Publisher:
Ubisoft
Developer:
Ubisoft Montreal
Release date:
Mar 05 2008
Reviewed on:
XBOX360

Every once in a while, there is a game that comes out that really peaks my interest. For some reason or another, I really want to check it out. As is so happens, Army of Two was one of those games. After watching the previews and videos of the game, it started to call my name. It called to me while I was sleeping, and while I was playing other games. Army of Two called to me every day, wanting me to take a small glimpse in its DVD filled awesomeness.

James and I sat down with Army of Two, and after dealing with this game calling my name for so long, I felt disappointed. For every bit of “oh hell yeah” that I got out of the game, there was also a “oh what the hell” that was uttered. We started out the co-op story mode with a tutorial of how to play the game. So far, the game was exciting. The promise of a team effort to deal with the forces of evil sounded great. We started the first mission, rightfully so, by killing off a couple of terrorists. We get to a high wall, where one of us has to lift the other up. Teamwork…right? I kneel down and give James a lift up while the two tangos in the room turn around and start firing at my partner. James takes them out, with his side of the screen flashing “I’m about to die” red. He turns around and lends me a hand as I climb up. We move on into our target’s mansion as guards start pouring out of every door, window and any other opening large enough. Instead of lettings us take cover, or move to a better location, we automatically go into a cinematic where we tell each other that our best tactical bet is to stand in the open together in a “back to back” mode. We dispatch the horde of enemies that were thrown at us, only to be gunned down seconds later by a second wave of gun wielding maniacs as we left back to back mode. We try a second time, same lame back to back sequence, but this time we succeed. The game the cuts to a scene of our character talking about how to get to our target that we need to kill. Why not bring the wall down one of us says? I go over to the wall we are supposed to pull down, frozen in place at the wall until my partner comes to help me. He comes over, and the wall goes down. We mow through more enemies, take out our target, and jump on a couple of mounted guns while we wait for our helicopter to get us out of there. Enemies pour out of nowhere, heading straight for us. We quickly dispatch them with the mounted machine guns. James turns to me and points at one of the AK wielding goons, running around in circles. We laugh like school girls as the helicopter touches down. We both jump in the chopper, and are greeted with a message that we did great on that mission, like we were an army of two.
That is more or less the first mission, which seems pretty standard. It’s nothing too special, nor is it out of the ordinary for a shooter. The problem is that this is a co-op game. It’s meant to be played with two people, and it seems that at every corner the game forces you to separate yourself from your partner. Instead of working as a team to take out the enemy, you are separated, either one person lifting the other, or running around carrying a shield.

When you aren’t playing bitch for your partner, using the aggro system to get enemies attention while your partner flanks them is great. It works very well, and unless your partner gets too close to an enemy, it doesn’t fail. The only problem with the system is that the aggro system forces the enemies to move towards whoever they have aggro on. This doesn’t mean that if you are shooting at an enemy while your friend is flanking them, that they will take cover. Each and every time I took aggro, enemies would stand straight up and fire, ignoring the rain of lead coming their way.
The game is as pretty as it can be for a co-op feature. Again, it seems that the way to describe it is that there is nothing special about it. The bad guys look bad, and the good guys look cool. The camera for the game is a different story. Throughout the game there are opportunities to melee an evil-doer. However, if he or she is running around when you try to do this, good luck hitting them; the camera will move so that you are looking straight at your character, not giving you a chance to find your target to take him down. The player has the option of manually moving the camera around with the right analog stick; although doing so will leave the players hand in a pretzel-like shape, unable to melee the enemy once you have a chance.

When it comes to outrageous controls to get the job done, Army of Two excels. Want to change your weapon? Great, all you have to do is hit R1, and then select which gun you want to use with the D pad. Want to go into a co-op sniping mode, where you can countdown and snipe two targets at once? That can be done. All you have to do to enter co-op sniping mode is hold L1 and then select co-op sniping with the D pad. Want to throw a grenade? Easy enough, just hold R1, select grenades, then aim them and pull the trigger, all the while praying that your target doesn’t move closer to you, negating the need for a grenade.
Once you breeze past the six hour single player game, you can move on to the multiplayer section. The multiplayer portion of the game is almost the same as single player. You are teamed up with another player, and pitted against a second team of two. There are main objectives and secondary objectives all throughout the map, and it is your team’s job to complete those objectives. Each one completed results in more money to your team, which of course means more goodies you can buy. The rush of two teams racing to complete objectives, while being able to slow the other team down by killing them is satisfying. It feels like you are playing the co-op single player portion, with another team doing the same thing, and for Army of Two, it works very well.
Army of Two is just that. It’s a decent co-op game, and a well done multiplayer experience. The repetitive missions, short single player game, and clunky controls leave much to be desired. The multiplayer experience redeems the game somewhat, making it feel like it should: Getting objectives done with a teammate while taking out bad guys. The multitude of small problems throughout the game causes it to cave in on itself, leaving a mediocre game behind.

Grade: C