The concept of this game was one that immediately interested me. With the growing market in online and co-operative gameplay coupled with the boom in first person shooters (a movement started by Halo and kept going with Gears of War and more recently Call of Duty 4) there was always going to be a need to scratch that itch. Army of Two does this and while it is something of a throw away title it is not without its charm.

This is of course provided you have a friend to play it with as without this somewhat vital component the game loses much of its appeal. While playing with a computer team mate is still fun, without the human interaction it is harder to ignore the games failings which while not fatal are not insubstantial either.

The game is set in a not too distant future where mercenaries are now more powerful than standing armies. During the game you take control of a pair of aforementioned hired guns who combine throughout the game to rain destruction upon their foes while finding the time to throw the odd high five. A very cool idea.

Things get better still with the options for customisation, completing missions gives you cash which you can use to power your guys up and change their appearance. Everything from their weapons and armour to buying scary masks is possible and it’s a great touch which increases the playability no end. Something that gets better still with a selection of side missions that enable you to earn more cash and get better guns.

There are flaws though, and in addition to minor things like graphics errors there is a sense that there has been no real progression from other titles in the genre and in some senses it doesn’t accomplish things as well as earlier games. For example the cover system is something of a must have in current FPS games and Army of Two fails to achieve this as well as Gears of War yet isn’t as fluid as the system in Call of Duty 4.

But my biggest gripe was the AI, perhaps the biggest improvement in recent FPS games has been the intelligence of computer enemies. Long gone are the days of the Doom ‘slowly walk towards the guy with the gun’ approach. On next-gen consoles enemies dive away from the incoming fire, call for help, use rudimentary tactics, and perhaps most importantly they use cover. This last component seems to have been somewhat if not entirely lost on Army of Two and it’s something of a let down.

Which brings me back to my earlier point, there is nothing whatsoever wrong with finding new and more satisfying ways of killing the enemy provided you are doing it in tandem with a buddy, otherwise it loses some of its satisfaction. Not a major failing in the game but perhaps something they could have done better with.

This was very much the theme of the experience for me, good but could have been better. Another example would be the cool looking automatic weapons that while having all of the grit and satisfactory sound of Gears of War lack any kind of stopping power whatsoever. I’m sorry but if you have a guy tearing from behind cover at you and you unload a full clip it should take him down. On at least one occasion it didn’t. Not good enough really.

One last but fairly important point, while there is nothing wrong with the internet gameplay, Army of Two has lost what may have been its biggest selling point by making the PAL version of the game incompatible with other versions. Be warned gamers, if you have friends across the pond with this game you won’t be able to team up. It’s Europe only on this one, something that would have been less annoying if there had been some kind of warning. Error or deliberate misleading by Electronic Arts? We will never know.

Much like a sibling or that friend everyone seems to have, Army of Two is still good fun despite the fact that it is often disappointing and occasionally downright irritating. The positives shouldn’t be lost amid the negatives and I did enjoy this game but it’s unfortunate that perhaps one extra month in development would have been enough to change this game from an also-ran to a world beater.

Michael Mould