Army Of Two
Honestly speaking, two player co-op games hasn’t been received well by the gamers worldwide, majorly because of two reasons; the first being the complexities involved in “enjoying” theame and secondly, the titles suffering from poor story line. To an extent the latter problem can be overlooked by some, but element of enjoyment has to embedded into the playability in any genera of game. “Army of Two” builds on to where “Gears of War” had left. But this time EA has actually been able to raise the bar to a ifferent level altogether. It is this game which breaks away from the monotone.
The Plot
Army of Two’s story is surprisingly immersing. The story revolves around two soldiers, Elliot Salem and Tyson Rios, and takes place over the course of about 16 years. These two soldiers were in the military and were offered a job in a private military organization called the SSC, which paid double or triple what they were making. They accept the offer and continue doing missions for the SSC until they realize they are in the middle of a conspiracy with the CEO of SSC involved. The journey starts from Somalia and takes you to USS constellation. From China to Miami , “Army of Two” takes you around the globe through various challenging missions. There is a secondary plot of politicians arguing whether or not to pass a bill that would disband government controlled military and make everythingprivatized. The bill looks like it will pass, but then the conspiracy is revealed and it rejected. I really like this aspect of the game, because it is laden with political references that games have really not done before.
The Playability
Playability still leaves a lot to be desired. “Army of Two” game play basically revolves around the aspect of an Aggro Meter. Aggro is basically the attention of the enemies. For example, if your teammate is firing everywhere, he would get all the Aggro causing the enemies to fire at him continuously and making you invisible. This is a very clever idea, till it gets old after a while and begins o feel like a gimmick and may be a result of poor AI. The other vital idea is the use of co-op actions like Back to Back mode where you and your partner are firing at enemies back to back. This mode again els like a huge publicity stunt because you can only use these in scripted areas.The actual shooting is decent but the cover system is irksome.
The Visuals, Sound and Performance
To say the graphic of “Army of Two” are good would be an understatement. The velopers have defiantly worked hard to ovide one of the best looking games out there. Right from the tattoos to the masks,every bit is detailed sma r t l y. Environmental effects are really remarkable and explosions are visually striking.
There are no frame rate hiccups but some faster loading times would have been appreciated. That being said, the cut scenes are drop dead gorgeous looking and the people’s emotions during the cut scenes are very well made. When Alice Murray gives a quick smile, her face looks real.
The actual game play sound in “Army of Two” is very generic. There’s nothing bad about it, just nothing sticks out. One thing that did slightly annoy me was the ct that whenever you clear an area of enemies, a gong sounds like in Gears of War. Also the game has a lot of curse words, here and there, concealing the game under “adult” genre.
The game has been released on both Xbox-360 as well as on PS3 platforms. haven’t seen the PS3 version as of now, but X360 gaming controllers have been well optimised
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Verdict
Although not in the league of epicalgame title like GRAW 2, COD4 and the like; Army of Two impresses us in lot of aspects. I would definitely recommend it for all those FPS fans, who are looking forward to a more intriguing game play. With oodles of creativity the game promises to be different from the stereotypes.
Rating: 7/10
Rahul Devnath
BA (Journalism, Psychology & English)
