by Pete Degrazio
April 14th, 2008 -
Electronic Arts’ highly touted Gears of War styled co-operative style shooter Army of Two was released last month to a hungry crowd, leaving our bellies full of mercenary spilled guts and glory.
The main story is divided into several regions where the action takes place over the course of nearly two decades. The main focus of the game is the field of Private Military Contracting (PMC), and two of its highly esteemed mercenaries, Elliot Salem and Tyson Rios. Salem and Rios, two army rangers with a long history together, turn into paid mercenaries fighting for a private military contractor. During their assignments they uncover conspiracy and corruption within their corporation. The story is delivered pretty well through in-game conversation as well as through cut scenes. The best part is that everything you need to know is eventually told to you in-game, eliminating the need to have to read the manual or search online to find the story.
Commencing in Somalia, players can choose which combatant they wish to control, and after going through a brief but necessary training course, the battle begins. After completing the training, fans of Gears of War will have no problem picking up the feel of the game EA delivered via the popular Unreal 3 Engine. The flow and controls are practically identical. A favorite maneuver of ours is when one player is injured, they become immobilized. Your fellow combatant must run over to him and either drag him to a safe area or heal him in that spot. The injured player also has a "bleed-out" bar, which limits how much time they have left before they die from their injuries. This bar decreases from either the difficulty played and/or enemies that continue to shoot them, but one perk being that the downed soldier can fire while waiting for their teammate or being dragged.
Over the span of nearly two decades, players will find themselves in some pretty cool environments that include: Iraq, the USS Constellation, China, and Miami. The graphics look decent, and the cut scenes between missions, are simply gorgeous. Army of Two’s combat is actually very entertaining and exciting. Despite their impressive armor (also available for upgrading and purchasing), Rios and Salem can’t take too much fire before needing revival. For that reason, they’ll need to utilize the ample cover on levels. You’re equipped with a primary, secondary, and special weapon as well as grenades. Instead of a grenade button, however, you’ll have to equip them from the same menu as you do for swapping between other weapons. While in cover, players are able to blindly shoot, or pop-up out of cover for better accuracy. The swarms of enemies will also constantly be on the move searching for better ways to assault you, so you’ll need to work quickly and strategically. On top of this, you have access to a wider arsenal of weapons dealers that standard law enforcement may not. If you’d prefer a cheap AK-47 over your standard issue assault rifle, go for it. Money earned by completing missions and submissions gives players the loot to purchase new weapons, upgrade current models (adding a shotgun as a secondary option to a machine gun is always a good time), and yes even dip your boom stick in gold and bling it out, adding ever so important replay value to the game. Rarely seen in the shooter world, add-on elements are usually reserved for the racers such as the Need for Speeds of the world, so take note game developers, a precedent has been set.
Worried that a friend doesn’t own the game and you’ll be stuck with a sub-par computer operated counterpart? Well hath no fear my brutal brethren, the AI in Army of Two is incredibly intelligent. Battle commands given by the human player are executed with sound discipline, as well as the ability to cover, protect and even drag your wounded ass to safety.
Many argued that EA might have rushed this title on to the shelves, the only portion of the game we can see this being ever so slightly evident, is the multiplayer game modes. The online modes can get a little confusing at times, since there are so many terrorists and allies running around that you can’t tell the difference. Nothing a few patches couldn’t fix though. Character customization is also not possible in the multiplayer portion of the game but you can buy preset sets of weapons, upgrade your body armor and amount of ammo you can carry. Players need to be careful while shopping though, since the team with the most cash in the end wins. The game types are pretty cool with 3 modes: Warzone, Bounties and Extraction. In Warzone the objectives are randomly generated and they may vary greatly. For example team might need to get to certain place and defend it, while other team tries to destroy it, shoot down the chopper, blowing up a jeep with gunner, transporting wounded soldiers to extraction point, assassinating V.I.P's, etc. Extraction is basically Warzone but with rescuing V.I.P.'s to a safe location only. Bounties being the opposite of Extraction. There are currently four maps total, and each is filled with hostiles native to the location. Also every map contains so called "intelligence", which if picked up will get you extra cash
Overall this game is a great buy, especially to curb your appetite until the Fall release of Gears of War 2. Regardless, Two will keep fans of co-operative shooters happy for a long time. While the campaign is a short 7-8 hours, you’ll want to go back and play again on a harder difficulty or solely to earn money and buy that M14 mini-gun. The ability for EA to franchise this game is there, they’ve built an impressive canvas for an unlimited number of sequels (Army of Two… uh 2?), fingers crossed for some more mercenary filled guts and glory!
OVERALL RATING - 8.5/10
For more information please visit EA.com