Army of Two review (X360)

Army of Two is that rare thing, an original game from Electronic Arts, it’s not original in concept, it’s just a squad based shooter really, just with a smaller squad than normal. It’s not original in its story either, similar stories of betrayal and conflict in a military environment have been seen before in plenty of Tom Clancy games. It’s original in so much as it’s not another Need for Speed, or FIFA, or Harry Potter, or Burnout, or any other of a number of franchises that get the yearly update treatment. And that has got to be a good thing, right?

Double the fun

Co-operative play in a game is nothing new, in fact it’s almost obligatory in lots of games these days that a games single player can be played with friends. Squad based shooters like Rainbow Six and Ghost Recon have been doing it for years, and Army of Two isn’t that different, or is it? Whilst other games just take a single player game and add to it Army of Two does things a little differently, it was designed for two players, and the AI fills in for the other player, rather than the other way round. This actually works really well, even if you are playing on your own, with lots of situations needing you to work together.

Some of it is just cosmetic really, needing both characters to open doors seems a little pointless, and having one character give the other a boost up to a ledge could easily be replaced with a ladder or stairs. Other aspects of the gameplay work far better though, the back to back sections being one of my particular favourites. It’s quite exhilarating fending off the attackers back to back with a friend, they don’t last long, but they’re really quite hectic.

Same old story

In fact the game is all pretty fast paced all the way though, you don’t get long to catch your breath from one bunch of bad guys to the next. The action is pretty much linear, following an all too familiar story of betrayal, you play as either Elliot Salem or Tyson Rios, a couple of US Rangers, taken out of the army and in to the private sector by their commanding officer. After several years working as mercenaries alongside the army things start going wrong, and Rios starts getting suspicious, and with good reason, before long they are framed for murder and on the run from the army, and a particularly nasty mercenary called Clyde.

Unfortunately the action's over all too quickly as you take down your ex commanding officer, the brains behind all the funny business going on, and the duo start up their own company, Trans World Operations, or TWO, how fitting. You get maybe 8 hours max playtime here, seems to go quicker though if you play on your own, maybe because the game's AI knows where it is going. Despite being pretty linear there are times when it gets a little unclear where you’re meant to go next, when this happens you can just call up the game's GPS, which will point you in the right direction. Or you can just set your partner AI to push forward and follow in his wake as he Rambos his way through, just one reason why it’s more fun with a friend.

Two heads are better than one

As a single player game Army of Two really isn’t anything special, it’s a pretty standard third person shooter, but with a friend it really comes in to its own. With a friend you get a choice on who drives the hovercraft and who mans the gun turret, you can work together taking down the bosses that need to be taken from behind. Some of the game's co-operative moves still seem rather dull even with a friend, I’m still wondering why one of them can’t open a door on their own, but others work much better. And there’s plenty of ways to work together, as already mentioned you get a hovercraft to ride together, you can also take two man parachute drops, which are quite fun, one man steering the ‘chute while the other whips out a sniper rifle and takes out hostiles. Talking of sniping you can do a co-op snipe together to take out two targets at once, you can swap weapons between each other, even heal one another when near death. Or you could just play dead and put all the pressure on your team mate, this tends to work better when playing alone though, grab a handy car door and you can be a human shield for your friend too. And then there’s the Aggro system.

Give it some Aggro

Aggro is very much what it sounds like, the more aggressive player out of the two filling his Aggro meter, and it’s not just who’s shooting the most, but who’s got the biggest gun. Fill up your Aggro meter and then you can trigger overkill mode, giving the player who filled their meter unlimited firepower, and the other a burst of speed. Everything goes in to slow motion and you almost feel unstoppable, it doesn’t last very long though at only fifteen seconds, but you can do a lot of damage when you don’t have to worry about reloading. Aggro does have its downside though, turning you in to a bullet magnet pretty much, but even this has its advantages, when you are drawing all the fire it gives your team mate the chance to ambush your attackers.

EA has definitely put a lot of work in to making the game a great co-op experience, if you’ve got more than one friend to play with though you can always try the versus mode and couple up for some adversarial play. It’s not your typical multiplayer shooter though, there’s no straight two on two action, it’s more of an objective based game. You get three modes of play, Extraction, where you rescue prisoners and VIPs, Bounties where you assassinate targets, and finally Warzones which is a combination of the other two with a few extra objectives thrown in to the mix. There’s only four maps to play over though, but word is that more maps will be available via downloadable content, so that’s not too bad, and it’s definitely more tactical than your average shooter.

Good, not great

It’s not often I say this, but well done Electronic Arts, it has made a good game here, it’s not amazing, but it’s a very solid shooter which plays really well with a friend. The single, or should that be double, player campaign is a bit on the short side, but it’s quite replayable due to being fun with a friend, and the multiplayer is good for a blast, just hope some new maps turn up for it pretty soon. If you haven’t got Xbox Live or any friends though this is just an average shooter, and this might not be the best choice of game, but everyone else should definitely give it a go.