Army of Two

Posted June 8, 2012 by Speed - 0 comments

The world of gaming is, just like the real world, prone to trends and hypes. Not so long ago, a new trend evolved amongst game developers and that was co-op gameplay. The list of games with added co-op mode is getting longer by the day. Can this Army of Two, wich is entirely based upon cooperation with your teammate, differentiate itself from the rest?

Well, there are actually two answers to that question. It all depends if you’re playing with a teammate out of flesh and blood or if you’re tring to get along with a computerised version of that friend. In the first case this game is really enjoyable but the singleplayer does have some issues. One of these is that a lack of ammo will almost force you to let your teammate lay down suppressive fire while you sneak around the enemy and shoot them in the back.

The devs came up with an entirely new game mechanic that makes all this possible. It’s called Aggro and it’s the core of the entire game. If you play aggressively and fire a lot of bullets towards your enemies, the Aggro-meter will start to lean over to your side and the enemies will start focusing on you. However, due to the previously mentioned lack of bullets you’ll have to delegate this task to your teammate and use the enemies lack of attention for you to get around them wich gets a bit tedious near the end of the game. There is a special move which can be activated when one player holds the Aggro for a certain amount of time. This move will double the firepower of the person holding the Aggro and will double the speed of the teammate.

This move is, however, not the only two player-minded action in the game. You’ll have to help each other over high walls or kill half an army while standing back to back. If your companion is hit, you’ll have to drag him to safety and heal his wounds. Although these are original elements for a shooter, they aren’t enough to keep you truly excited throughout the entire game. The storyline is equally pale and full of stereotypes so it doesn’t add spice to the mix.

Something that will get you interested are the graphics. At certain moments these are so gorgeous that you seem to forget you’re in a virtual reality filled with scumbags who are trying to kill you. The sound is very good as well, especially the voice acting. You’ll have to endure some cheesy one-liners but they’re kinda obligatory in this setting.

Luckily all these problems melt like snow in the sun once you participate in a little online adventure. You can really feel that this is the whole reason of existance for this game. You can choose between two versus two fighting, where teamplay is of the utmost importance, and the online co-op in which you’ll go through the storyline with a friend. A nice bonus is that you can use the weapons you bought in the singleplayer online as well. This created a link between two worlds that are usually very much disconnected.

To cut things short, Army of Two is a decent shooter if you’re not alone. Have you been searching for a true co-op experience, then this is just the game for you! Gamers that really like singleplayer campaigns, however, will not go wild while playing this.

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