Army of Two

PLATFORM (PS3, Xbox 360)

PUBLISHER (EA)

PRICE $60

ESRB RATING (M for Mature)

PLAYERS (1-4 online)

Army of Two is almost a total clone of Gears of War. It copies that third person shooter so much that after the game was over and the credits rolled, I watched just to see if any of the developers had the last name Xerox.

What is most surprising about this is that the game succeeds most when it is sticking to what has worked before, and stumbles when it tries to innovate.

The biggest innovation that simply does not work is "back to back mode." In these sections movement control is taken away from the player, and all you can do in aim at enemies who seem content to run towards you in suicidal slow motion.

Another offender is cooperative sniping. In these sections both players (or one player and a computer controlled companion) have to aim and shoot at one object or enemy. I guess the idea here was that two bullets are better than one, but this feels too much like trying to shoehorn in something new.

One idea that did work very well is the way you earn money by doing missions. Money can then be used to buy new weapons or upgrade existing ones. This gives a great feeling of purpose when playing the story mode with this game, and it is always exciting to see the differences between the weapons.

The story is this game is a corny affair that centers around mercenaries. They will fight whomever, wherever. This leads to players fighting an almost endless stream of stereotypical enemies. Still, the main characters manage to be likable, and this helps make the cliched events a bit more palatable.

Army of Two is a rather enjoyable, yet average game. You could do worse, but you could definitely do better. I recommend it only if you are desperate for a new game and have played almost everything else out there.

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Gears of War

PLATFORM (Xbox 360, PC)

PUBLISHER (Microsoft Games Studio)

PRICE $60

ESRB RATING (M for Mature)

PLAYERS (1-8 online)

THE QUICK AND DIRTY : I was lukewarm to this game when it first came out. I thought it was over hyped and overrated. I still believe it was over hyped, but after playing Army of Two I realized that this game did perfect the third person shooter.

Dark Sector

PLATFORM (Xbox 360, PS3)

PUBLISHER (D3)

PRICE $60

ESRB RATING (M for Mature)

PLAYERS (1)

THE QUICK AND DIRTY : This game also looks like a carbon copy of Gears of War. That is pretty strange, because this game was announced a long time before Gears came out.