Army of Two

Early anticipation had already convinced me to go rushing out for a copy of EA’s Army Of Two. Despite the majority of reviews reputing it as an average game. I still think it’s worth the purchase if you’re looking for something new to play with your friends online or offline. Plus it’s a decent third person shooter with lovely graphics and the two main characters have great personalities to connect with. The highly acclaimed co-operative play lives up to it’s promise and changing the selfishly solo into considerate team players. Army Of Two allows a lot of balance to both gamers getting into combat action.

I credit the developers for bringing something new to the table, the “Aggro” system. One who shoots the most attracts the enemies firing attention thus giving the partner a chance to course around and take out targets. There’s plenty of co-op methods to play around with, giggling like school pranksters while taking out the enemy from sneaky climb ups, sharing the moment of invincibility in the back to back mode and charging like monsters in overkill mode. Along the way of our missions I can share my appreciation or disapproval to my team mate through a high five or head butting them! A simple but amusing feature and at the least, something to show my partner how I’m feeling.

My main nitpick with the game is the GPS. It’s essential for navigation but a little irritating to switch back and forth to. Even with the provided pathway leading to your next objective the whole wash of blue throws you off on your surroundings. Sometimes I was left running around for ages trying to work out where I was suppose to be!

Another annoyance is why there’s a strange screen division in co-op snipe? It’s confusing when trying to gather which sniping screen is yours and I’m pretty sure nobody pays much attention to the wasted GPS view on the top half. Surely just keeping it horizontally split screen would have been more sensible giving both players a better viewpoint?

All of the gunning action in Army of Two also earns you big loads of cash which adds to the games’ longevity. The game has a good variety of arsenal and most importantly it’s got my personal favourite, the RPG missile. I’m not fond of pimping out the weapons but it’s understandable that doing so increases aggro. If I was the enemy I’d be shooting at the sod with his silly golden weapons. Seriously it’s a war not a fashion parade!

Now unfortunately those who try playing with the A.I should be prepared for it’s rather annoying behaviour programming! It’s not the same radiance as you’d get from the team work with Cpt MacMillan from Call Of Duty 4. Believe me you’re in for one hell of a burden! At times where I’ve been shot down in heavy fire and the computer comes to rescue me, it just can’t seem to understand that I don’t enjoy being dragged up, down and around the map, almost touring the battlefield before eventually being healed (if I’m lucky to survive long enough!). Giving orders to your computer companion isn’t as smooth as you’d think. A very dumb stumbling A.I only bringing frustration. It’s Army of Two, so play it with a friend!