Army of Two…… Xbox 360 Co-op at it’s Best!
When I first started playing this game it felt like other single player campaigns with AI buddies helping you out, but about 1/3 of the way through the Missions I got a good feel for the Aggro Meter and began using my Partner and his abilities to great advantage. Like other squad based games such as G.R.A.W. and Rainbow Six you can order your teammates to hold, advance and regroup just as Army of Two, but this game takes it to one more level. You can issue regroup, hold and advance commands each in two ways. Every command has a defensive and offensive Posture.
When you instruct your teammate to Hold in a defensive posture, he will protect himself (defense) and when you tell him to Hold in an agressive (offensive) Posture he will start spraying the enemy with fire, he will pin them down and draw their attention, once his Aggro meter spikes, you become virtually invisible, because all their attention is on him. This allows you to Flank their position and smash them from the side or from behind. When you get used to using it the game becomes very cool.
Graphics and gameplay take a little getting use to for the First Person Shooter Crowd. This entire game is in Third Person like a Gears of War or G.R.A.W. Since we have mentioned Gears of War here I cannot help but parallel Army of Two and Gears of War. The way the World is displayed in Army is very reminiscent of Gears, albeit, this game takes place on Earth is a current time frame. You take cover and vault over cover the exact same way Gears of War worked, heck it even uses the SAME sound effects when you kill all the enemies in an area, and gunplay feels exactly the same. Although this game's graphics look a lot like Gears, the story and characters make it distinctly Army of Two.
Gameplay is good but they could have added a few more options to the characters abilities, like being able to RUN or JUMP. Call me crazy but these two abilities are staples in Today's games, period! Thankfully, your character is always in a brisk walk almost run speed so the game isn't too slow. Second, the gun aim takes a few missions to actually get used to. Your character is in Third person all the time but when close to cover you cannot seem to swing your firing arc around fast enough to hit a bad guy that is rushing around the cover that you are behind. When this happens you are almost required to pull back from cover and move away from the attacker in order to put enough room between him and you so you can track him with your gun. You get used to this pretty fast. The only real complaint that I have about the game is the Melee Attack. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, and when it doesn't you usually get Smashed by the guy you just tried to melee and end up needing a Medic (Thank you Sheik-This guy got his Medic achievement after playing with me for about an hour!). The melee really needs help, and on the same melee front you can attack your foe with a car door or a riot shield. One smash from the riot shield or door and the enemy is dead but this also has the same issue as the regular melee attack, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. The only real problem is that there are achievements for melee and riot shield kills so you waste time going for these when you could easily have shot the guy, and 50% of the time your character never does the melee move while you smash the Right Trigger.
Overall I like this game and once the learning curve is completed it is very fluid and worth your time to play. Gameplay is fast and also requires the use of your teammate and smart commands to infiltrate around or behind enemies then crack them in the back of the head with a shotty or a LMG.
Arnett Out!
