Outside of Final Fantasy XIII, t’s been an EA month of gaming for me these past several weeks. I’ve played through Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Dante’s Inferno, Army of Two: The 40th Day, and now I’m getting into Mass Effect 2. Fresh off my mediocre time with Dante’s Inferno, I decided to plow through Army of Two: The 40th Day since I had a feeling I wouldn’t be holding onto either game much longer. If you remember my review of the first, I thought it was a relatively decent title, as it presented an interesting aggro mechanic but it was far too short. The second one continues the primary mechanics of the first, but also includes some improvements. Are they enough to make the sequel enjoyable and necessary?

The Rundown
Since Army of Two: The 40th Day is the sequel to the first, I’m not going to spend too much time talking about the premise and gameplay that I wrote about in my original review. Check that out if you’re curious about what the Army of Two franchise is all about. Here’s my quick summary of the sequel: “Army of Two: The 40th Day is about two mercenaries in Shanghai that have to clear through baddies while managing an aggro meter between the two.” That’s really all you really need to know to enjoy the game. You don’t even need to have played through the first really. The storyline is throwaway and stupid, but the game is still an enjoyable co-op and single-player shooter.

Improvements Over the First
Army of Two: the 40th Day introduces several improvements over the first. Some of the minor ones include the removal of having to use any vehicles (unlike the first), better and more intuitive weapon customization, a GPS that gives you the path you need to take if you get lost as well as the ability to tag enemies for your partner to be made aware of.

The first of the more notable improvements is how much better the AI is. While Army of Two: The 40th Day is a co-op game and is best enjoyed that way, I played through it solo and still had a good time with the AI. Unlike my frustration with the Resident Evil 5 AI, Army of Two: TFD’s AI is a beast. Sometimes I struggled to get as many kills as it did, so the AI partner more than carries its weight in this game. It’s odd because in most shooter games, I always feel like the AI doesn’t really do anything but just hang out. It’s like their damage is reduced to a minor fraction and you have to get all the kills. Not so in Army of Two: TFD – I was competing with the AI throughout all the levels over who could get more kills. It’s been years since I played the first so I don’t quite remember how to handle the AI then, but it’s quite intuitive in the sequel. The d-pad allows you to control your AI through three commands: the left button tells the AI to stay near you, the up button tells the AI to advance, and the right button tells the AI to hold position. Hitting any direction button again toggles the AI from not raising aggro to raising aggro. Thus, playing with the AI is effective as it’s a killing machine and the level of control you have over it works quite well.

Next up among the notable improvements is the introduction of morality. I remember when cmfl3x and I discussed morality in games, and how some, such as Fable II tried to address it, but ultimately failed. Army of Two: TFD actually does a suprisingly good job about it. Within each of the game’s level’s, a morality choice shows up and depending on the action you pick, you might get a weapon or money and you also view a short storyline of what happens as a result of your choice. What’s pretty interesting is that some of the choices that you think were the “right choice” end up being worse afterwards, so the line between right and wrong is somewhat muddled and it’s neat to see what transpires because of your choice.

Army of Two: TFD also uses civilians perhaps more than any other shooter game I’ve played in recent memory, as it introduces hostages. Throughout several of the game’s levels, you’ll come across times when the baddies are holding people hostage, and you have to take matters into your own hands to free the hostages if you desire. Clean takedowns will result in no one getting killed, while messier ones will involve the terrorists using the hostages as shields or even simply executing them before you can save them. Unlike Modern Warfare 2, you don’t get a game over if the hostages are executed.

Finally, the last major improvement to Army of Two: TFD is its multiplayer. In the original game, the multiplayer was always 2v2 based, and therefore it was very limiting. Even the servers were terrible – I remembered that when you played a in a 2v2 game, if any player left the game, the game would end. Talk about ridiculous. Army of Two: TFD’s multiplayer does a much better job this time around, and has come around to offering similar modes to the better shooters out there. Wisely enough, every adversarial mode in Army of Two: TFD now has up to 10 or 12 players per game. Modes include Co-op Deathmatch, which pits 5 pairs of partners up in a free-for-all deathmatch game, Control, which pits two teams of six against each other trying to hold onto a zone of a map, and Warzone, which has two teams of 4 playing through various gametypes each round such as one side placing a bomb, one side has VIPs that the other side has to kill etc. Army of Two: TFD also introduces a 4-player co-op mode Extraction, which is quite similar to Halo: ODST’s Firefight mode and Gears of War 2′s Horde mode. All in all, the multiplayer options are certainly more varied this time around than the first, but sadly, not many people are playing the game. I was playing on Saturday afternoon this past weekend and the number of gamers playing multiplayer at that time was a little less than 300. While Army of Two: TFD’s multiplayer is better than the first, it doesn’t really have anything that you can’t get better elsewhere.

Problems that Still Persist
There are two major problems I have with Army of Two: The 40th Day. The first problem is that somehow the developers have chosen to implement even more collectibles that you have to worry about in the sequel. Instead of just the briefcases in the first game, in the second one you have to worry about shooting Chinese lucky cat statues, collecting radios, and finding custom weapon parts. What happened to the good old days when you could just play a shooter as a shooter rather than an Easter Egg hunt?

The second issue I have is a lot more severe than the extra collectibles, and perhaps the biggest problem I have with the game. The campaign is 5 hours long. The demo to the game was basically the first chapter of the game, so I was surprised that the game itself was only seven chapters long. Talk about a sizeable demo then! In any case, it’s quite short. This was one of my major complaints of the first game, and it doesn’t look like the developers fixed that aspect of the game. Maybe the developers felt that by including better multiplayer this time around, the campaign could still be short. After all, isn’t that what games like Modern Warfare 2 did? Unfortunately, people buy Modern Warfare 2 for its multiplayer. (It also happens to have an amazing campaign, even it is a bit short.) People are not (and should not) buying Army of Two: TFD for its multiplayer. You buy an Army of Two game because of the interesting aggro mechanic that the game contains in its campaign. I could play any of Army of Two: TFD’s multiplayer modes elsewhere and enjoy them more.

Final Thoughts
Army of Two: The 40th Day is an enjoyable game and brings a few improvements to the series. Unfortunately, it is far too short to be a $60 title. If you and a buddy can pick the game up cheap or rent it, it’s worth it to go through. It’s even enjoyable to go through alone, as the mechanics behind the game are sound and the AI partner is more than agreeable to play with. Just be aware that you may be done with the game in 6 hours. Whereas I wanted my time with Dante’s Inferno to end as I continued to play through it, I was actually disappointed that Army of Two: TFD ended so soon. A doubling of the game’s length would have definitely raised its score for me as it didn’t seem like the game had enough scope and could have been a lot longer.

Final Score: B-

Last Friday I posted about how I felt that EA’s Project $10 initiative is working, and I’m a supporter of it. Hey, I’m all for supporting developers and publishers to make money off their own products and if it came down to it, I wouldn’t mind if the used market disappeared altogether. EA has been coming back into the spotlight in a positive way with gamers these days, while Activision has gone the other way. But there’s one thing that EA is now more guilty of than others at this point that I am annoyed with: DLC for single player games. Read on for my thoughts why.

The Premise
Game publishers have definitely hopped on board the DLC bandwagon these days, as everyone is trying to make a quick buck. The Modern Warfare 2 map pack sold over 2.5 million in its first week, bringing in nearly $40 million for Microsoft and Activision. While I don’t necessarily partake in buying multiplayer DLC, I don’t outright condone it as I do think that new maps can extend the multiplayer enjoyment for games.

What I don’t like is DLC for single player content. A lot of games are doing this nowadays, and it annoys me for several different reasons. Ever read a book or watch a movie and then be told later that there was another chapter that is a part of the book or another 10 minute scene that takes place after the movie? To me, the single player experience for a game is very similar to a book or a film – it’s creative and artistic, and presented in a finite way for it to be enjoyed. Nowadays, game publishers are sticking in some random dungeon here, a hidden island there, or even “missing levels”. When I complete the single player for a game, I like for it to stay completed. Freaking finish the game in the first place or don’t release the “extra DLC” at all! Unfortunately, the game industry is not quite abiding to my wishes. Let’s look at the list of games in EA’s recent history that are guilty of what I am starting to hate.

Dante’s Inferno
I just started playing Dante’s Inferno last night, but I read that one DLC pack has already been released containing another mission and a second DLC pack is on the way. In fact, both of these DLC packs were announced before the game was even released. Come on – couldn’t the two DLC packs for this single player game have simply been released from the get go? Is DLC really the way to prevent people from selling the game? Maybe EA should have considered free DLC – then people would be more inclined to hold onto their games and I wouldn’t have this article to blog about.

Mass Effect 2 (and even the first game)
All was fine and dandy with Mass Effect 2′s DLC until the Kasumi DLC was just released for $7 (although, I’m still annoyed with even the “free missions” that were added to a supposedly complete campaign). Come on – couldn’t this character have already been included in the game to begin with? And people that already beat the game – are they really going to want to go and buy this pack just to pick up another character? They’ve already beaten the game. What’s the point? $7 buys you the ability to play with a new character but you already beat the game. As much as I dislike this Kasumi DLC, it would have actually been better if it was released at the game’s launch, so people could use Kasumi in their initial playthrough of the game. Oh and let’s not forget Mass Effect 1′s pair of silly and stupid DLC.

Army of Two: The 40th Day
The first Army of Two game had a very short campaign, and I’m pretty sure that the second one did as well. So it irks me a great deal to hear about a $10 DLC pack for this recent sequel that contains two new missions. What the heck? Sounds like the developers couldn’t finish the game on time, so they decided to just charge us for their poor planning afterward. Thanks guys. As if your first game wasn’t short enough in the first place.

Dragon Age: Origins
I played through the original Dragon Age: Origins game earlier this year and had a great time with it. It was a lengthy game, but there’s already been enough DLC (two packs and an expansion) that when combined, equal about the cost of the game itself. The DLC packs and the expansion have all gotten bad reviews, and rightly so. For a game that’s epic and already 50 hours long, to be charged $5-$7 for another mini dungeon or $40 for an 20 hour epilogue that doesn’t even really continue the main campaign’s storyline is just a slap in the face to fans. Why not just make the sequel instead of all these minor extensions to an already great and complete game?

What About Non-EA Games?
It’s easy to hate on recent EA games doing this, but to be fair, EA is not the only company partaking in selling DLC for single player games. However, major titles that come to my mind that do have single player DLC are actually a lot more thorough and not necessarily as bad. I’ve yet to play all of the DLC for Fallout 3, but one of them raises your character’s level cap from 20 to 30, which is actually very significant and I can see it contributing a lot to the single player game. Bethesda Softworks’ other 360 game, Oblivion, had all sorts of extra DLC that was totally not worth it – except for Shivering Isles. That DLC was a lengthy and engrossing adventure, and I did enjoy it. Then there’s also games like Grand Theft Auto IV and Resident Evil 5 that have their own DLC, but these DLC packs are completely different campaigns than the main one and I can’t quite hate on those since they were truly developed afterward and did something different. Assassin’s Creed II got a bit of hate with its DLC missions, as they were missing from the original release and Ubisoft was up-front admitting that they could not fit them in before the game shipped. While that was potentially more of a good reason to hate the DLC, I found it refreshing that they were honest and I also agreed with their statement that Assassin’s Creed II already had tremendous value due to its lengthy campaign so I was more willing to forgive them for putting it out there. And finally, I’ve saved the best for last: Final Fantasy XIII. When asked if there would be any Final Fantasy XIII DLC, the producer and director of the game claimed that the final product was already 100% complete. Thank you guys – it’s good to know that some game developers out there still believe in shipping a complete single player product these days.

The Messy Line Between EA’s Two Initiatives
So while we are now all aware of EA’s Project $10 strategy, not all of us were aware of EA’s second “more secretive” initiative: Project DLC Everything. I can see the reasoning behind going with both initiatives: EA of course wants to make more money (or in a sense, reduce the amount of earnable money lost through used sales). In order to do this, it’s in EA’s best interest to have gamers hold onto the games they bought new. Project $10 is a step in the right direction to getting gamers to buying EA games new, but Project DLC Everything is not the right way to keep gamers from selling their single player games. Unlike other major publishers’ DLC, EA seems to be doing whatever they can to nickle and dime us with short DLC that could have easily been included in the game’s release. Is someone really not going to sell Mass Effect 2 now because a $7 DLC pack with an extra character gets released a month after the game comes out? Come on. Compare EA’s DLC to something like GTA4′s The Lost and the Damned and we can see the right way to do DLC and the wrong way. EA should have instead made the second initiative: Project Free DLC. That would have kept more of us inclined to hold onto our games. Of course, I personally would prefer for single player games to just be 100% complete from the get-go, but I can’t fault a game company for wanting to make more money – unless it disrespects its supporters like EA has been.

Amazon’s gaming deal of the day is Fallout 3 – unfortunately, only the PS3 version is on sale. If you haven’t played the game that cmfl3x and I both rate as our game of the year for 2008, you don’t know what you’re missing. Pick it up…now!

Also consider these two recent price drops on EA PS3 games as well:
Mercenaries 2 $19.99 (360 version is still $29.99) [Amazon.com]
Battlefield: Bad Company $19.99 (360 version is still $29.99) [Amazon.com]
Army of Two $19.99 (360 version is also $19.99) [Amazon.com]

Fallout 3 PS3 $34.98 [Amazon.com]

Army of Two, the first shooter to incorporate the concept of aggro

My brother got me this game for my birthday last month, and another friend got it too  so I’ve been playing it here and there this past week. It’s a short game as I’ve already gone through it once, so I figured I might as well write up a review for it since I’ve experienced enough of the game to give an opinion on it. For the curious, here is my quick summary:

Good:
- Co-op play revolving around the management of aggro
- Interesting multiplayer different from typical FPS games
- Plethora of guns and gun customization

Bad:
- Unnecessary co-op gimmicks that don’t add much value
- Short 5 hour campaign
- Poor online infrastructure and 2v2 max multiplayer

Intro
Army of Two was developed by EA Montreal, most famous for NHL 07, SSX Blur, and Boogie. While Boogie was somewhat of a dud, NHL 07 and SSX Blur were relatively successful games for this new addition to the EA company. To go from sport games and a dancing game to a pretty ambitious shooter can be tough.

When Army of Two footage was first seen at E3 in 2006, it generated a lot of good press because it looked like a game that was built from the ground up with co-op in mind. Most shooters that add in co-op modes simply allow a second character to be populated in the game with no real use besides firepower. In Army of Two, the game demonstrated that co-op was vital to the success of the players, whether it was watching each other’s back, lifting each other up, sniping two targets at once, etc.

As the game came closer to release in November of 2007, preliminary reviews gave the game scores in the 70s. Apparently it didn’t live up to the hype that was generated from E3. EA decided to push the game back to March of 2008 to give the game a little more polish. (Either that, or they didn’t want to send the game out to die against Call of Duty 4 for Christmas.) It didn’t really help much, as the game’s new release in March of 2008 went on to get mixed reviews, ending up at a 73.9% average score on Gamerankings.com.

Like many FPS games these days, you are forced to drive a vehicle. In Army of Two, one drives a hovercraft while the other one mans the turret. Note the aggro meter at the top of the screen.

Storyline and Premise
Army of Two puts you in the role of either Rios or Salem, two private contractors hired by the US military to take on jobs that the US government doesn’t want to involve itself in. The game takes place across six missions around the world the pair undertakes from Somalia in 1993 to China in 2009. Each mission lasts about an hour on regular difficulty.

As private contractors, Rios and Salem are most concerned with making money. Each objective presented to the two during missions has a certain monetary value associated with it and completing the objective nets the pair the cash amount. Rios and Salem are then able to buy new guns and equipment or customize their weapons with the money earned from the missions.

The game is always played with the use of Rios and Salem – the player is given the choice at the start of the game whether he wants to control Rios or Salem and the computer takes on the other character. Of course, co-op play through either split screen or Live allows two players to play through the campaign as well.

Besides the glaring flaw of a huge window hole in the middle of the “door shield”, the concept of the shield works well in this game.

Gameplay Mechanics
To make it easiest to understand, the game plays like Gears of War but with the addition of aggro. Like Gears of War, Army of Two is a 3rd person shooter where the player controlled character is accompanied by a partner that is controlled by either a human or AI. Also similar to Gears of War is the concept of helping your downed partner up should he take too much damage.

The concept of aggro is what makes Army of Two different from the current shooters out there. Aggro has generally been utilized in MMORPG games for many years now, where a party of 5-40 players attacking a dragon or such must maintain their aggro in such a way that the main warrior with the best defense (called “the tank”) takes all of the dragon’s attacks. Party members that deal damage have to deal it in such a way that it’s not too much, pulling the dragon’s attention away from the tank. Likewise, the tank has to attack the dragon with “high threat” moves to continuously generate aggro to hold the dragon’s attention.

Aggro has been utilized in Army of Two in the same way as in MMORPGs, but unlike the craziness that comes with managing aggro for 40 people, it is conveniently contained to only two players. In the top middle area of the screen is a gauge – the left side is Rios and the right side is Salem. If one of the two guys begins shooting like crazy, the meter will continue to move onto his side, attracting the attention of all enemies in the area. At the same time, the enemies “forget” about the other player, allowing this player to move around easily and dispatch enemies without attracting attention. The developers made sure that the management of aggro was clearly embraced by the player, as there are certain enemies in the game that can only be killed from behind.

The addition of aggro to the game works. It feels natural and it even makes me wonder if playing future co-op shooters that don’t utilize aggro will feel archaic. Playing with a second human partner is a breeze, as communication is easy (“I’ll generate the aggro – you circle around back and kill the guy.”) but with an AI partner it’s a little more difficult. It’s often easier to have the AI generate the aggro and you do the sneaking around, simply because the AI cannot be trusted (especially on harder difficulties) to complete what you want him to do without getting killed himself.

An extension of the Aggro meter is the use of the Overkill mode. If one player gets all of the aggro and fills the meter on his side completely, he and the other player can enter Overkill mode for 15 seconds. Overkill mode allows the player with all of the aggro to not have to reload and do extra damage to enemies. The non-aggro partner becomes invisible and can move around quicker to dispatch enemies without being detected.

EA Montreal also adds in some more “co-op” related action items in the game. Most of them are quite unnecessary and seem tacked on, such as Back to Back and Co-op Snipe. The idea of going Back to Back with your partner to cover each other while taking on dozens of enemies at the same time sounds cool in concept, but it isn’t handled too well in the game. First of all, it’s a scripted event throughout the game, meaning you can’t just “enter this mode” whenever you want but are forced to at certain parts in the game. Secondly, it seems strange that when you enter the mode you don’t need to ever reload and you take less damage. Co-op Snipe is also pretty silly – this mode allows both you and your partner to snipe two targets or the same target at once. However, there’s almost no time in the game where this is necessary or appropriate. Being told to co-op snipe a gas tank seems silly when you can just snipe it two times yourself.

There are a couple co-op related tasks that I thought worked well in the game: step jump and the riot shield. Step jumping allows one player to boost the player up onto a higher area that he wouldn’t be able to reach by himself. Once the player that has been boosted climbs up, he can reach down and pull the other player up. Not completely necessary but it makes sense in the context that it is used. The riot shield is also fun – you can pull the door off a car to use as a shield. When you do this, your partner can come behind you and fire while you hold the shield up and advance. Basically, you’re providing cover for you and your partner while advancing to the enemy.

As you earn money from completing objectives in missions, you can buy new weapons and/or upgrades to your existing weapons. While the differences between different assault rifles and handguns don’t feel as pronounced as they would be in Call of Duty 4, there’s plenty of weapons and upgrades to buy. Upgrading weapons allow them to be more accurate, do more damage, or even generate more aggro. While it’s fun to max out each weapon, it’s disappointing that your warchest of weapons you own in the campaign are not transferred over to the multiplayer.

Hitting the shoot button while in range of an enemy will allow you to melee kill him.

Multiplayer
For multiplayer in Army of Two, EA Montreal decided to create it a little differently than the typical shooter. There’s no deathmatch, CTF, etc. Rather, there are three modes that are all quite similar and revolve around objectives. Basically, because Army of Two’s storyline is based on private contractors trying to earn money from completing objectives, the developers designed the multiplayer the same way. Each of the modes revolves around two teams of two competing to complete random objectives that spawn on the map for cash. The team that earns the most money in the time allocated for the round (usually 10 minutes) wins. It’s entirely possible that the two teams never run into each other throughout the match, but unlikely since they will generally compete for the same major objectives. Examples of major objectives include a wounded soldier spawning randomly on the map with both teams trying to carry the soldier to the extraction point, securing a weapon in a building, taking down a helicopter, etc.

There are actually respawning enemy mobs on the map who will attack the players if either team triggers their attention. The teams can kill each other, causing each player to take 30 seconds before respawning unless they are resurrected by their partner. It’s interesting in that the multiplayer is a competition to complete objectives instead of simply killing, but each team can obviously fire upon the other team. What’s most disappointing is that it’s capped at 2 on 2. It would have been neat if you could go 4v4 or 6v6 with multiple objectives all occurring at once, as opposed to two teams battling each other over one objective spawning at a time.

There are no persistent stats from game to game except for the amount of money you earned from each game, whether you win or lose. The online Leaderboards for the game revolve simply around how much money you’ve earned from playing online. The problem is, the money has no purpose except to act as a “high score”. In the actual matches, you can use the money that you earn to buy weapons, otherwise you’ll all start with the default ones. Army of Two’s multiplayer doesn’t have any longevity hooks like Call of Duty 4′s leveling up or Halo 3′s stat tracking.

What was most annoying was the online infrastructure through the EA servers. It was a sheer exercise in frustration, taking me almost 20 minutes before I was able to actually even play in a game. With 4 players max per game one would think it’d be quick, but EA’s half matchmaking half server setup makes things quite difficult. There’s two options to choose from when playing multiplayer: Custom Game and Quick Play. Choosing Quick Play should ideally throw you right into a match with whatever settings are available: any Custom Game that has 3/4 players should automatically fill that last spot with a Quick Play player. Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen. I waited for several minutes each time I tried out Quick Play and it never connected me to any games.

Next I tried Custom Game. Custom Game is a little more thought out in that it allows you to actually invite up to three other players to join your game should you wish to play online together. If you only have 1 other player, the two of you will automatically be a team as you host/join a game together. This is all well and good but the actual matchmaking needs its algorithm checked.

Basically, if you pick one of the three game modes and one of the four maps to play (for a total of 12 different combinations), it checks to see if there is already a room hosted for that combination. If it finds one, you join it, but if there isn’t one, you create the room. Seems fine so far, but the fact that you can’t see what rooms are out there makes it very difficult to actually get a full room of four players. What’s most annoying is that you can actually pick mode “Any” and/or map “Any” and instead of dropping you in any room that needs one or two more players, it starts its own room where the conditions for joining the game can only be joined if the opponents pick “Any” as their level and/or game mode type.

It’s stupid that the developers coded “Any” to be its own search criteria as opposed to actually incorporating all maps and modes so you join the most full game so you can get started. And it’s equally annoying that if any of the four players leaves the game in the middle of the match, the game quits. When the 10 minute round is over, there’s no lobby or anything to return to either – you’re just back at the main menu. Talk about frustrating!

Back to Back sounds cool in concept, but it only occurring during scripted events making it feel quite unnecessary.

Achievement System
Achievements for the game are pretty fair, with most of them being earnable through the campaign. Most of them are pretty unimaginative, such as killing 250 enemies with shotguns, 250 enemies with assault rifles, 250 with pistols, etc. There are also Achievements for beating the game on the hardest difficulty, and amassing $1,000,000 in the campaign. This pretty much amounts to about 3 or so playthroughs, perfect for playing through the game on each of the three difficulty settings.

There are only 130 Achievement points allocated towards multiplayer, with all but one of the five online Achievements being pretty reasonable. The one annoying one is amassing $1 billion dollars through online play. On average, it seems like one can earn about $1 million if lucky in one game, meaning you would have to play about 1000 games to get this Achievement. Just ridiculous but I guess it’s not too surprising coming from EA. They had a similar Achievement for Command & Conquer 3: “Play Multiplayer for 100 hours”. Yeah I’ll do that…

Hitting A near your partner will allow you to emote some type of cheer.

Final Thoughts
I already went into this game with low expectations so I wasn’t really too disappointed. It’s best described as a poor man’s Gears of War, or really, the closest thing a PS3 owner can get to playing Gears of War on the PS3. The graphics and sound aren’t bad, nor is the actual campaign and gameplay itself. The problem is that its extremely short length and limited multiplayer make the game a rental at best.

I give the game a C+. I actually scored it a little higher than Rainbow Six: Vegas 2, because although the campaigns are both similarly short and Rainbow Six: Vegas 2′s multiplayer is more fleshed out, Army of Two has innovation backing it up. Vegas 2′s low score is attributed to the fact that Vegas 1 is better and should be played instead of 2. There is no real replacement to Army of Two’s combination of being a two player co-op friendly, 3rd person shooter with aggro. It is actually the best game out there in terms of making you feel like you really need to work with your partner to get through the game as opposed to just both going in guns blazing. Unfortunately, it’s just too short.

If Army of Two had a campaign that was twice as long (the game ends abruptly in such a way that you know they’re already working on a sequel), better online options and customization features, it could have possibly jumped to a B+ in my book. It’s a good start, but I expect the sequel, Army of Two 2, or Army of Four (sorry, couldn’t resist), to have learned from the mistakes made in this first iteration.