[RottenFox]

So,the new game Army of Two has been released,and gamers will have had a chance to play,and discover what the full game holds.
So, if you would like to share your opinion on this game,and what you liked/disliked about it,make a vote in the poll.

A 10 should only be given for a landmark game that sets new rules, a 9 for a truly excellent game without a fundamental flaw, and an average game that does things right but nothing special should get a 5 (not a 7 like some reviews would have you believe).

[gillette 73]

STORY:
Two private contractors hired for cash to do missions.You play either Salem or Rios. Working only with each other to complete tasks and side objectives for cash.


OBJECTIVES AND UPGRADES:
You have your main objective that you need to complete to move on in the story. You also have side objectives to complete for more cash. You may miss these so be careful. If you miss them dont worry , you can get them in the re-play.There are also other items to find , so scan about. The more money you have, the better the weapons you can have. You can acess shopping at lots of points during the game. When in the dealer shopping screen you have a list of primary, secondary, special weapons and gear. You can purchase new weapons and upgrade these weapons. Depending on the upgrade these can affect your aggro.


AGGRO:
Aggro bulids up when you have constant fire upon an enemy , drawing their attention away from your partner. As you are glowing red in aggro , your partner will slip into stealth mode.
Some enemies can only be taken certain ways , due to armour etc. You need stealth mode to get these.


BACK TO BACK:
After some cut scenes you assume back to back position with your partner , and go into bullet time speed, to take out masses of enemies.

DRAG AND HEAL:
If your partner is injured he shouts for help and you have to get to him , and drag him into safety a positon in cover, he can fire at approaching enemies while being dragged. When you are in cover you can heal him. Then off you go again.

STEP UP/PULL UP:
Some areas require both partners to move on. One gives the other a step up , and alows them to look before jumping up. If enemies are ther you can take them out before jumping up . Once clear then that partner pulls up the one below.



VEHICLES:
You get to ride certain vehicles , like a hovercraft, parachute etc. One steers and the other gives fire from the back.


SETTING:
Different mission's are in different settings, some mid story video's would have been good to be able to play, like the jungle cut scene, or train scene,and would have lengthened the game play


GRAPHICS:
Superb graphics: Excellent scenery, and character graphics.Character interaction brilliant.


SOUND: Clear crisp sound, but only problem is some sound effects i.e. overhead planes drowns out the story slighty in parts.


GAMEPLAY: Short but very very sweet. Excellent character interaction, with the modes of back to back , aggro and drag and heal.Brilliant comedy moments.Interaction's for fun only too. A great game that makes you work together.Better played with a partner over live. Although ai is good. This game has brilliant re-play value, meaning you can get things missed first time round.


WEAPONS: The weapons in Army of two are great, especially the upgrades, i currently have an ak47 with shotgun attachment. The sniper is accurate and quite steady .


CAMERA:
The camera is a help not a hinderence in this game and allows full view at the correct speed.By pressing the back button , you get a screen highlighting your path , mines on walls, and areas to interact with.


EXTRAS:
Shields, you can use car doors , metal plates lying around as a shield, your partner can crouch behind you and give covering fire. Or you can use the shield alone, you can not fire your gun while holding the shield but can walk upto enemies and knock them out with the right trigger.

CARRYING:
Some missions require one partner to carry a hostage to safety, this slows you down , and your partner has to clear a path for you.

TURRETS:
There are turrets placed in all levels , these need to be took down from the side or behind.Agrro and stealth.

CONCLUSION:
A great game with fun interaction, with a friend over live.
Co-op game 8/10.
Singleplayer game 7/10
live multiplayer is 2 on 2 . I have not yet tried this.

FINAL SCORE - 8/10 worth a buy and try.

[Brutos]

I gave it the same (8/10) and i think gillette 73 sums it up well.

It's a good fun game which is a cross between Conflict Desert Storm and Gears of War, which isn't a bad thing.

[RandomLee]

I pretty much agree with Gillette too although how short and easy the game is does bother me somewhat. I havent completed a game so quickly in a long time. I felt it had some nice ideas and both looked and played really well however it only feels like 1/2 a game... as such, I can only stretch to 7/10.

[Captain Speedy]

It would be interesting to hear the opionions of the person who gave it a 0!

The game is by no means ground breaking or anything but its hardly worthless.

[gillette 73]

Oh well can't all think the same

[Jonesey]

I didn't like this at all.

It reminded me of a poor GRAW and felt very arcadey. Finished the 1st mission in next to no time and couldn't be bothered with the rest.

Gave it a 5, its just average, even with good graphics. 2 years ago and it would have been, wow!

[The Klinker]

I gave it a 7, as Roy Walker would say "It's good, but it's not right"
I like the co-op element, it is much more fun to play with a mate than the partner AI and the graphics are great.The thing I'm not too keen on is the length of the game so far. Just as I really get into a mission it seems to end too quickly...don't like the way the cutscenes play (fade to black then come back again) when you pull a gate of it's hinges etc. they don't seem to make the game feel fluid for me

[1ofaKind]

Well maybe my 0 was a tad harsh perhaps it scrapes a 1 or 2. I will give my thoughts and sum up what my m8 thought.

I bought the game as did my m8 (and he had to travel about as it was out of stock for some reason - our local Game was sold out day 1). We played it for about between 1.5 - 2 hours (before it crashed out by which time I had not got the enthusiasm to play again). It is now back in the box and I will hopefully trade it in to get at least a little of my money back.

The game seems very odd - like it's not finished and also as if it's been programmed by more than one team. Some of the FMV / modelling looks great, other times looks like it's off a PS1 or something. They appear to have slapped a few things in to make out 'it's different' - the help ups on climbing dragging body, back to back. None of which seem to add anything special to the game - they are just "there".

I'd like to know when they started doing this game. Imo to say this is a poor mans (or not so poor at 40-50 quid) Gears is an understatement. Gears is one of the few games I have played through (on co-op) that we then restarted on the top difficulty to get more achievements. Was a great few nights gaming. Whilst being a casual gamer I don't generally give up easily. I can remember on Gears taking 2 or 3 nights just to progress past one spot for example.

The gameplay just seems so half assed. GPS aka spoon fed where to go.
Like the supid bit where you man the machine gun then the level ends even though you see stacks more blokes etc. Just shoddy & poor. AI on the enemies seemed poor.

I guess the only redeeming feature I saw was the fact you could upgrade weapons and stuff.

It seems to me that the game has divided a lot of people. I bought it on the strenght of others saying co-op was good etc (which is what I was after). For me the best times on 360 have been playing stuff like Rainbow 6, Gears, Halo 3 with your m8's on co-op stuff. Always a great laugh/fun. I just didn't get that with Army of 2.

Yeah maybe I should give it longer, maybe my expectations were too high but some games if they pee you off or don't hook you never will. I see Edge gave it 4/10 in this issue which given how hard they generally mark games would make it a 1 or 2 in a lot of mags.

My 4peneth worth (if it's worth that).

[Captain Speedy]

Originally Posted by 1ofaKind

My 4peneth worth (if it's worth that).

I guess its a case of one mans wine is another mans poison. All fine points but they didnt detract from what IMO is a great game.

[defsdoor]

This game is terrible - a completely cynical rip off.

It's as if EA saw Gears of War and quickly threw a bunch of guys in a room to do something similar. Unfortunately they weren't very talented guys.

The AI of the enemies is so bad they invented AGGRO to disguise it as being intentional.

They added "GPS" because the maps are so bad you wouldn't have a clue where to go (GPS is just arrows on the ground showing to where to, where to climb etc..) You shouldn't need to telegraph where to go, where to jump up so blatently - how does "GPS" know to when to climb a wall ?

Then they added to usual EA naffness - high fiving your team mate and head butting him - they wasted two whole buttons on teh pad just for this pointlessness.

I gave it 2 - but to be honest it's not worth that much. First time I've bought a 360 game and felt this way. Usually means the platform has jumped the shark and the release schedule will now be 90% dross.

[defsdoor]

Oh - and I would like to add - every encounter turns into the enemy hiding behind a wall/obstacle and you waiting till they pop up and shooting them. There's no variety on this. It's almost Carnival in 3d.

[JonnyConcrete]

Originally Posted by 1ofaKind

They appear to have slapped a few things in to make out 'it's different' - the help ups on climbing dragging body, back to back. None of which seem to add anything special to the game - they are just "there".

I thought all of these things were differant and all good idas especially the dragging/healing which I hope finds its way into other games. I thought dragging your mate to safety while both of you lay down some fire before starting to heal him was a great idea.

[JonnyConcrete]

One big negative imo though is that you can't change the audio volume levels. So when I'm playing late with headphones and its all kicking off I can't hear what the other guy is saying.

This should be a feature on all games.

[kevlar]

Just finished the 3rd mission and its ok, just ok. Reminds me of playing wack a mole in the arcade.

[Doctor Smirnoff]

Well I fell for the hype... if by hype I mean not being able to get a copy. I honestly think Indy will have an easier time finding those Crystal Skulls than getting his mitts on a copy of AoT!

Having played it through, I'm dissapointed.

Granted, the first couple of levels were ok as a tutorial. But from there it went steadily downhill. It's almost as if the team got genuinely bored and simply gave up trying.

Early elements that were actually pretty cool - including the explosive suicide bombers and the spectacle of the "sinking ship" scene - were soon cast aside for generic "warehouse" and "office block" levels that render 90% of the levels genuinely forgettable. The game apparently took me to locations aplenty - from Somalia to China - and yet I can't recall one distiguishing and memorable feature that seperated one locale from the next.

In terms of gameplay, the immediate comparison that sprang to mind was another EA product, "Batman Begins". Top quality cut-scenes? Check. Above average voice-acting? Check. Mature scenario that could tread new and exciting territory? Check. Dissapointingly linear route through each level (emphasised by neon arrows no less and "press A button here" instructions!) therefore rendering any suggested use of environment or imagination with the tools-at-hand pointless... check.

The customisation is pretty much limited to weapons, unless you count different coloured masks on your character of choice. Even then it's only a select few weapons that can truly be customised. Most simply have the option to "pimp" them out... making them gold. Yep. Gold or grey weapons... that's apparently "customisation".

Replay value? Let's just say that I'm currently using this only to keep the space on the shelf warm for R6V2 this week (can't wait!). Sure, it's ok for popping onto for a bit of 3rd person shoot-em-up action - but I already have John Woo's far superior "Stranglehold". Which reminds me, I must get that back to him.

Anyhow, I'm not going to start on the stoopid AI (characters rolling and shouting a lot apparently suggests clever AI), the 1990's style "boss" characters, the lack of vehicles (on campaign at least) and the almost unacceptably short run time.

So I've given this a 6/10... a good idea which is too restricted in terms of timescale and player freedom to actually work and it obviously ran out of steam early on. The biggest waste of potential since Kane & Lynch.

[mroshaw]

I've got a to agree with most of the posts here - what a dissapointing game.

Reminds me very much of kill.switch on the PS2 but not as good!

I've played it through almost to the end now (in two evenings worth of play - rubbish!) and will persevere to the end, but it's going on eBay after that.

Shame on EA! Bring on GoW2!

[MarkyPancake]

7/10 from me. It can be fun at times, but the aiming lets it down a lot.

Bring on Gears of War 2 and the chainsaw bayonet!

[Teddy Windsor]

It's pretty pants, at least single-player. Some reasonable ideas, but doesn't do anything particularly well. I'm just glad it was a review copy kicking around the office. Back to COD4 for me.

Cheers,

Teddy

[dUnKle]

Average for me

Having seen the review on that show on Bravo I decided to take a punt. Im not really into online gaming (hard enough to find time for single player stuff) but the review made out that the AI was very good and the controls also top notch

Both, imo, where wrong.

The AI is awful with most kills having to be down to yourself. The agro system seemed flawed and the game felt repetative. The only thing I liked was the design of the last level but even then gave up before the end

[mroshaw]

The AI is utterly appalling, I have to say! Almost looks like the 'AGGRO' system was developed to disguise the fact that baddies could only attack one goodie at a time! It's comical when you get your bud to 'take the heat' and then just waltz passed everyone so you can shoot them in the back!

It's such a shame as I can see there is potential in there somewhere. It always amazes me that companies like EA have so much money, so many QA personnel, testers and what not and still churn this sort of thing out. Personally, I take pride in what I deliver at work and I'd be very surprised if most games developers don't feel the same way. I'd have been embarrassed and disappointed to have been partly responsible for making such a mess of such a promising project.

Oh well, I guess there's lots of pressure and deadlines like any other business - would love to be a fly on the wall in the QA meetings on these projects though!

[MarkyPancake]

Imagine what it would have been like without the four month delay!

[1ofaKind]

Well luckily I traded it in today and 9.99 to get Rainbow 6 2. When I was speaking to the guy in Game he asked me what I thought. I told him I thought it was pants and he said he liked it and was nearly at the end of the game. The guy serving me said he thought it was rubbsih aswell.

Seems to be a marmite game - I notice games gave it 7/10 and edge 4/10 so shows the differences.

[mroshaw]

Just finished it. What a crock! Ha ha! Oh well, at least I didn't spend 40 scrotes on it. Oh, crud. I did.

Anyone wanting a similar experience for a fraction of the cost, download MAME (or WinUAE) and grab a copy of the arcade classic CABAL - much the same style of gameplay, but much better

[jason g]

well tbh im sort of 50/50 on this game, i voted 8/10 mainly due to something different to the normal fps genre, lots of nice ideas but far too short and moments that dont quite work right such as for example when i was on the china level at the start i stil had the stinger but i then had a checkpoint and then its the co-op snipe part, but u would think that after the checkpoint i could change my weapon, but alas no.

loved the aggro system which was different but it was only useful really when playing professional level which made the AI move about better.

graphics were ok nothing great but i did like the effect of the water on the aircraft carrier level.

as for the AI of your partner i thought it worked well, those disagree should play gow with dom then they may change their mind.

gps is ok but i only used it really if i got lost.

overall a fun game, not breathtaking but decent enough to warrant a decent score, and its one i always said i would play then trade it in, as it is a good game but once completed it would get very boring.

would have been better if online was better though.

[ineedsky]

Great game but gets repetitive fast and the online is poor so i gave it a 6 as when you take a breeak and come back its good

[James Baker]

Only played the demo and found it sluggish and confusing -

Its a poor mans gears of war - which can be bought for £25 and is better!

Glad the demo came out as I was going to buy this -wont bother now

[Munkey Boy]

Can I ask that people don't vote on the strength of a demo please? They are often not representative of the full game. Thanks.

[DrinksInBars]

very average game - short life without the online.

single player had some good moments - a few frantic firefights and some great dialogue, but the game became repetitive very quickly and the use of only thre standard coop instructions were too simplistic and didnt over much depth of tactic. Also the ai while good in general suffered from some major lapses in judgement.

the helpful pda was a nice twist, but it did make the game slightly easy and very linear.

a rental defo.

[kopchoir]

4 from me was very poor imo ai was none exisitent online couldnt get online poor all around now lets see what this other gow wannabe game darksector is all about