Army of 2 Review: Engaging Co-op experience

Pretty graphics, engaging co-op, a ton of guns and not much else.

I, like a lot of people was very excited to play this game. I will admit however that when it was initially supposed to be released last year I definitely had absolutely no intentions of purchasing. But after the extra hype and the hopefully polishing that went on for those extra several months, I was on board.

To sum it up, the game has a co-op experience like no other, very pretty graphics but not much else. I'm just going to cut to the chase and spare you my wonderful writing skills: Shooting in this game is extremely frustrating. Not to mention the behavior of the AI is annoying. That = hard to kill. You will take a ton of hits and go down for the count when you don't really expect to. The melee-ing is terrible. You need to be face to face with the enemy and if you CAN manage to get into that position, you still have a 50/50 chance that his magical computer powered skills won't melee you first.

I've read other reviews that this game contains great production values. I heard all about the battleship sinking while you are on it, and though I am no Call of Duty Fan Boy (by the way, I have disowned the game as of last week in support of R6V2) the first mission of COD4's ship sinking blows Army of Two's ship sinking out of the water (figuratively and literally). Sure it's awesome to see some fighter jets falling past you but it's short and honestly appears to be half done. A TOTAL dissappointment. Other than that there really is no huge action sequence to write home about.

A stiff breeze could knock the bosses down. Yes the "Aggro" system is novel and unique, but you don't really need to use it, and even when my human partner and I tried to utilize it, we were basically punished because it did not work. Also if you WANT to use Aggro you are required to unload all of your ammunition which is not extremely plentiful. Every single boss in the game can only be killed one way: from the back. The boss in the first mission is just as hard as the boss you fight in the 5th mission. There is no curve of difficulty. The same goes for the other enemies in the game.

A lot of the Co-op functions in the game are pretty useless. Co-op snipe is a cool concept but you utilize it 2, maybe 3 times. The back to back feature which sounds awesome cannot even be initiated by the player, the game itself automatically puts you into it, USUALLY at the very beginning of the stage. I will give credit where credit is due, the co-op parachuting is awesome. It is a challenge to snipe while in motion but still awesome. The hovercraft contains the most ridiculous controls I've ever encountered in a game. I highly doubt it is that complicated to operate an actual one.

The game can be blown through in 6 hours on the initially given hardest difficulty. Once beaten you have the option to complete on a harder difficulty, but why you'd want to put yourself through that mindless drivel a second time given the fact that you know exactly what to expect is beyond me.

I myself LOVE LOVE LOVE multiplayer aspects of games. I hold it in higher regards than nthe single player. I hoestly wish I could give you a full review of the multiplayer, but unfortunately after waiting 15 minutes in a room witih my friend we could not get 2 more people to join our match. However we did successfully enter one match and to say it wasn't fun would be an understatement. I enjoyed it yet it was a little ridiculous because along with with the human opponents the map was fully of AI opponents which always happen to come out once I engaged the human opponent. This really leaves the multiplayer match winners to be determined by luck. That does not equal a strong multiplayer component in my eyes.

One strong suit of this game is the selection of guns and the amount you can customize them. This section is awesome. It almost looks as though they spent more time fine tuning this aspect than the actual gameplay and AI choices made while creating. Although it would be fun to unlock all weapons and masks, I don't think I could play the amount required in order to accumulate enough money to purchase them all. But I admit that the weapon selection and customization is the strongest part of the game.

In closing, yes it was a diversion of 6 or so hours from my normal life. But I am currently selling my copy used. It is in immaculate condition: disc, case and instructions, you can find it on amazon in the used section it is selling for 48.99. If you don't believe me you can try for yourself and let me know.
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Source / Author / Credit: Anonymous