Review – Army of Two
- Jim Toshiro Sullivan
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RUNDOWN
Army of Two is the latest game to prove that two heads are not better than one but definitely more fun. EA’s latest effort to cash in on the co-op craze follows in the footsteps of games like Halo and Gears of War that have had great success with cooperative gameplay.
STORY
The story revolves around two mercenaries – Rios and Salem - experiences during the privatization of the military. The game consists of only a handful of missions, each taking place a few months/years of each other – loosely strung together by random cutscenes of these boys in action. A lot more could have been done with the story but it seems they’ve come up short. And the game is really, really short.
There are a lot of ‘colourful’ characters in AO2. Rios is your typical tough guy with scars all over his face while Salem seems to be inappropriately voiced – coming off sounding like a little bitch. His lines are alright, but his voice? What the fuck? It’s like trying to dub Arnold Schwarzenegger with David Spade. And then there’s Clyde. I’m not going to spoil anything for you but I’m pretty sure he escaped from an insane asylum somewhere. This is also where the writing goes into the sewers. At one point he actually called someone a ‘FUCKO’. What the fuck is a fucko? I know they’re trying to show how screwed up he is, but ‘fucko’?! Don’t try too hard to come up with something creative next time. You fuckos.
The main problem with the story is that EA has decided to ditch any kind of subtlety – choosing to treat us like retarded people. Most of you (or some of you) are likely to guess what will happen in the first 20 minutes. Rios and Salem gets intel during a mission – Rios gets paranoid, Salem tells him to relax. This happens what seems to be every five minutes. The story could really benefit from some subtlety and letting the players be the paranoid ones. Give the players some info and let them do the thinking. That’s the key to immersion. Nope, screw that. Rios will think out loud for you. Salem will go “Naah, you’re crazy.” Really? Am I? Alright then.
Another annoyance stemming from this is how much EA shoves in your face about the game being an Army of Two. It goes something along the lines of:
“HEY! Push your partner up on the ledge and he will pull you up!”
“C’mon! Help push your partner up so he can then turn around and reach out and pull you up so you can join him and you guys can progress and…”
This happens stupidly often. They never let you forget that you have a partner. It’s obnoxious. They have to do EVERYTHING together. Especially opening doors. I can understand if the doors are heavy but small flimsy doors? Considering how massive these guys are, they should be able to break these doors and eat ‘em for breakfast. But no – I will wait for my partner so we can open it together. And then we will live happily ever after. It’s obnoxious to the point that I wouldn’t be surprised if EA included a function for players to gain health by making out with each other.
“RIOS! GO FOR THE LEFT TESTICLE WHILE SALEM WILL TAKE CARE OF THE RIGHT ONE! YES! TEAMWORK! HIGH FIVE!”
GAMEPLAY
Now that all that is out of the way – I can gladly say Army of Two is definitely a fun game to play. Granted, it’s only fun if you are playing with a human partner. The single player suffers from the usual dumbass A.I. which I’m not going to go into about as this is obviously not the main draw of the game. One difference in single player is that you can give orders to the computer putting them in either defensive or aggressive modes. What I can say is that this game would get a much lower score if it was based on single player alone.
The first thing that a lot of people will notice is it’s similarities with Gears of War – mainly the big characters, the cover system and the blind fire. AO2 has also introduced its own interesting features such as Aggro, weapon shop and co-op interactions. These features really help the game shine in the sea of mediocre shooters.
The AO2 features add a lot of depth to the gameplay. The weapon shop is self-explanatory. You can buy weapons and upgrade them in many ways. You can also pimp your gun by gold or chrome plating it – different options for different guns. This ties into Aggro. The player with the better gun will attract more enemy attention allowing your partner to circle around and take them out. When a player gets Aggro, he glows red. All enemy firepower will be focused on the Aggro player. The other player will turn transparent and is almost invisible. Aggro can be added by upgrading a gun’s firepower or pimping it. This is a very nice addition.
The weapon shop has a wide range of weapons to buy. This would’ve been more useful if the game was longer. There wouldn’t be enough time to try out different guns at full power as the game is over pretty quick.
Players can also interact with each other in-game. There are a few co-op moves that are available for the player. Rios and Salem can trade guns, shoot back to back and synchronous snipe.
The sync. snipe feature is quite useless. It helps both players to snipe at the same target at the same time. It’s got a count down button – ideally for synching the shot. That can also be achieved by both players getting out their sniper rifle and shooting together. Pointless feature but added to further burn it into your head that it’s an ARMY OF TWO.
Finally you can interact with your partner by either giving them a positive or negative action. You can high five your buddy, play some air guitar or hit ‘em in the head. A nifty touch if you’re playing online with someone.
All in all Army of Two is a fun game to play. There are a lot of cool moments like parachuting down from a plane – you’re controlling the parachute while your buddy is sniping soldiers on the ground. Awesome.
GRAPHICS
AO2 should win an award for the world’s crappiest explosions. Blowing up a missile? A room filled with explosives? Man are the explosions crappy. Really ruins the immersion. You’re running away after planting your bomb. The timer is counting down and you’re wondering if you’ll make it. You’re at a safe distance – you turn around to see the fireworks and you’re greeted with garbage fire. Gimme a big WTF. What were they thinking? Fuckos.
Well, the character models here are very good. Especially the masks. It gives Rios and Salem a very menacing look. Salem especially needs that considering his fucked up voice. Otherwise everything in the game is very average. Very two-years-ago. It does serve its purpose but it’s interesting how it could have been. The different locales do look good and have their own distinctive feel.
SOUND
As I said earlier, the voice acting for Salem is really shit. Really screws up the story. There’s also not much to say about the sound design here. It’s passable. Apart from the explosions. Guns sound like guns. Running sounds like running. There’s nothing special here. Nothing at all.
REPLAYABILITY
The game is too short. Way too short. And because of the shortness, it’s going to be annoying to replay a level you have only just played.
The game came out at EB Games on a Thursday in Australia. I completed it in a day and returned it on Monday because I couldn’t think of a reason to replay it. When I returned it, the EB Games guy told me that it was the 12th copy returned that day. Holy shit. I guess this says a lot about its replayability.
There’s also a versus mode pitting two Armies of Two against each other with CPU controlled enemies littered on the level. Sounds interesting on paper but it gets old very quickly.
The game would receive an 8.5 if it was longer. But oh well.
Rating: 6.3/10
Cumjackulation Rating: 8.5/10
(ratings explained)