Army of Two

"Pimp out your gun and slap some tank on your face, ITS ARMY OF 2"

For someone who love a great shooter but isn't a perfectionist then I highly recommend this game for you. Army of two is a very visually impressive game with creative and innovative Co-op gameplay but its far from perfect.

The game drops you into the world of Salem and Rios, mercs for hire, much like the A-team but far more badassed. The game itself is based around a cooperative game play style, using different command moves and pre-set action points that make you work as a team to get over anything in your way. At some points in the game you have to use coop moves to scale walls, snipe enemies, and distract people by having them agrro onto you. Now agrro is where the game hits the money, it a meter, on the right side of the screen, that shows you how much the enemy is paying attention to each player, if one player has all the agrro the other player can sneak behind the enemy and take them out. If you manage to keep your Agrro meter full for a long enough period of time you will be given the choice to go into a "bullet-time" or blood rage like mode that slows down gameplay allowing you to pull of some great kills or some insane superhuman melee kills. Speaking of melee kills, Salem and Rios are tanks,if you run out of ammo you can just pound the enemy into the ground with a variety of melee from an extreme pimp slap to a one-two punch. The game has a wide selection of weapons from you to choose from, which can all be upgraded, more ammo, better aim, shield, shotgun, gold plated. You have 4 main types of weapons, primary, secondary, special, explosives. After every mission checkpoint you have the chance to buy new weapons, upgrade your current ones, or buy a new mask.

The game's graphics are great, much like Gears of War or Turok, very nice character models and props for not cheaping out on the sub characters like some games, nothing kills a game like a great main character model with a block for a side-kick. The levels are very open giving you many different way to take out your enemies, the enemies themselves are also highly adaptive, they wont just sit in one spot and shot at you, they move around, duck and weave in and out of cover making it hard to hit them.

The game unfortunately has a few bugs and some improvements are needed, nothing major but a few none the less. some clipping occurs every once in a while if you get knocked down near a box, your partner cant get to you to heal you. enemies some times get confused and stand motionless, not a bad thing just makes them a better target. Some improvements with accidentally switching weapons or giving your partner props in the middle of a battle.

Overall its a great game to play with a friend or online, great look and feel, easy to learn controls, nice soundtrack, replay value is pretty good but you may see it in the pre-owned section if you don't have an live account or a reliable buddy to play with.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/11/08

Game Release: Army of Two (US, 03/06/08)