Army of Two

EA promised this to be a kick ass game without the AI problems that haunted Brute Force. Yeah, they lied and why am I not surprised. EA continues it's recent trend of releasing shit and we now get this woeful game.

Two guys are framed for something or other, they kill men for money, Iraq war blah blah blah. I couldn't have cared less. The frat brother reactions to each other is hysterically bad, the cast is just as absurd and it just did nothing for me.

Actually, I was playing a co-op game and I killed our target of the stage and he fist pumped me which I thought was hysterical and should never be done in real life. It's like this game was developed by frat boys who enjoy the post touchdown ass smack a little too much (not that anything is wrong with that) but it becomes too silly for this game.

To be fair though the game isn't THAT bad I guess. The visuals are nice to an extent. The enemies look dumb and really the art direction is just poss poor all around from the sets to the cast but the details are pretty well done and the customization of the weapons is pretty cool I guess. If you're into big shiny gold guns....

The music felt like it was the same three notes over and over and it did nothing to create a mood or any sort of atmosphere. The voice work was rather typical of the genre as well. Guns sounded okay but there was times where I would hear a random beeping for no real reason.

Speaking of no real reason let me just say that during my co-op missions my partner and myself would constantly get game over and we had no clue why. There was no inclination of what could have possibly caused the game over screen to pop up when both of us are standing. Maybe it's just another of the many glitches this game seems to have.

The actual game play is very co-op based. I found the single player experience to be painful due to my AI partner doing stupid stuff and with double taps on a d-pad and bumper holds for different terms it became a bit tedious trying to remember what did what and in the middle of combat one shouldn't have to worry about their partner running to death.

The game is made up one a single training area and 6 missions. The missions may take you up to an hour each so the play through time should be around 6 hours or so but could be as low as five hours.

Levels are laid out in a linear format but with connecting paths from branches so it could almost feel like it isn't but things tend to look the same. There are main objectives and secondary objectives and you gain many from them all.

Money is used for upgrades and new guns. It's not a very complicated system and at the start of every mission and at least once during a mission you'll get a chance to upgrade your weapons. I pretty much stuck with a specific main weapon and changed things up by suggestions of friends who suffered through the game already.

That was another problem. No one seemed to be playing co-op on-line. I ran into a grand total of two playing in 5 hours. That isn't a whole lot. The actual vs on-line is kind of boring as well. You use the maps from the stages and you have goals to do. The team who gets the most cash wins but everyone keeps their cash anyway. It could be interesting but that's all it has to offer. Wasn't very fun after doing each map once.

Not only that but you go through so many loading screens to get anywhere that it feels more like a chore. Even the main game has to load during the missions and it isn't like the areas are all that big either.

The game also has one sluggish vehicle moment and some horrific parachute missions that I pray is never included in another video game ever. It's just not very fun and it requires both people to try and communicate but because you need to focus your shot you can't see what's around and when you hop out of focus it will reset your aim. It does the same during normal combat and just becomes annoying.

Oh and lets not forget about if your partner is downed you have so much time to bring them back so you need to drag them to a safe place and hold them to bring them back to life. Yes, it even says hold and it makes no sense but maybe the man sweat has magical healing pwoers in this game...

There are so many other games in this genre that have done it much better that I can't even recommend this game for a rental. Go pop your copy of Gears of War into your 360 because a year and a half later it's still better than this game and looks better to boot. The on-line isn't even worthwhile and there sin't enough people playing co-op to make anything decent about this game.

Story - 4/10
Graphics - 7/10
Sound - 5/10
Control - 7/10
Game Play - 6/10
Replay value - 4/10

Final Score - 5/10