1PanelReview Army of Two

Since Capcom tried to turn Resident Evil into a co-op "Bro" action game, let's have a look at a proper third person shooter game done right.

What it is: Army of Two

Which is: A Third Person Shooter video game

Created by: EA Montreal/Electronic Arts
Year: 2008

Available on: Xbox 360 & PS3

Army of Two was a third person shooter launched right after the mainstream rise of the genre back after the release of Gears of War. Which saw a boom in these TPS games, with an emphasis on a cover mechanic and two player co-op gameplay.

What's Good about it: Army of Two starts like all your other modern shooters, following a squad of mercs in what appears to be realistic war situations. Only it's not entirely that.
Army of Two doesn't take itself too seriously, it's over-the-top and all done in good fun.
The game doesn't shy from jokes every time and again, and goes way extreme in the end, it's like a big parody/tribute of old 1980s action films.
And your two protagonists Rios and Salem are far from blank generic marines, instead they're like parody of action film stars like Schwarzenegger and Stallone, cracking jokes and high fiving.
The attention system is a great way to have one of the characters draw all the attention to him while the second player sneaks around. It might sound pretty simple and straightforward but it's pretty fun!
The weapons are highly customizable through a very in-details feature. Wanna have the pimpest gun around? Save some in-game money and go for it in-between missions!
Similarly you can obtain new face masks for your characters, and while it doesn't sound like much it's a fun way to personalize your character.
Finally, there's a lot of "bro/buddy" interaction between our two heroes. You can hit a button to high five and air-guitar around! AWESOME!
The levels are pretty huge and different enough each time. It's like going through an entire epic action flick!

What's Bad about it: That final airport-map partially under-water though... Both annoying and repetitive. It looked nice though, but that last level's such a pain in the ***!
I say the characters were fun, but that also means 2-dimensional. I'm pretty sure they'll get on many people's nerves.
Same way I think the whole over-the-top feel might not amuse some people that take videogames way too seriously.
I never tried the online multiplayer mode much, but the multiplayer modes are said to be pretty generic and forgettable.

Overall: It's still one of the best co-op shooters around. Sure the more recent games might look prettier and the Gears series might look grittier, but this one as some fun to it and doesn't take itself too seriously. Plus you can actually see stuff around unlike all those other super-bleak dark "next gen" games.

 

I give it: 2.5 / 3 Quacks!
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