A strong co-op game, with lack luster action.
Army of Two is an action game based on the adventures of two soldiers of fortune. Rios and Salem. These two mask wearing, bro talking bad-asses are not the greatest video game characters ever made, but they are funny, at some points.
The action is weak to say the least. Shooting is not satasfying, and is probably due to the fact that there is not enough blood. When you cap somone in the head, they just fall back, thier heads do not explode. EA is not known for making gory games, and this is not changing that. The aiming is very iffy. When you are aiming without holding the Left Trigger, you cross hair is in one place, when you do hold the tigger and shooter, you airmer is higher. This really gets annoying, and can take you out of the experience.
As you progress through the game, you collect money for killing bad guys and completeing objectives. This can be redeemed for weapons and upgrades, as well as masks, which look strait up stupid. No matter what gun you end up using, the all feel about the same. None have a real difference in damage. Masks are about as pointless as you would think. You wear them, and that is it.
Co-op play is really where this game shines. Playing this with a bud is really fun. There are a good amount of moves that you and your pal can do to fight off third world terrorists. Namley, the back to back move. You are essentially invincible, and bad guys keep charging you. You can do some other cool stuff like high five your friend, or play the air guitar. Figure I will say this now, this game is really bad when you play it alone. Your partner is really stupid, and often is only good as a meat sheild. In fact, all the AI is stupid.
The action flows well only because of one thing - agro. This concept if stolen from the MMORPG world. One player "picks up the agro" by shooting every where and getting all the bad guys to shoot at him. Then the other player goes and flanks the bad guys. This works well, and makes the action more fun, and helps it from blending into the mist of B grade shooter. But do not get me wrong, this is a VERY VERY B grade shooter, but it happens to be a fun one.
This game still uses pre-rendered cut scenes, but considering the general level of the in engine graphics, that is not a bad thing.
Bro. Three letters that will cause you terrible pain. I do not remember which but, but I think that it is Salem will say bro so much your going to want to shoot him in the back of the head. I highly recoment that you do so.
In the end, Army of Two is a good vision of the future of co-op, and with a tighter shooting mechanic, Ao2 really would have been a better game. And less "Bros."
