Army of Two (Xbox 360)
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: EA Montreal By: D_Litch
Army of Two puts you in the shoes of either Tyson Rios or Elliot Salem, two private military contractors working for Security and Strategy Corporation (SSC). The story follows their lives over the course of about 2 decades, and allows you to play some of their best missions and relive some of the best (and worst) moments of their careers. While the story is solid, and feels like an action movie, the real meat of this title is the cooperative campaign play and the multiplayer.
Let's break it down.
General Gameplay
The philosophy of Army of Two is simple: You can't survive without your partner, and he can't survive without you. Your AI partner, or PAI (Partner Artificial Intelligence), is relatively intelligent. It will make your normal AI faux pas: dragging you 100 yards away to heal you, boosting you into enemy fire during a step jump, and of course, running in your line of fire while your trying to kill an enemy. While that may sound bad, the AI is actually quite good, but after you play co-op online with a friend, it seems archaic.
The controls are a strange beast. "Medium" sensitivity is too fast, while "Low" sensitivity is too slow. There is no good balance to keep your aiming reticle from wandering. The hit detection also leaves a lot to be desired. When an enemy is moving, they are almost impossible to kill from medium to long range. It's like their hit detection windows shrink when they are in motion. Blind firing is also a problem, with enemies being too accurate, and you being far from accurate.
Overall, the controls feel like they tried to copy Gears of War. But the cover system is nowhere near as good as Gears of War and that applies to the "feel" of the game, as well. The control aren't bad per se, just not good.
Tech Specs
At times, Army of Two's graphics look excellent. On one mission in particular, you are on an aircraft carrier and the ocean looks amazing. Aside from that, there are few "Wow!" moments, but the game has a solid look and it works. The textures are nicely detailed, and all of the effects (Water, foliage, wind) are accurate. The sound is also well done. The dialog is excellent and the banter between Rios and Salem made me laugh more than a few times. The gunfire sounds fairly accurate and the general environmental sounds were good enough. The score was nice as well, and while you won't mistake this for Halo 3 or Call of Duty 4, it serves it's purpose and doesn't detract from the experience.
Game Rage
On Normal (or "Contractor") difficulty, the game is relatively easy in parts, with enough challenge to make you play cautiously while still having fun. All of that fun comes to a screeching halt in the final mission. The Arab terrorists you had been fighting switch over to heavily armed, well-trained SSC operatives. The last level consists of the game throwing bus loads of those guys at you and not much else. You basically just fight an onslaught of baddies that are 3x as hard as the previous enemies, and 5x as angry. More curse-words came out of my mouth during the last mission than in Scarface and Pulp Fiction combined. And don't even get me started on Professional mode. You die twice as fast, have half of the health, and the enemies are even stronger. Professional is only for the die hard masochists who like being miserable.
Bedtime Rating
This game is rated M for mature, but really it feels more like a MPAA's "R" rating. It is basically an interactive action movie, which includes all of the language and violence that entails. The F-bomb is dropped pretty frequently and you get a nice blood splatter on your screen when an enemy shoots you with a shotgun. This is definitely a title to play with the same set-up you would play a
Die Hard or a
Last Boy Scout. Its not smut, and the language is humorous, but you might want to wait until the kids are tucked in to play this in the home theater room.
Butt Groove
The Campaign is short, 5-6 hours if you look for briefcases and do all the side-quests. Co-op adds replay value, but not much more. The multiplayer is a love it or leave it affair. But even die-hards will grow tired quickly. This won't be in your disc tray long, it makes for a good rental, but a buy is advised against.
Multiplayer
The multiplayer in Army of Two takes major cues from the single player. It allows a max of 4 players (2 squads of 2), and revolves around capturing objectives and killing VIPs. One teams is the "Attackers" and the other team is naturally the "Defenders". The matches I played were pretty fun, but got old quick. I don't see anyone ditching Call of Duty 4 to play this game, but a little bit of multiplayer is fun in short bursts.
Achievements
The achievements in Army of Two are about as straight forward as can be. Get X amount of kills with this weapon, do this X amount of times, and the utterly original "Complete Chapter "X"" achievements. To get all of the single player achievements, it'll take you at least 2 playthroughs. The achievements are uninspired, and you can see them coming from a mile away.
Category Rankings General Gameplay 
Tech Specs Game Rage Bedtime Rating Butt Groove 
Multiplayer Achievements Overall Couch Count: 3 out of 5 
