Pros: Decent emphasis on cooperative gameplay, weapon upgrade options a nice touch, aggro system nicely utilized
Cons: Campaign mode is short, multiplayer mode poorly developed, graphics are subpar, sounds need improvement
The Bottom Line: Decent cooperative mechanic that fell way short of expectations. Avoid it if you can. But if you must have it, look for it in a bargain bin.
Many recent FPS/Tactical Third Person shooters lately have been ripping their stories from the headlines. Call of Duty 4, for instance, took the stance that a fictional terrorist organization had taken a hold of a weapon of mass destruction and used it in a theatre of a war. The key here was that the strings were pulled by an individual in a civil war torn Russia that is not likely to occur.
Army of Two takes a far less politically correct approach and pits you against some of the sworn enemies of the United States. These include Somali terrorist warlords, Iraqi terrorists (Al Qaeda included), the Abu Sayaff (Filipino terrorists), the Chinese Army, just to name a few. I won't necessarily connect the dots as to why you are taking some of the known enemies on, but will mention that there are hardly any surprises behind the reasoning (which is rather unfortunate). What makes some of the enemies that you face off against really disappointing is that the creators at Electronic Arts games really stereotype the terrorists into Muslim Islamo-fanatics. For instance, suicide bombers running with their hands waving at you before they blow themselves up... is that necessarily a believable scenario that we've heard on the news or heard from some of the soldiers on the frontlines? Hardly.
With that said, another aspect of the storyline may seem troubling to some. The protagonists, Elliot Salem and Tyson Rios (formerly of the US 75th Ranger Regiment), are placed in missions and situations that intentionally put down those who are serving in the armed forced (particularly in the U.S.). Whether you support or are against the missions that the game portrays, the story does tend to glorify private contractors being able to perform missions better than the military. I will say that there is a reason why this is occurring within the story, as some fans of FPS/tactical third person shooters are members of the Armed Forces. However, it does take an appreciable part of the game before it is explained and could seem like Army bashing to some.
With that out of the way, the coop campaign is SHORT, which my partner in crime and I managed to complete in a stunningly short 9 hours. This is hardly uncommon for EA Games, but for crying out loud, this trend needs to stop! What makes this even more atrocious for we, the buyer and gamer, is that the multiplayer game mode is not much better. There are only 3 modes of play (warzones, bounties and extractions) with 4 players in total (2 per side). Now I understand the emphasis of having 2 players on a team, but only 4... FOUR.... players in a multiplayer game over XBOX LIVE. Even more, the three modes of play get really old, really fast and provide little enjoyment when there are only two sides of TWO players. Whoever works there at EA Games are practically geniuses in this day and age of multiplayer games trying to push 32 to now 50 players.
Halo 3 demonstrated that all sorts of graphical power existed in the XBox 360 in September of 2007. Then along came Call of Duty 4 a few short months later and some would argue that Halo 3 was knocked off it's throne. Here we are in March 2008, and Army of Two basically has textures that look like it belongs on the PS2 and/or the original XBox. It is such a disappointment that I thought something was wrong with my HDTV for a moment. There is an atrocious amount of texture pop in, loads of jaggies... which I thought was dealt with quite well in the first gen XBox360 games..., and then there are no reflections of any kind on any objects. You would think I am talking about some sort of last generation game, but it is amazing that I am talking about a game released in 2008.
Another issue that had me shaking my head in utter disappointment is the first moment I fired my automatic weapon in game. It sounded like I was firing a BB gun or paint ball gun. This was hardly the response one would anticipate, especially when coming out of an amazing experience like Call of Duty 4 or Halo 3. Electronic Arts Games does have an amazing sounds department, but it is quite unfortunate that they did not use it in this game. The voice actors were over the top at times, but did do a reasonable job conveying a semblance of emotion when they needed to.
Now my friend and I did not know whether it was intentional or otherwise, as the instruction manual was less thick than Call of Duty 4's, but it was noticed that one character had a slow response in pulling up his weapon (Rios) and the other character had a slow response shooting (Salem). Since the manual does not verify this, and the in game tutorial was hardly helpful in doing the same, I am not going to call it intentional. It has been noticed that the game's controls are sometimes inadequate to meet the in game situations. Where in some cases you could get away with just tapping the right trigger button to shoot, in others you really have to pull on it to get your weapon to fire. The same can be said in responses to slide to cover (or simply determining if you are rolling), as the game really compounds a situation if you really want to slide to cover but registers it as a roll or vice versa.
Shooters have found modernized ways of allowing players to reload ammunitions. In the old DOOM days, it was the packs that had labeled boxes that suggested that you were getting ammo. Fast forward to Halo 3, you had the option of obtaining ammo from walking over a similar weapon or picking up another one that you wanted. Call of Duty 4 took it a small step forward by adding more variety to the weapons available whilst using the Halo 3 ammo mechanic. In this game, we unfortunately take a step back. What you will find are the ammo packs of the old DOOM days on the ground near a fallen enemy's body and you'd better hope (and pray) that the ammo pack has the type (primary, secondary, special or grenade) that you need. Otherwise, you may be screwed, my friend no matter how much of a specific type you obtain. Even more distressing is that you are entirely unable to pick up another weapon for your use from the enemy's corpse (bummer). The reason, you get to buy them off the arms dealer that you deal with. Oh, you'd better complete those objectives that arbitrarily lengthen the game, because some of the lesser upgrades have to be bought first before you can get the cooler ones.
This game presented some novel concepts of cooperative gameplay that had many flaws in execution. Though it has a decent campaign mode, it falls woefully short in many other respects. I cannot and will not recommend this game at the current price ($60, March 2008) to those reading this review , as there are so many better options out there. Some may find it interesting after it hits a bargain bin or as a rental.
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