Army of Two

"Of Two Minds"

Army of Two is a solid though unspectacular shooter with a lot of glaring issues in terms of gameplay. While the graphics are some of the best I've seen, they're not enough to cover up other glaring flaws.

Army of Two allows you to take on the role of either Salem or Rios, a two man group who rise from the ranks of our own military to the ranks of a private military operation. As mercenaries, they complete objectives and recover intel for profit as part of a two man unit. Most of the features are fairly standard for a third person shooter. The most important element is no doubt the "Aggro" system. Aggro is a term borrowed from MMOs, where one player tends to draw the attention of an enemy while others protect the ally or destroy the enemy. Army of Two allows one man to draw fire and let the other one slip around the battlefield, seemingly unnoticed. I say seemingly because it doesn't always seem to work, a bad sign in a mechanic that is so integral to the game. Most of the time, it will work fine, however, and issues will rarely interfere with enjoyment. If you reach a certain level of Aggro, you can enter overkill mode. In overkill mode, the action slows down, allowing you to do additional damage and fire quickly for a brief period of time. If your Aggro is high enough, your partner can also become virtually unlimited.

To get through the game, you will have to rely heavily on your partner. Either to cover your tail while you take out the enemies, or to drop the enemies who are gunning for you before they manage to gun you down. In single player, this often works poorly, though this game was marketed primarily on multiplayer features. Your computer ally is often erratic, which is more than just a little problematic in a game that's built around two-player combat. A second player makes the game far more enjoyable. When injured, your partner can come to your rescue, dragging you to cover and healing you while you cover him. If either of you take a hit, the healing bar resets, so it's in your best interest to keep an eye out. The computer AI will often drag you into less than ideal locations; sometimes, you will find yourself in a firefight or dragged halfway across a level before you are healed.

Another element is the "back to back" fighting system At some points within the game, you will find yourself stuck to your partner and fighting in a circle (Not a literal circle). You can turn, but not run. Spinning around, you have to cover each others' flanks as dozens of terrorists, contractors, etc. come at you. For some reason, the fact that you have no cover whatsoever is not a drawback here. In a game that is so cover-oriented (to the point that they allow you to tear off car doors and the like to serve as makeshift shields), it seems utterly ridiculous, though it is fun. My primary complaint is rather that the game does little to tell you when you've exited the mode.

The Campaign is short and riddled with loading screens. I doubt it took me more than 5 hours to finish the entire campaign, though I am far from a shooter veteran. A game that builds itself around the notion of a cooperative campaign should have a lot more meat to it. What you do get is beautiful, fun and intense, but it is short and the loading screens can really take you out of the experience. The story can be played through multiple times, but it suffers from a loss of charm upon repetition. With only six missions, each of which can be completed in under an hour, the replay factor is an issue that's hard to ignore.

Also integral to the game is the upgrade system. While hardly a new idea, EA Montreal does a great job at offering a lot of options--Most of the time. While there are a lot of upgrade options for most guns--From barrels to stocks to ammo clips, to "pimping," which plates your gun in gold or silver to add aggro--Some cannot be upgraded whatsoever. The number of guns that cannot be upgraded at all is few, but this is irritating within a game which so heavily hyped the customization elements. Upgrading and tailoring your weapons can be fun--Do you go for stealth, or "pimp" out your weapon and go for the additional aggro to bait your enemies?--And can even be purchased outside of the game (Or mid-mission at certain points).

The voice acting is mostly decent, though the plot itself seems forced and contrived, so sometimes the voice acting seems absurd for no other reason. I doubt I could keep a straight face while delivering those lines, either. The characters are rather flat and the story has plenty of holes (Ones you could drive a hovercraft through), though often shooters have stories that are just tacked on so that there is a story mode at all. Compared to its contemporaries, it's not significantly worse in this sense. The audio effects are somewhat lacking, but not terrible--Rather, they simply do not shine like the visuals. Expect some random lines that will either seem incredibly corny or have you laughing (perhaps both).

Campiagn also features vehicles, or rather vehicle. You get to operate a two-man hovercraft, where one player drives and the other shoots. That's it. The only operational vehicle within the game. It drives terribly, and it detracts from the atmosphere and gameplay that these elements are thrown in. There is one scene in which you ride in an elevated train which is actually quite intense and adds to the atmosphere, unlike the hovercrafts. This means no forklift, as was seen in pre-release videos. You can also parachute in, with a similar "One guy steers, the other guy shoots" mechanic. Rappelling in a similar fashion was in videos, but does not find its way into the game.

The enemy is good--sometimes too good, though this is also a common complaint within the genre. Enemies are as accurate at point blank as they are at long distances, and several can hose you before you get off a single shot. This would be easier if the reticule didn't reset every time you released the aim button. There are also certain enemies which cannot be killed by head-on attacks, no matter how powerful your weapon. These enemies need to be flanked to be taken down. Most often, they serve as "bosses" to eliminate the possibility of ending the encounter with a single, well-placed headshot. It's a bit contrived, but in a game where cooperative play is the meat and potatoes of the system, it makes sense and it can be fun.

While I'm not normally a fan of online play in the first place, Army of Two's online seems particularly uninteresting, with two on two play and few options in terms of game type. Gamers particularly interested in playing against other players online should keep this in mind when considering whether this game is something they wish to purchase. The lack of variation makes the online elements get old very fast. This may not affect the online community, but it provides less incentive for me to go back online to play it. Online is one of the easiest ways to get money for new guns and upgrades, which may frustrate those who do not want to play online, and bore those who play online but find the lack of options tiresome.

While the game is fun, especially with a partner, it is hard to recommend as a purchase given dodgy AI, short story mode, limited online play and lackluster single player. As a rental, it can probably be finished in a couple of days, depending on how much time is spent on it, and it is definitely not a game in which you want to "go it alone." This was a well-hyped game that had me particularly interested, and its fairly average gameplay and short story mode served as a serious letdown. Several elements originally advertised were removed, and while they might be added back into the game as downloadable content, Army of Two feels like half a game, and it seems a shame that the consumer would have to pay extra merely to get a complete experience. In short, I am of two minds--I neither wish to completely condemn the game, which certainly has its merits, nor do I wish to offer praise to that which feels incomplete.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 03/31/08

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