Army of Two

There are few things better than a good co-op game and Army of Two is, for better or worse, built upon the entire concept that two is the best kind of company. Although just about every high profile game has co-op these days, Army of Two takes it to the next level with an entire game designed around a pair of players- but is Army of Two really twice the fun in one package?

As the titular Army of Two, Salem and Rios are two ex-rangers who left the army, joined a Private Military Contractor (PMC) and turned into scary skull mask wearing mercenaries. Well, perhaps not as scary as all that, since the two act like a pair of frat boy buddies. It’s hard to take them very seriously when they high five each other in the heat of battle or play an air guitar duet. Army of Two tries to tap into the whole ‘buddy movie vibe’, with Eliot Salem as the young hothead and Tyros Rios his taciturn, conspiracy obsessed partner, but the whole thing would have worked better if the writing for the characters were stronger. The rare pop culture quips about betting money on the Cowboys or who the best member of Wu-Tang Clan is (That was Ol’ Dirty Bastard obviously innit’?-Ed) during fights just don’t cut it. The voice work is fine and Salem and Rios can be funny at times, but the typical video game story isn’t quite enough to do more than keep events going. Army of Two is also very much a stock ‘Hollywood’ take on the real world subject of PMC’s, so don’t expect any real heavy hitting comment, the setting is just an excuse for the guys to fight lots of really well equipped terrorists.(Does anyone else miss the Russians as great stock bad guys?-Ed) Over a period of sixteen years, Salem and Rios enjoy the cash and combat at Security and Strategy Corporation under their former Army commander Dalton, but as certain parties push forward a bill in Congress to fully privatize the military, they begin to notice their missions coincide with military secrets getting leaked and US troops getting killed. As they try to work out what’s going on, they’re forced to unravel a conspiracy of betrayal at the highest levels, fighting their way to the truth.

Army of Two is really designed as a two player game, but you can play alone choosing either Salem or Rios with the computer controlling your partner as you fight through the games six campaigns. The game design, even in single player is very much a two man affair, as you direct your partner in combat, telling him to attack, hold position or cover you. You’ll be reminded of Gears of War; through Army of Two’s a third person shooter combat isn’t quite as solid as Gears. The game has a definite mid-range ‘sweet spot’ for combat. Long range is spotty at times and shooting at close range isn’t very effective. Your character is meant to melee up close range, but it doesn’t always work. You’ll need to be in that ‘mid-zone’ to enjoy the best of AOT, which can be frustrating. There are some nifty mechanics in the game through, like Salem and Rios ability to slide into cover and pop up and shoot, or just fire over it without exposing themselves. You’ll earn money on missions and as the pair carry primary and secondary weapons, as well as special ones like snipers or RPG’s, a large part of the fun in AOT is buying a variety of weapons- upgrading and ‘pimping’ them out for various effects like more damage or increased Aggro. You’ll probably end up choosing a weapon and sticking to it, but it’s nice to have the choice even if guns don’t do quite as much damage as we’d like. But it isn’t just about being able to shoot and there’s a heavy tactical element to the game.

At the heart of Army of Two’s combat is a system called Aggro. Aggro is indicated by the ‘Aggro meter’ at the top of the screen and has a couple of important game effects. As one player is more aggressive, he gains ‘aggro’, going red and causing enemies to focus their attention on him. At the same time, your partner goes transparent and unnoticed, able to sneak round enemy positions. Aggro is a fun system that makes you play tactically, using your partner draw out the bad guys while you flank them. You’ll also rely on him to boost you up to unreachable areas with step lifts, drag you to safety when you’re injured and give you life saving first aid. While some of the duo actions feel contrived- like every door anywhere needing to be opened by two guys-we quite liked the fact that when you’re lying on the floor you can still fire, blazing away at the enemy while your buddy drags you off for healing. Other duo-actions include pulling doors off derelict cars, protecting you both while your partner fires over your heads and tandem parachute missions, with one player controlling the ‘chute, and the other sniping. At certain points you can go back-to-back firing in a circle as you wipe out enemies in slow-mo with the pair protected by their body armour. There are a couple of vehicle levels, where one drives a hovercraft and the other fires a turret, but they feel slightly tacked on.

Your partners AI is quite good, especially in combat but we found it faltering at the dragging you and healing tasks. On too many occasions, the AI either drags you halfway across a map before trying to heal you or can’t cope with enemies all around it and tries to heal you under fire. The obvious result is a frustrating death for both Salem and Rios. The enemies you face are fairly good at attacking you, using cover, flanking and tactics to take you out. They consist of various troops with coloured health bars over their heads. Grunts are blue and easily killed , tougher officers are red and heavily armoured gold troops are even more armoured than Salem and Rios, and need to be flanked using Aggro, because they can only be damaged from behind. There are also suicide bombers that run at you and blow themselves to kingdom come.

When you play alone you’re constantly just telling your AI partner to fire behind cover while you sneak up kill the enemy, which get’s tiring after a while. But Army of Two was ideally designed for two human players and you can avoid many of these problems if you play with a friend.  You can play on the same system via split screen or set up a private co-op game with a friend or a public game online.

Army of Two has some fantastic graphics, especially on Salem and Rios from their distinctive protective face masks to tattoos, battle scarred armour and weapons. Enemies are good looking too, and animating as smoothly as Salem and Rios. The environments aren’t quite as good, but are generally passable, and it’s easy to find your way around, thanks to a GPS system that brings up coloured arrows pointing you in the right direction.

In multiplayer you can pair up to take on opponents on four maps and three separate game modes: Extraction, Bounties and Warzones. You'll fight against computer generated enemies, as well as your online opponents, earning cash as you meet objectives and can buy more weapons. Objectives don’t just involve fighting opponents, but destroying targets and rescuing VIPs or POWs on the map, which you’ll need to carry to safety. You’ll want a really good friend to play online with through, as multiplayer involves a lot of team work.

Army of Two has all of these good things going for it, but it doesn’t all gel together as well as it could do. The concept of Aggro is fun, but it makes up the whole game, which gets repetitive after a while. The games greatest strength, it's two player nature, becomes a weakness if you're playing alone because no AI could ever make up for another player, through it tries hard. The campaign is also quite short, and while you can play through missions again to get the money to buy and ‘bling up’ more guns, unless you’re a completionist who wants every gun type you won’t want to play it that many times. The story gets the job done, but it lacks the amount of buddy movie banter we expected. That’s a shame because the developers talked up that element of AOT as well as the idea that the game would explore the shady world of the PMC’s in more depth-both things we most looked forward to. While Army of Two doesn't quite live up to all expectations, it worth keeping in mind that it's still great fun to play, despite it’s flaws and is clearly just the first chapter in a new franchise. With the characters firmly introduced and the core co-op concept established, we can only hope that Army of Two 2, will deliver the other half of what’s needed.

UKMusic.com score: 3.8/5- Flawed but still fun, especially if you like good co-op games

Army of Two is out now on XBox 360 and PS3

Written by Sam Bandah