It Does Take Two To Tango!
Halo 3 nailed it, Gears of War executed it, and heck even Crackdown did it. Did exactly what you say? Feature the ability to plough through the campaign with a friend over Xbox Live and even on the same Xbox 360. EA’s Army of Two was built from the ground up to ensure the player gets the most thrilling, intense action packed co-op experience and while it might have sounded good on paper, it has not been implemented all that well.
You begin with a nice little training mission to accustom yourself with the controls of the game and also the features that make up a large part of the campaign. After you successfully complete this mission, you are tasked to go to Somalia to assist a mercenary by the name of ‘Phillip Clyde’ who is assigned to eliminate Mo’Alim.
On completion you are carried away in the evacuation helicopter, Clyde offers Lieutenant Colonel Richard Dalton to join Security and Strategy Corporation (SSC) for a desk job where he agrees and also brings Salem and Rios as contractor mercenaries. There is a nice video which shows the pair in action over the course of 8 years, which then brings us to present day 2001, where you officially start your first mission as a mercenary of SSC in a post 9/11 world.
Campaign mode will see you in numerous locations including China, Iraq and even an aircraft carrier just to name a few. During missions, objectives are given to you by Alice Murray who is your contract coordinator. Successful completion of these objectives earns you cash which enables you to upgrade/buy new weapons and purchase different mask variants. This is a nice way to reward the player and also breaks the norm that other games have giving, you a set amount of weapons that cannot be modified.
The amount of customization able to be done to the weapons is great with a ton of add-ons that will see you spending your money and making your gun look more menacing, but the pimped feature? Walking around with a golden mini-gun and silver diamond encrusted Desert Eagle is nice, but is it necessary? Not really, as you don’t concentrate on the gun but more on trying to stay alive.
If you’re looking to go through campaign mode by yourself you have been warned. EA have tried to make your AI partner as smart as he can be, although there are many times where this isn’t completely obvious. When you need to be healed your partner will drag you, sometimes to the ends of the earth, before discovering when it’s the right time to heal you. Thankfully there are enough checkpoints to ensure that you don’t begin the whole level again or way before the area you’re up to.
The best way to enjoy this game is by Xbox live hands down. Not only does communication between you and your teammate add to the experience, but the teamwork required is very satisfying. A good thing about co-op via Xbox Live is that it covers up the clunky controls and repetitiveness the game has which sees you enjoying the game for what it is and not noticing these bad things.
Army of Two’s campaign takes roughly 8 hours max with an AI partner and around 6-7 with someone over Xbox Live. Single player has little to no replay value with levels being very frustrating and linear. There aren’t multiple ways to complete an objective and there are no open levels that are large enough to explore and add full scale warfare. It feels rushed, it’s like this game was just put together as fast as it could to be let off in the market so that it can rake in the money, as one minute you’re going about your mission the next you’re talking about conspiracy theories and then the next mission you know exactly what is going on and then it’s over. The story isn’t fleshed out enough and not engaging.
Now with a game like Army of Two, you need features to make good use of the idea of co-op play. Thankfully EA have included nifty extras to reinforce that this game is indeed a fully fledged co-op game.
“Aggro” which is one of the games main features is represented by a pendulum bar at the top of the screen and the red glow of your character or partner when they have aggro. “Aggro” is achieved in a fire-fight, where you blind fire countless soldiers that have there eyes set on your partner and you start attracting their attention. This enables your partner to sneak around the enemy unnoticed and with ease and flank them.
If enough aggro is acquired by you, your partner & you enter overkill mode, meaning you become an unstoppable terminator, and your partner becoming invisible and able to move around with ease unnoticed.
There is also co-op riot shield enabling one player to pick up either a car door or riot shield hold it in front of them to fend off bullets while your partner stands behind you and eliminates the enemy. Co-op snipe will see you sniping at the same time of a specific target and back-to-back will see you and your partner facing opposite each other directing your fire in slow mo at enemies that are around you.
They work well and change the pace of the game but are limited, only being able to do them when the game throws you a specific moment where it automatically gets enabled.
The sound of the weapons is spot on, and they sound evil on a 5.1 surround sound system. Every little detail from weapons being fired in the distance, reloading, to enemies shouting can be heard. Voice acting could be better, with Rios & Salem sounding like an uncanny duo from an 80’s buddy cop flick, where when you kudos with your partner you do either different air guitars, or comments, and during cut scenes the lip-synch is way off and further reinforces that Army of Two was rushed.
Army of Two uses the Unreal Engine, and while other games are flooded with texture pop ins, Army of Two does really well to not have this problem included. Yes they are there but are very rare, compared to Mass Effect and Lost Odyssey. The game is really one smooth ride from start to finish, with minimal drop in frame rates even when there is heavy gun fire. Most textures look very uninteresting; with the first few levels looking bland and enemies looking exactly the same with nothing really differentiating them.
Elliot and Rios is the games main highlight as there character models look great.
The in-game vehicle, namely the Hovercraft, leaves a lot to be desired. It feels stiff and gets annoying to control; luckily you don’t use it that much in the game. On that note, the way the game handles is very clunky and doesn’t feel as fluid as other third person shooters do. A cover system has been included in the game but it isn’t really a cover system it is more like run up to a certain object, duck and you are then able to blind fire with ease or pop out from the cover and specifically aim at the enemy to shoot them. It works very well and doesn’t fault from the same trouble Gears of War with its cover system.
Aiming is frustrating, even when you finish the game you still won’t have mastered the art of aiming, meaning you can’t run and gun as you’ll get shot a lot and die. This doesn’t help as the enemy are world class sharpshooter’s being able to direct hit you from lengths of up to 100 metres while blind firing, with you not being able to touch an enemy with blind fire unless in short bursts.
Multiplayer is interesting but lacking, 3 game types and 4 different maps, compared to other games that feature 7+ maps and 5+ game types. War zone, Extraction and Assassination are the game types, and within each of them you’re given objectives, which vary from destroying a terrorist leader, to transporting a POW to a helicopter. You earn money for completing these objectives and to win the team of two that have the biggest pocket full of cash wins. Neutral soldiers have also been included which is nice and ensures that you’re never out of the action for a long period of time, and different stations letting you upgrade and buy new weapons.
EA servers have a problem and a habit of kicking you out during a match, extreme lag, and also booting you from the player ready screen which gets very frustrating and deprives form the enjoyment that could be had, even with the best internet connection you are not safe from the troubles it has.
Hit and miss, mixed bag call it what you want, Army of Two is really a satisfying game the first time round, and if co-op, pimping out your guns, clunky controls and an average b-grade story are your style of play, then get this game, but it’s really nothing more than that. With multiplayer feeling tacked on as a way to ensure you to continue to play this game, and co-op being the main excuse to go through campaign again, Army of Two is really nothing special and another great idea that could have been something but didn’t end up being.
