With big guns, cooperative gameplay, modern warfare, and pretty graphics, Army of Two seemed like a no-brainer. EA promised a lot, but even after some delays for polishing, Army of Two doesn’t quite deliver.

Army of Two centers on a pair of Army Rangers turned Private Military Contractors (PMCs) after a tour in Somalia. After 9-11, the pair is sent to Afghanistan to battle the Taliban on a top secret mission (of course) and discover something isn’t quite right with their new employer. Eventually a rather predictable conspiracy story unfolds and takes the pair to Iraq, a hijacked aircraft carrier, China and finally a hurricane-ravaged Miami. The story is nothing special and doesn’t take itself too seriously, but I like that they didn’t shy away from real locations and events, even if the events in the game are over the top.

Gameplay

The core mechanic of Army of Two is to use cover and an Aggro system to shoot your way through various set pieces. When one person fires his weapon, it draws attention away from the other character, allowing him to maneuver on the enemy. Killing enough baddies in full Aggro puts you into Overkill mode, granting temporary double damage for the Aggressor and stealth mode for the other player. The Aggro system takes a little while to get used to, but can actually add a good deal of strategy. The enemy AI is actually pretty smart, making you use the Aggro on higher difficulties. They’ll flank and maneuver on you, take cover, and even displace when wounded so taking them out is pretty satisfying.

Another highly touted feature of Army of Two is the teamwork aspect of the game, but it just wasn’t fleshed out at all. During the game, you will do a variety of tandem moves such as back-to-back, step-jumping, and co-op snipe but the player rarely gets to decide when or how to use them. Back-to-back modes happen automatically, step-jumps are only used to break up levels, and co-op sniping opportunities are blatantly obvious. The only coop moves gamers can really control are the riot shield sections, where one person hold a shield while another shoots, and dragging and healing a wounded partner. Coop online played well with little lag and playing with the AI partner wasn’t as bad as I expected, although I wouldn’t trust it with my digital life on the hardest difficulty.

The level design in Army of Two is decent but kept giving me the nagging feeling the game was pieced together from salvaged parts of an earlier build. All too often you go through really pointless sections, like step- jumping or opening a door into a room just to open another door and trigger a cut-scene or loading screen. Speaking of loading screens, you will see them a lot in this game, even to access menu items. The Aircraft carrier level, which previews showed as an escape from rising water as it sank, was completely neutered. Now you simply scurry along the deck as boxes slide toward you. Other times you ride a hovercraft for all of 30 seconds, indicating there used to be a vehicle section before that. Even the end boss fight is relegated to a cutscene with not so much as a quicktime event.

One thing the game does get right is the weapon customization system. For each objective you accomplish, you earn money that can be spent to upgrade weapon accuracy, damage, stability and appearance. The weapons you buy and upgrade carry over to all single player and coop games you play and carrying around a chrome and gold-plated chaingun is campy and fun. You can also purchase additional facemasks, but the selection is limited to ten. It would have been nice to have a basic editor to make custom masks.

Graphics

The graphics in Army of Two are above average, with typically shiny next-gen graphics. The character models are nice, detailed and animate well. The levels are varied and have some good water effects and lighting effects. There are a few ragdoll glitches, texture pop-ins, clipping and jaggies, but nothing that detracts from the game. I also experienced some occasional slowdown but nothing major. For the most part the art design is good but cheesy at times. Does the chick reading the mission briefs really need a full back tribal tattoo?

Sound

The voice acting is typically pretty good in the game. The main characters interact believably and comically at times. Enemies with bad English accents will taunt you and an entire arsenal of F-bombs will be dropped. The explosions and gunfire are loud and satisfying and the background music drives the action without being overpowering.

Achievements

The Achievements in Army of Two are actually pretty good. There’s a decent mix of performance, completion, scavenger hunt, and multiplayer Achievements. My only gripe is the hardest difficulty is locked at first, forcing you to play through the game at least twice and up to four times if you want to Achievement for getting a million dollars. Kill counts and money earned accumulate over all playthroughs so an Achievement tracker for weapon kills would have been nice. Multiplayer achievements are gained through ranked matches, but fortunately for achievement whores (at the expense of competitive play) you can invite friends as partners and opponents, making boosting effortless.Most Achievements are attainable on the easiest difficulty.

Multiplayer

Multiplayer is two vs. two against opponents and computer controller AI to accomplish objectives spread across a map for money. You can use the money to upgrade weapons or buy shorter respawn times and matches generally last 10 - 20 minutes. You can invite friends to ranked matches so that’s a plus. There’s nothing really wrong with multiplayer, but I doubt this game will have much of a community after two weeks.

The TLDR Summary

Army of Two is a fun, albeit short and flawed game that takes a few cues from Gears of War. The core Aggro mechanic works but the remainder of the promised teamwork elements didn’t quite pan out. Levels feel pieced together with a lot of pointless sections but are varied enough to remain fresh. Even pared down, the game that shipped is still an enjoyable ride worthy of a rental. I will definitely be keeping my eyes on the inevitable sequel.

Overall

3.5 Pimped AKs out of 5

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Stan resides in Shreveport, LA and spends his time writing about vidja games and vidja game accessories.
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