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feature :: army of two

Army of Two

Starks and Cav partner up for a co-op review of the latest tactical shooter from EA. Apparently double the players might not mean double the fun.


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I have to admit, I was looking forward to playing this, and the possibility of it made the concept of Army of Two a pretty good one in theory. There are many theories that are great in concept, but the end result being well wide of the desired mark. Communism is one. Army of Two is another. Let me explain.

Take the game play and mechanics of Gears of War as well as a smidgen of its graphics, throw in the co-op goodness seen in Halo 3, implement an alternate reality storyline with plenty of twists and turns like Splinter Cell, throw in the ability to upgrade your weapons when you achieve objectives ala Rainbow Six Vegas, and play on the minds and perceptions of the world by setting it in war torn Iraq and Afghanistan and you essentially have Army of Two in a nutshell.

Sounds good in concept, hey. In fact, it sounds bloody brilliant when I put it like that. Almost as brilliant as the idea of having a pub at Melbourne airport so that I can get the creative ales flowing as I write this.




Double the players means double the firepower, but still half the fun


And yet Army of Two fails. Not just miserably, but of proportions so epic they haven’t been seen since Paddy O’Brien’s shipbuilding business went the same way as the Titanic when people found out he was responsible for building the ‘unsinkable’ hull.

Harsh? Perhaps. But sometimes the truth hurts.


I was really stoked when the opportunity to play this game coincided with Starks spending the week at my place. Finally, a chance to play a game with someone who I can actually see and not just hear through my Xbox360 Headset!

I actually received the game about a week before Starks got to Victoria and never even put it in my console for a sneak peak. I really wanted this to be a great co-op experience from the word go. So after Starks got back from his first day at Gamerthon we sat down, broke the plastic seal on the game and away we went. The game started with the obligatory 'this is how to play' training ground, which left both Starks and I looking at each other in confusion. Now I would happily call myself a seasoned gamer and not just because I am older than 98% of you, our readers, but I really struggled to grasp the myriad of controls that were presented to me. Before you know it Starks and I were thrown into the thick of things.

'Where are you?' 'Where's the enemy?' 'Do you have control of that?' 'Dude, come over here some we can activate this together' 'I'm down, help me'

Throw in all that with the concept of 'Agro', which causes the enemy to focus on you and not your partner, and everything that Starks has mentioned, and this is one game that needs to slow down a notch so that both players can have the slightest chance of possibly enjoying it. Emphasis on possibly.

In my opinion EA had a great idea and rushed it. Actually I can’t work out which element they focused on more, but it certainly wasn’t the important ones like game play and controls. Excuse me, but EA? If you want to market something as a co-op game, it’s not the players who have to co-operate with each other for it to be a success, it’s the game that must co-operate with the players.


Let me get this off my chest before some gorgeous barmaid does it for me... Or my laptop battery runs out. Whichever happens first, y’know.

The mechanics suck. They act and feel like Gears of War, except worse. The controls are clunky, and feel like they were created by an autistic monkey. The graphics look pretty, but trying to work out what is an enemy, and what is just another grainy texture is both frustrating and disorientating at the same time. The story line of two crass, meathead mercenaries contracted by corporate security is not so much unbelievable as it is boring. I think the term is generic, but it gives generic storylines a bad name so I’m loathe to lump it in there.

The upgrade feature is warped; it costs less to upgrade an element of the gun that enhances your accuracy than it is to buy extra clips of ammo. The reason this is an issue is the ridiculously shallow clips you’re given sees you almost out of ammo in the space of a minute or so. And finally, I really, really think it is both inappropriate and politically incorrect to have enemies running headlong at you, strapped with explosives, and decked out in the traditional Islamic dress. The moron who thought that idea up should be shot.



Yeah, good job, now let's go get a beer and hit on some chicks


The weapon controls are frustrating to say the least. They’re not intuitive, and more often than not encumber the teamwork rather than encourage it. Elements of the game, such as step jumps (Where you use one of your team mates to jump a larger than normal ledge) are frustrating and often time consuming, only to have an enemy standing at the top 3 metres away who starts firing at you as you’re getting to the top. Add the poor camera work to the mix and the level of ‘This shits me’ grows.

The dialogue is probably the only redeeming factor. The voice acting isn’t bad, and the banter is amusing for a little while. However both characters are essentially the same and there is no contrast between them besides the fact that one’s a big, gun toting meathead and the other is a slightly smaller, gun toting meathead.

Frankly, Cav and I got about half way before I cracked it and decided that I had better things to do than play the game, like working out how many decimal points of Pie I could memorise, or try and decide who the least-talented spice girl was.

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