Army of Two firstly is a third person shooter, which means instead of seeing through the eyes of the character you will see from a shoulder view. This is probably my preferred point of view and allows for some very cool and interesting game mechanics. It is possible to make the game appear cinematic and more fluid because you can see more of the actions of your character, their appearance, etc. Army of Two is also very heavy on co-operative play; even in the single player campaign you will always have a partner helping you out. This aspect is similar to your squad in Gears of War. And what they have done with this mechanic is beyond anything that has been done before, which I will discuss later.
However in Army of Two you are not your average soldier fighting the good war, you are mercenaries hired by the government to take out key targets and complete missions, which you get paid for. This is a great basis for a game I think. It allows for the gamer to feel they are fighting a war that has meaning and you are not just going out and killing for no good reason. But also it gives the opportunity for more fun and out of the ordinary methods that would not be seen when playing as a soldier in the army.
The characters of Army of Two are also just brilliant. They are different, interesting and out of the ordinary which is what you want for classic mercenary characters. One is called Tyson Rios and the other is called Elliot Salem. They also have a very unique look, something that is different from any other game. They both wear very customized armor and always seem to be wearing bulletproof masks which just look badass. You can see them in the screenshots. So playing as these characters should be an experience in itself.
The game play of Army of Two also looks to be very promising. It is your classic third person shooter where both cover and accuracy must be utilised in order to succeed. You can focus on taking out enemies through stealth or by full on assault. You can also carry out some cool different moves, such as breaking an enemy’s neck, kick them in the stomach and even head butt the opponent. Another unique action is that you can drag your wounded partner along the ground, while he keeps shooting. This sounds very different in that you can no longer just walk up to a ally and get them back up with a tap of a button, but you have to get them to a safer position beforehand. There is also something called Back to Back mode which is where you will both, shockingly, stand back to back and attempt to make an impenetrable turret like formation to fight off foes which are currently surrounding you. This sounds really cool and fun but it is automatically activated and cannot be used whenever you want. This I have a problem with, because it takes away from the freedom of the game and the sense that you are in control of how you fight.
What really set Army of Two apart from other shooters however is the aggro system. The aggro system is basically that the more attention you create for yourself the more bullets will be flying at you. Now because there are two of you, you have a small semicircle at the top of the screen which will indicate which partner has the greater aggro in the fight. This will likely make for a fun game play mechanic because it allows the player to maybe force the attention of the enemy onto to them by blind firing at the enemy and consistently building aggro. This will allow for your team mate to move around undetected and kill the enemies through stealth.
The Aggro system also takes advantage of a player going to either extreme of the aggro bar. If you have complete aggro you will go into something that is called ‘Overkill’ mode. This is that you will do more damage and have access to special melee attacks. However if you have near to no aggro your character will go transparent, now you aren’t actually transparent it is just indicating that you can now easily carry out stealth manoeuvres.
One of the things I like most about certain games is being able to customize my characters, their weapons and everything else about them, and Army of Two delivers well in this factor. In the campaign you can change the armor of your character, from the look to its actual functionality e.g. light – heavy. You can also customize your guns with a whole range of attachments and improvements. Most guns also have a option to ‘pimp’ them. This will make the gun gold basically and it looks awesome. Now you can’t just apply these customisations straight away. You are mercenaries so obviously you get paid to do your work and this is what you use to do all these cool changes to your character. This will be a great feature of Army of Two I suspect because it will just add another level of control over the game you play
Now in my opinion a game is only as good as its lasting appeal. You either have a very long single player mode like Mass Effect and a lot of replay ability. Or, like most shooters, you have multiplayer. In Army of Two there are 4 different modes: Warzone, Extraction, Bounty and cooperative mode. Now the cooperative mode I assume you will just be playing the campaign with a friend over the internet or split-screen on the same console. Which is will make for a great game, because Army of Two is designed to be cooperative so it should play very well in this sense. Warzone is that targets spawn that you either need to defend and keep alive or aim to kill. Extraction is where you need to extract key allies to a certain location. Bounty is where you will aim to kill enemy targets and leaders. Now I haven’t had a hands-on on Army of Two or anything so I don’t actually know how the multiplayer modes will play out and whether they will be fun or not. But from reading it I doubt it will beat the likes of Call of Duty 4 and Halo 3. But an upside to Army of Two is that I suspect a full character customization system will be in place in the multiplayer as well, which will make it more fun to play.
A really big plus point to Army of Two is that it looks very nice. The graphics are great and suit the style of the game heavily. I don’t think they are best graphics out there but they are defiantly good which is great for gameplay and the overall experience.
Army of Two should be out any day now on PS3 and the Xbox 360 and will most likely be a game I will buy, for the Xbox 360, which means a follow up review once I have played through it. It looks like it could be a great game and a lot of fun. The only issues I have with it are the back to back modes being scripted and that the multiplayer seems somewhat last minute, so the lasting appeal could be minimal. But other then that it looks to be a promising title.
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