are only 4 maps available, with 3 different modes to
select- Warzone, Bounties, and Extraction, but in each of them it’s all
about the cash (moves everything around me). You complete objectives
relating to the mode you chose (assassinations for Warzone, blowing
expensive targets up for Bounties, carrying vips to safety for
Extraction, although they change it up here and there) and try to complete more of them before your opponents do.
The money you earn can be spent on weapon upgrades during the match, but you have to
be careful not to spend too much, lest you end up losing the match.

The best and smartest part of the mode is that there’s tons of non
player characters in every level. They’ll try and stop both team’s
progress, and while they’re very easy to kill (much more so than your
human opponents) it adds so much to the feeling of actually playing in
a real world. It just wouldn’t be the same if it were only 4 people
running around. There’s also vehicles such as trucks and tanks to crush your enemies with.

The versus mode seems to have a few kinks to work out, though. They were having
server problems across the board the last couple of days but it already
seems to be fixed up, and I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt that
it was just some early jitters from all the people logging in .

But there are definitely some problems here. First of, it’s
ridiculous how you can unlock weapons and masks in the game and have
nowhere to show them off except in single or co-op modes. When you play
Versus you pick from a stock character (including many models from the
campaign, thankfully) who starts off with no guns but the standard
ones. What’s the point of pimping out your guns or masks in campaign if
you can only use them in co-op? There’s only so many times we’ll play
through the game, as fun as it is (and it really is)
 

The absolute largest problem with the versus mode, though? No lobby system.
Every friggin’ match you’ll end up kicked back to the menus. It’s
unacceptable… if I’m trying to play with a friend, I have to start up
a new game and invite him, every single time? Are you kidding? It’s not
intuitive and could’ve easily been fixed. There definitely has to be a patch of some sort released/

It is a great multiplayer experience, though… really is tons of fun.
Let’s just hope they get those problems patched up quick. Also,
we need more maps and objectives… and need to not be charged for it.
Don’t make us pay for stuff that should’ve been in the box!


THE VERDICT

An amazing game that just can’t quite get over its own hurdles. This is
the kind of game you pray for a follow-up to, because what’s there is
of fantastic quality… it’s just a little grimy. A sequel just needs a
little polish and we could have a classic on our hands.

Still, as of
now, if you’ve got a friend to play with there’s really no reason why
you shouldn’t pick this up.

BUY IT AT AMAZON: CLICK HERE!
PLATFORM: Xbox 360, PS3
ESRB RATING: M
DEVELOPER: EA Montreal
PUBLISHER: EA

What the world needs now, is co-op games, sweet co-op games.

Na, not just for some. For everyone. It’s something that people realized as soon as online console gaming got started- it was a helluva lot more fun to play through an entire game with a friend than to play against 15 screaming 12 year olds. Allowing two people to play at the same time allows for new tactics, for you to be able to watch your friend’s back and vice versa. It made the experience of the game completely change, and while companies have done it well before, none have designed an entire game around the concept.

Enter Army of Two.

THE PITCH

You and your partner are an army… an army…. of TWO.

You’re a couple of heavily armored war vets, two serious bad asses who laugh at bullets, work great as a duo and put fear into terrorists around the globe… mostly because of their stylish yet useful face masks.
 
After a standard training mission the game throws you into a war, where you find out that your two characters are in the US Military. At the end of the mission, your boss realizes there’s a lot more money to be made by opening shop as a Private Military Company (PMC), instead of working for the government. He hires you two on and for years and years you all enjoy a fruitful relationship, killing people all over the world and bringing in tons of dough.

Flash forward to September, 2001. Certain events transpire that lead to the boys being called to duty in the Middle East. (Just like real life PMCs!) From here things quickly get crazy, as the company you work for becomes one of the largest military forces around, and there’s talk of privatizing the military… basically having your company becomes the U.S.’s military.  You’ll follow the team through their major missions over the next few years, engaging in combat in all kind of god-awful, war torn places. Iraq, The Philipines, China, Miami… every manner of slum is on display here.

While the characters can be amusing, unfortunately the storyline is typical blockbuster movie stuff. You’ve got backstabbings and “twists” galore, and it ends on a very weak note. Thankfully, this game’s not really about the story.

THE PLAY
 
Let me get this out of the way first- Army of Two plays a helluva lot like Gears of War.

That’s not a slam, or a claim that it’s ripping the other game off. It’s just that there is so much similar between the two, even though they are very different beasts at the core. Army of Two has a similar cover system, but the big difference between this and Gears of War is that you don’t actually get glued to the wall when you hide behind it- you’re free to move around it, fire over or around it, or simply move away as you please.

But there’s plenty of little things that will remind you of Epic’s game as well, like the little musical cue that hits when you’ve cleared a room of enemies. Like I said, it’s not a bad thing.

The control’s exactly what you would expect from a third person shooter, and is pretty damn tight. You’ll have no problem jumping right in and being able to aim and shoot all your foes, and marvel at the incredible ragdoll physics as they flop to the ground riddled with bullets (or get sent flying from your shotgun blast).

The guns are very satisfying and have a nice heft to them. Over the course of the (very linear) game you’ll earn cash for doing all sorts of mercenary things, like taking targets out or escorting vips to safety. All the money you earn goes to your weapons. Practically every gun has upgrades of some sort, and you’ll be surprised how even the weakest rifle in the game can handle after a new stock, barrel, and a larger magazine. A little grenade or shotgun attachment doesn’t hurt, either. For the vain among us you can even pimp the gun out (that’s actually the name of the upgrade- PIMPED) and have a gleaming gold weapon of destruction. Sure to make your enemies take notice.

You can buy weapons through a mid-mission shopping mode, where you’re instantly given upgrades and new guns at certain checkpoints. Sure, it might not make much sense, but who’s complaining?

Hand to hand combat is nice, but some of the moves you make don’t exactly feel like killing ones (clotheslines, knees to the head, etc.) although they always end up in an instant kill.

One of the biggest innovations to the game though are the two player moves. There’s plenty of them to go around- like the great two player sniper mode that shows just where both you and your teammate are aiming on the same screen. There’s even a countdown button for the talk-shy among you. Perfect for taking out two guards at once. Course, the game basically hands you those situations…. like “Here. Here’s two guards. Have fun.” and if that weren’t silly enough someone will tell you that you should do just that.

Besides running around, there are a few parts in the game where you’ll ride around in a hovercraft. They’re decent and control well, but it feels real floaty, without much weight to it. You can bounce off walls without taking damage or even hearing any sound from the impact. There’s also some sections where you’re parachuting. One of you will control the flight, the other (who’s strapped to the other guy’s stomach like a baby) will be able to snipe any enemies below. They’re pretty fun, but short.

Every once in a while, you’ll end up surrounded. You and your buddy will go into “Back to back” (good thing they didn’t call it Ass to Ass…) mode, where everything will slow down to bullet time and you’ll have plenty of opportunity to kill all of the enemies around you. Really fun moments, but it would’ve been nice to be able to go into this mode yourself, instead of just playing them as part of a mission (they’re scripted.)
 
Besides all the little modes though, you’re constantly needing help from your partner. You will die very fast if you don’t learn to rely on him. You’ll feel like a douche, too, because when your health gets zapped you’ll fall to the ground wounded until you can get first aid from your friend. You’ll sit on the ground till he comes and rescues you, and you can fire back at any enemies (if you get hit here you die for real and have to restart), but if he comes it’ll be tough for him to get you back on your feet unless he drags you to a safe location. It takes a little bit of time to heal your buddy, and makes it more nerve wracking because if he gets shot he has to do it again…

Head on to the second part!