[XBOX 360] Army of Two

 

 

 

Army of Two is a game that came out around the mid 2000s craze of third person cover based shooters, but this one has a sort of twist where its heavily focused around co-op, as per the name.

Unfortunately, EA shut down the online server sometime in 2011 so you can only play Single player with an AI co-op partner, oddly enough the second and third game in the series still works online though, so I just beat this first one solo.

The single player AI co-op partner isn't even bad though. You use the Dpad to tell him simple actions, left makes him follow you, right makes him hold position, Up makes him charge towards the objectives/enemys. You double tap the dpad  on each of these to change him from 'defense/gain health'  or 'be aggressive'. You can see your partners health bar in the corner which helps you determine when to put him in defensive or aggressive mode.

The co-op partner aint no slouch in combat, hes almost better than myself, when you tell him to Advance he just mows down enemies with precision, when you tell him to be defensive and regain health it usually works good. The only quirk is when you go down the AI partner has some issue with when to revive you / when to drag you into cover. And another issue where sometimes you'll tell him to 'advance' to the objective, but he stands around in odd places that make no sense, leaving you to try to figure out what to do. Its fine, the co-op AI is impressive and fun to interact with.

Theres 6 campaign missions, that take about an hour each
At the beginning of every mission you have an Upgrades shop, where you can buy a dozen or so different weapons, and do some attachments.
This system is pretty awkward and underdeveloped, though. You can only access this shop once at the beginning of a mission, and once or twice at select programmed places in the mission where it flashes on screen  "Would you like to go into Mid-mission shopping? "  other than those, you cant access this shop. It would have been better if there were armouries around the levels where I can access the shop, similar to Rainbow six vegas or something.

While the shop is a neat inclusion, it kinda feels like they were just copying the trend of the time, as its not that useful or deep honestly. Theres a money system and various objectives during a mission, but you get so much money that you stop caring because within a few missions you can already buy almost everything you want in the game. Strangely, there are 3 different 'armor upgrades' but you dont actually buy the upgrades at all, it just slowly unlocks the different armors and automatically equips them as you progress through the campaign.

 I basically only used the Ak47 the entire game, and decked it out with full upgrades, as I saw the statistics of the AK grow to almost maximum, i found no need to experiment with the other weapns, and since I only get a handful of opportunities to interact with the shop in the entire game, I didnt want to be stuck with using something crap for an hour on end. You also cannot pickup guns from enemies or anywhere in the maps.
Theres a primary sniper weapon, and a secondary pistol/SMG. The snipers feel really awkward and the aiming sucks so I never used it, and the secondary pistol or SMG is really only needed when you run out of ammo for your primary, which never really happens because the enemies drop bags of ammo which give you 200+ bullets at a time.

The combat is pretty unique though, its got all these odd little mechanics, like all the enemies have healthbars and different color icons to demonstrate how challenging they are, they all constantly take cover or try to flank you, their AI is pretty entertaining. Theres a suppression mechanic where if you just blindfire towards enemies it works to suppress them, you can tell your AI partner to hold position and just aggro them while you flank around corners to surprise them, this is actually crucical as there are some heavy armored enemies that can Only be killed from behind, and the best way to do this is have your AI partner distract them while you flank behind and take them out, its pretty fun.

Thats the main loop of the game, its a lot of cover based wack-a-mole gameplay, but between the ability to command your partner, and the satisfying gun combat, its a decent game overall.
Theres only 6 levels, and the obviously half assed filler levels are towards the end. Theres multiple hovercraft sections where you drive this awful hovercraft through the water with terrible controls, stopping in places and getting out to flip switches, like something stolen straight out of Half life 2, those sections were really shit and poorly developed, as you dont even know where you can get out of your hovercraft without looking at this weird Select screen that highlights the whole enviorment and you drive the hovercraft into the green highlighted place and it just slides into place, its just medicore.

Besides those few hovercraft sections the levels overall are pretty decent, theres a few places here and there where you cant figure out how to progress because of some switch in the enviorment (really, really bad during the hovercraft levels),  but other than that its pretty straight foward, and usually whenever youre stuck you can just hit Select and follow some arrows to the next place to progress, or tell your AI partner to Advance and he usually goes towards where to go.

The best level in the game is the aircraft carrier probably, graphics are decent for the time, I like the controls and the linear constant combat of the game, the 'story' / dialogue is pretty entertaining, its just two 'dude bros' just being hired mercenaries only in it for the money. They're always cracking jokes and talking about how they dont care about anything besides making their pay, its funny and entertaining.

I'm not sure how much different the experience would have been with actual online co-op, it would probably be better, but the mechanic to control your AI partner is pretty fun too surprisingly.
Atleast I finished the first one, now I can play 2 and 3 with actual online co-op, its strange how EA shut down the online for the first game but it remains for 2 and 3.


7/10