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*** This review may contain spoilers ***
*contains some small spoilers*When I read the first article in EGM(Electronic Gaming Monthly)about when this game would come out and what cool new factors it would bring, I was excited. Advanced partner AI that plays like a co-op partner, realistic weapons and upgrades, in-the-heat-of-battle medical healing, a two way revival in which one guy runs from the light while the other performs CPR. Hell, they said your characters would even stop and take a whiz in-game. But sadly, the developers words turns to empty promises. The game starts(after the tutorial) off with two soldiers, Tyson Rios and Salem Elliot, fighting in Somalia for the Army. When a PMC company sees how they are like an Army of Two, they are hired to become mercenaries and get payed to fight. At the start of the game, you can choose between Tyson and Elliot and then you may choose from a vast arsenal of weapons. This got me very excited but generally fell flat after you realize some things. 1. The guns don't feel right. They fire slower than any normal rate of fire and even the mini gun has a cyclic rate of maybe 700RPM at the most. 2. The upgrades aren't always realistic and most of the time, make a cool looking gun look very lame. 3. After you buy 1 gun, you generally stick to that one and upgrade as you go, meaning there is little variety in the single player the first time through. 4. Grenades are useless and if you ever use one once in-game, give yourself a pat on the back because you've done a rare thing.Now off the guns, the game itself has some problems. When I spend $60 on a game, I expect to get my moneys worth out of it. When a game lasts 4 measly hours and is beaten in a day, you feel relatively cheated(and the fact that I don't have LIVE really hurts it.) Anyone who has ever replayed a game knows you always go back to your favorite levels and not the ones that drove you crazy. With only 5 levels to pick from, they may be long levels but if they were split into chunks, maybe the game wouldn't have such little replay value(I guarantee every level has its frustrating moments.)Now, those promises. The game was delayed from a holiday release and many of these features were wiped from the game. What do we get left. Horribly long load times cut down to horribly annoying load times(not long loads, but very many load times) Your AI partner is far from ground breaking Artificial Intelligence. He may gain Aggro when asked(I'll discuss Aggro in a minute) but he dies often and can't be healed in time and when he must heal you, he drags you into the middle of a firefight and kills you(He has to restart healing every time he is hit so do the math) Many two man actions(climbing, co-sniping, hang-gliding) are brief and not used enough to make a lasting effect. Aggro. Probably the most interesting thing in this game. Aggro is gaining enemy attention by firing at them. If you reach max Aggro, you are a(very slow walking) and generally useless tank. If your partner maxes it, you are completely invisible to the enemy and faster(which is much more useful) But put your team mate in it too long, and he'll die. You stay in it too long, you die. The game play and story are two big parts of the game(obviously). The controls are very solid and never really muck up your progress. The story is a typical corruption story with no real surprises. Through out the game, the characters will say some funny lines but repetitive one liners and hammed up dialog sometimes kill the mood. The voice acting is good, but some rather gratuitous swearing gets annoying when used too often. In the end, Army of Two is a solid but flawed shooter that got people so hyped, the actual result was somewhat disappointing. The game is indeed fun and warrants a rent or even a buy, but I feel let down in some areas which is why this review hangs more to the negative side. I give this game a 7/10 because of good graphics, okay voice acting, decent gun play and action, and generally a fun game. Give it a try but don't expect a huge 40 hour game world here.Summary points: Good: Sound, graphics, action, story Bad: Short, little replay value, guns don't feel right Annoying: Clyde, the high and mighty assassin, who spews dumb curses faster than he jumps around. His lines like "Fucko" or how many times he says "You...are f***in' dead" gets annoying. His boss battle should be more satisfying. Such as severing limbs and torturing to death.
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