Army of Two

By Tom Bramwell Published 25 July, 2007

We spend time in Two's company.

According to Dustin Hoffman, Lawrence Olivier once explained his desire to act thus: "Look at me. Look at me. Look at me." That might not have much to do with Army of Two, but it does get you out of having to read a tampon joke, so there's no point whinging. Tampons are part of Army of Two's health system. Getting people to look at you is part of killing them all so very violently.

"Look at me" is also roughly what whichever of the game's twin protagonists you're controlling would be roaring while trying to accumulate "Aggro" - were he not actually shouting **** and **** and **** and lots of other unprintably brilliant four-letter words that you'll have no trouble guessing. Aggro, as with MMOs, is the concept of drawing the attention of your enemies so that other people can take advantage. In Army of Two, EA's co-operative third-person shooter, you have an "Aggrometer", with a needle that drifts toward whichever of you is seizing the higher profile. When it's spun the whole way to you, you can activate "Overkill" - a 10-to-15-second burst of double damage and unlimited ammo, which leaves your companion free to either stride up to slowed-down enemies and boot them into ragdoll spasms of flying death, or shoot them with a pistol and watch their head jerk as the bullet impacts on the skull.

'Army of Two' Screenshot 1

Like Gears, you can take cover behind a generous arrangement of concrete blocks, although in practice we spent more time running around blasting.

It's not a very friendly game, Army of Two - but, for fans of Gears of War's relentless brutality, it's definitely one to smack on the watching list ahead of its 15th November release date.

Aggro and Overkill are the thin end of Army of Two's co-op wedge. The game's been designed from the ground up to support a pair of players, and not just in the sense of putting two health packs on the floor. The combat - as violent and almost as graphically sumptuous as Gears, but with less of the emphasis on cover-points and more on enemy-count - relies on a number of tandem action elements to proceed. You can go back-to-back with your fellow shooter to make sure you're covering every angle, or rip the door off a car and use it as a riot-shield while your friend walks along behind you firing over the top - effectively turning you into a sort of armoured car.

'Army of Two' Screenshot 2

Melee moves are brutal and rather amusing. We particularly like the headbutt.

As employees of one of those fashionable Private Military Companies (PMCs) busily kicking and hoo-ahing their way through Iraq at the moment, levels take you to places like Somalia and Afghanistan. A GPS toggle turns the screen blue and wraps the buildings in white outlines, projecting a sequence of arrows onto the floor to help guide you between objectives, and this also helps you spot booby-traps and other helpful elements. Everywhere the emphasis on co-op is apparent. In the Somalian level we're shown, a simultaneous sniper-round blast on a fuel tank at the far end of a market - an action called "co-op snipe" - blows a pair of adjacent gun-turrets to smithereens and reduces the battle to what's happening on the ground. As you parachute into the Afghan caves level, one player directs the chute and the other fires at the ground; holding steady allows for sniping RPG positions, or tackling a chopper that's abandoning the caves as you arrive.

Destroying the chopper by firing on its rear rotor is merely a bonus objective - a way of earning a bit of extra cash - and from that you can infer that Army of Two's pretty relentlessly frantic - and that you get to spend a bit of pocket-money between levels. The latter feeds into the customisation system. You'll be able to buy new equipment to shield yourself, as well as new face-masks to replace the Michael Myers defaults, while weapons can be customised to countless layers of depth.

Initially we're shown the game being played single-player, with an AI counterpart controlling your wingman. He runs into a trip-mine at one point, but on a subsequent mission he remembers the experience and avoids it.

Enemy AI's pretty robust too, although if you learn to focus on enemy commanders you can leave the grunts in disarray. Really though the game's about playing with a friend, and to this end there's support for drop-in and drop-out gameplay over PlayStation Network and Xbox Live, as well as locally. You really start to feel the importance of working together quickly, and not just out of necessity, as was often the case in Gears, but out of desire. It's fun. Covering one another is barely the half of it - if you're up against an enemy entrenched on a raised platform, one of you can give the other a boost up to toss a grenade into their midst or blindfire over the edge. The same move can be used to clamber up to their level, dispatch them, and then pull your friend up to join you. There's a lot of using Aggro to flank, and it diverts you both from the traditional circle-strafing tactics of hardened shooters.

'Army of Two' Screenshot 3

They do say 'bro' to one another a fair bit and have back-slapping co-op celebrations. But we'll pretend they don't.

The most eye-catchingly collaborative moments, though, come when a player goes down. Although there's a Halo-esque health system of recovering away from the flow of bullets, if you take too much damage and fall down you're still not necessarily out. Your comrade can come rushing over and activate a healing mini-game where - and they swear blind that this is all thanks to a PMC freelancing as an advisor on the game's development - the idea is to stuff tampons into the wound. You do this by button-matching as a pair, with every matched sequence delivering more blood-soaking lady-product into the squishy hole. It really is a bit disgusting, although thankfully none too graphic. Slightly more amusing is what happens if you lose all your health a second time, with a mini-game that involves one player's button-matching CPR while the other - in a little cut-away window in the top left - literally runs away from the light. In either of these phases of near-death, your friend has three minutes to reach you, and can re-attempt healing if he stuffs it up. If either of you goes down three times though, you're out.

One of the things you can do to ensure you heal, of course, is let the other guy take the heat. If you're under so much pressure that you're in danger of expiring before the balance shifts, you can also feign death, which shifts all the Aggro to him. Sometimes though, you're going to fall, and you're going to do it in a position that's tricky for him to reach. Good thing, then, that he can simply drag you out of the way, while you're lying on the ground firing at the enemy and he's spraying bullets over your head. Basically, if they've seen it in an action film, EA Montreal appears to have co-opted it for co-op duty.

'Army of Two' Screenshot 4

There are all sorts of ways to heal your duo, including dragging one another to safety. While firing, obviously. Shooty shoot shoot.

Whether it all works is down to the quality of the levels and set-piece battles that EA's preparing, we suspect, and it's hard to gauge how well it all works from just a few minutes with the pad, but with co-op undeniably enjoyable in virtually every shooter it's in, and broadband penetration in a genuinely sweet spot for the first time since consoles noticed the internet, EA's timing is certainly right, and Army of Two looks like the first decent stab at the inevitable next step. With a simultaneous US and European launch planned, EA's clearly realised the need for a big launch-day audience to give life to its best features, too, and with not long to go, you can expect the Army of Two promotional march to continue apace. Check back soon for an interview with lead designer Chris Ferriera, who'll be able to give us a better idea of how the rest of the game's taking shape.

Picture of Tom.

About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (53) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Scimarad #1 5 years ago

    Yep, this definitely sounds like a 360 game alright.

  • sn3jk #2 5 years ago

    cant be released soon enough!

  • MightyMouse #3 5 years ago

    Actually sounds not too bad, despite the machismo.

  • Psychotext #4 5 years ago

    Every time I've seen a video of this the graphics look horrible... but the screenshots in the article look good. Are they bullshots?

  • Antwandemarco #5 5 years ago

    Hmm even though the design and feel of the game looks generic EA all the way up the arse. I'm a massive co-op fan so if it's halfway decent i'll purchase :p

  • captainrentboy #6 5 years ago

    If it gets a 7 or more in the most of its reviews then it's a definite purchase for moi. Although the tampon malarky is quite mental :/

  • Talha #7 5 years ago

    The idea is great, and looks good, to boot. Very un-EA, in fact.

  • Charroux #8 5 years ago

    Finally!
    A game even *more* homoerotic than Gears of War.

  • Vandrius #9 5 years ago

    But still nothing on 300.

    :-)

  • bioreit #10 5 years ago

    Tampons FTW!

    But are they ever called 'jam-rags', is what I want to know?

  • espy #11 5 years ago

    Yay, more macho violence.

    /yawn

  • Eighthours #12 5 years ago

    The minigames sound hilarious! :)

  • EmiliasHorse #13 5 years ago

    Hmmm I am struggling to get excited about this. I honestly want to be excited.

    Maybe a coffee will perk me up.

  • ccfb #14 5 years ago

    Hmm. A list of features. A less than gushing sum-up at the end (a la Darkness).
    I don't think they were that impressed. 7/10.

  • Machiavel #15 5 years ago

    I assume if there's a rival co-op mode you would substituting tampons for an unblemished, pink cock...

  • Wash #16 5 years ago

    Looks fun, pretentious snarky comments from the gaming elite aside.

    I'm guessing you all skipped things like 300, die hard 4 for there machoism (sp).

    Besides for every 1 of these games, theres a cooking game, of a woMAN from japan prancing around acting EMO as he tries to save the world with some magical enemy that gives him the power to cast magic emo beams....

    All in all i think the balance is aboot right (however uneven its spread across respective platforms).

  • zuljin #17 5 years ago

    "All in all i think the balance is aboot right (however uneven its spread across respective platforms)."

    Canadian?

  • gal2319 #18 5 years ago

    this game (EA or not) looks great and sounds great to me.
    i love co-op gaming and this looks like it'll fit nicely next to GoW!
    7/10 and up - and this baby's mine!

  • afghan_jones #19 5 years ago

    Looks fun. Co-op is always ace and a game built specifically for co op sounds even acer.

  • mash the x button #20 5 years ago

    EA game meh

  • PearOfAnguish #21 5 years ago

    "Private Military Companies"

    Is that what we're calling them now?

  • WinstonChurchill #22 5 years ago

    Looks great. Sometimes you want dumbed-down entertainment and half the fun of co-op games is just that: co-op.

  • BrokenSymmetry #23 5 years ago

    Again with the big hulking men with bug guns. And the facemasks. Ugh.
    Pass.

  • kangarootoo #24 5 years ago

    Co-op = yay \o/
    Muscle flexing and pre-pubescent hard man talk = boo :(

    As always, if the gameplay is good I will be able to see past the immature tone. If the gameplay isn't ok, the tone won't help.

  • spongebob #25 5 years ago

    I'm going to post my opinion here as well:

    I thought the E3 trailer, which EA posted in XBL was made in really bad taste. It was supposed to be ironic, in a similar way to Three Kings (the movie), I guess, but it failed. To me it just made the impression that war is fun and the collateral damage (which it showed through news footage, real or fake, but it made it look like real) was inevitable and not worth losing your sleep over if you can just make a fast buck.

    What's more ironic, is that the game developer is making a fast buck out of this concept. We'll see of course how they play out the idea in the finished game, but the trailer really made me want to puke. I think it was way worse than anything I've heard or seen of Manhunt 2. At least that game is purely fiction.

  • gal2319 #26 5 years ago

    spongebob, aren't games - fiction?
    i mean, i've been gaming for 23 years or so, never had to take a game seriously.
    sure MGS swept me away and Mario world charmed me but that was as serious as it got.
    games are for having fun, and this looks like you could have a mate over (or online) and just act stupid and laugh a lot.
    no?
    Edited by 1 at 25/07/07 @ 11:09

  • Fab4 #27 5 years ago

    What exactly are they slapping each other's backs with? ;)

  • Aretak #28 5 years ago

    This looks about as interesting as a swift kick in the nuts.

  • T4RG4 #29 5 years ago

    Having seen the video (or maybe videos, cant remember) I had no interest. Looked like a good concept (co-op needs to appear more) but ruined with 13yr old hardman wannabe cockness.

    Expect a mediocre game but will be happy yey-yey if it turns out to be okay just so I can play a decent co-op game!
    Edited by 1 at 25/07/07 @ 11:39

  • Skooch #30 5 years ago

    "The combat - as violent and almost as graphically sumptuous as Gears"

    SOLD.

  • spongebob #31 5 years ago

    @gal2319

    Have you seen the trailer? It's quite offensive. I enjoy entertainment action games the way I enjoy a good action movie. When it comes to depicting actual war and especially scenarios that seem to be based on real events, I'd rather see some commentary about the issues, not just some patriotic macho crap.

    What Army Of Two (trailer) reminds me is some of the later Rambo movies, which really had some questionable morals buried not so deep underneath the the horrible male macho fantasy. In fact, those movies along with many other action flicks from the same era strengthened the Reagan regime.

    Like I said, we'll see how the end product plays out all these values, but if it uses the current situation around the world (esp. Iraq, Afghanistan) as a backdrop for mindless commando violence, I am pissed at the developers and EA. Again, I am basing this all on the trailer.

    What I was hoping for from the game was some fiction based co-op action fun. Or maybe this the new trend we were hoping for; real issues dealt in videogames. First Haze, now this :)

  • Martin #32 5 years ago

    Christ, what a bunch of pretentious snobs the most of you seem to be.

    "Oh, big men with guns talking smack - must be worthless! If it's not a game in oil paints, depicting a young, andronygous teenager trying to win back the love of his estranged, giant father by stabbing him in various weak spots on th top of his massive frame while avoiding the shadows so they don't eat his long lost love who is a ghost that only speaks in symbols then it's not worth playing. If it contains a wierd, unintelligble character, preferably japanese and/or alien, that does something quirky that noone understands - all the better."

    Bah.

    Fun is fun, no matter if it comes in the form of macho jerkwads or animated mexican party treats.

    /preorders

  • Calgon #33 5 years ago

    I agree, it seems to be "the in thing" to do if you want to be considered an elite gamer(who posses the greatest skills and the most of intellgence of them all... as it was written in the gamers bible).

    Also ontop of the Japanese RPG addicts theres others that think if its quirky it must be good(so basically those who only want stuff that looks like its from Japan because thats "cool" and everything else is automatically shit)... all they have to do is release a few screenshots of a game that looks like they have concentrated on something other than the graphics(ie looks just ok with faces and character models that might almost make you laugh first time around or just looks pants in some cases) and isnt obvious as to how youd actually play it by looking at the screens and they are practically screaming game of the year("theyve done it! this is genious... I dont know what Im looking at, so it must be";) .

    Yes its has a macho theme, but when done right it can be great fun, just like in Films, when they are done right - what does it matter?... we all love Arnie right?

    You dont have to take everything seriously all the time(this is obviously not taking itself too seriously... neither did Gears really, why dont people get it?)... games are about fun, cant people see how much they contradict themselves with some of the comments about fun they come out with? Why dont they tell us what style of game they want... most games involve some form of violence to varying degrees anyway so that cant be why(even Platformers have the baddies to "get rid of"... if you are going to have a story in it and NPCs then its going to be boring otherwise...) if they are not carefull they might end up sounding like Jack Thompson, who probably thinks nature programs should be banned(because they show killings too sometimes!), if devs find other ways to interact in FUN ways then Im all for it but theres always a place for the action games.

    For an EA game this is sounding like they have some good ideas and a bit of personality about it for a change... whether it actually will turn out fun is another matter but it sounds alright.

    Edited by 5 at 25/07/07 @ 17:13

  • spongebob #34 5 years ago

    Err.. Gears was hardly taking place in real world.

    Seriously, look at the trailer with the news footage of people grieving over their close ones followed by some Reagan-era macho bullsh**.

    I don't mind Arnie movies, which are just so over the top and have usually nothing to do with the real life. But what if there was a light-hearted Arnie/Sly action romp taking place in a real war situation and people would be crying at the same as these guys just killed "some bad guys". I guess I am just being pretentious sob...

  • ronuds #35 5 years ago

    With all of the quality titles due on the way, I can't be bothered with another EA copy cat.

  • afghan_jones #36 5 years ago

    Huzzah for Calgon, he speaks truth.

    Spongebob, I reckon the distastful news footage is only in the trailer not the game. based on the other trailers it looks like a brainless macho co-op shooter (ie a lot of fun) with no real aspirations to comment on real events.

  • Calgon #37 5 years ago

    spongebob oh the story is what you have a problem with? thats not what I was arguing against, its the "its macho and gay and has guns" mallaraky that gets repeated with games like this.

  • Kuma #38 5 years ago

    Saw this at GDC and even with crap gfx (at the time) the overall concept and feel seemed really spot on and a lot of fun. The buddy stuff was straight out of Lethal Weapon or Rush Hour, cheesey but you cant help but smile. Personally i cant wait.

  • kangarootoo #39 5 years ago

    @Martin

    "Fun is fun, no matter if it comes in the form of macho jerkwads or animated mexican party treats."

    Rubbish. The klu klax klan probably have fun beating up black people, but that doesn't make it ok does it. Fun is not some disclaimer you can apply to something to validate it if it is otherwise objectionable.

    Now I'm not suggesting this game is on a par with the kk in any way, I'm simply using a strong example to show how your statement probably needs clarifying a little. I haven't seen the trailer in question either, so I shall go find it and then comment specifically.

  • Diabeu #40 5 years ago

    I just want to shoot people:f

  • Khab #41 5 years ago

    I've been hoping for this to be decent since I first heard of it - sounds like it might be good solid fun with a mate at your side.

  • bladeaku #42 5 years ago

    This game isnt to far from the truth private military corporations are pushing the regular military out of work these days.

  • YourMessageHere #43 5 years ago

    Could have sworn this was supposed to be for PC too. Soddit.

    This is almost certainly not going to make any attempt to either comment on or specifically link to any actual real world events; seems much more likely they'll have fictional events in a real world-ish setting. I expect they put that stuff in the trailer purely to look cool and edgy and alternative to the massively cynical yet massively gullible among us.

    Oh, and can we stop with the "don't like macho games = SNOB!" business. People like some things and not others; it's known as taste. Everyone's is different, dont'cha know. It may end up fun, in fact I'd be very interested in it myself, if it were on PC, but for a lot of people it'll be fun despite the macho window dressing rather than because of it.

  • Krun #44 5 years ago

    Macho games and films debate.

    From the Simpsons. I think it's Nelson Muntz who says something like "I've drawn a plane made of guns firings guns at a man made of gun that fire guns."

    Well it's just that when your 10-15 you think Macho men with big guns are cool, if they also get to use curse word even better and any film or game that isn't rated 18 isn't worth playing.

    Then somehow as you get older you find the whole thing less and less appealing, and are happy watching U rated films and playing Civilization.

    Why? who knows...

  • the_sas_man #45 5 years ago

    "The klu klax klan probably have fun beating up black people, but that doesn't make it ok does it."

    Oh please, are you seriosuly comparing a video game's 'funness' to the 'funness' of a cult who lynched, tortured and murdered black people? I think 99% of rational adults who are legally allowed to buy this game can tell the difference between reality and slap-stick.

    It's like comparing my big penis to your small one.

  • dcangel #46 5 years ago

    Oh good, another game where big muscular guys shoot off their massive guns.

    I think I'm with the Japanese RPG crowd myself. There's a limit to how much interactive ultraviolence I can take, and I think I exceeded it some time during 2004. Still, it at least sounds like the devs are trying to do something interesting with this concept, for which they should be applauded.

  • Nillsens #47 5 years ago

    What. The. HELL.

    Why is there even a discussion going on about this?

    Potentially fun game, you shoot things, characters are made of testoterone and cheese. What's the issue? Have we not all enjoyed shooting things in videogames for the last decade? What does Reagan have to do with any of this?

    Sure it ain't what everyone wants... but then just don't play it. I have no intention of playing Big Brain Academy but that doesn't mean I don't think it is an interesting idea that certainly has its target audience.

    By the way, saying it is just another generic macho shooter like Gears is like saying Disgaea is the same game as Final Fantasy :|

  • spongebob #48 5 years ago

    What does Reagan have to do with any of this?

    You might not notice it, but entertainment reacts to events in the news. When there's more war and other misery, entertainment industry usually first counteracts this with escapist experiences (ie. fantasy stories), then comes the wave of horror entertainment (dealing with the trauma metaphorically, instead of head on) and last comes usually the criticism. This kind of cycle can be traced way back to the start of film industry.

    By the looks of it, some of this has tacked on to videogames as well, and why not? People don't live in a vacuum. They need cathartic experiences, be it films, book or videogames.

    But that doesn't mean that the right way to encounter some real issues is to flank them from the far right, like Rambos and their ilk did. It's hard to argue with Ebert on the "videogames are just hunting, not art" when most of the top scoring games are 1980s post cold war B-action movie right wing escapism (Halo, Gears of War, all the Tom Clancy games, to name some).

    Well, I'll get off my soapbox now :) Let's see what kind of game Army of Two shapes out to be when it's released.

  • Fab4 #49 5 years ago

    "1980s post cold war B-action movie right wing escapism"

    and who are you (or Ebert) to say whether these are art or not?

    Art in its broadest sense is the creation of something to evoke an emotion or promote an idea, which these movies, and therefore by association these video games which you mention, have obviously achieved with respect to yourself. It may not be an emotion you enjoy, but not all art is sucrose in its approach.

  • Calgon #50 5 years ago

    spongebob - last comes usually the criticism

    In what form? Drama entertainment?

    Thats interesting but I dunno, I think... maybe, you can read into things too much and find deeper meanings in just about anything, some films dont have deep hidden messages - the directors/producers wont tell you that though, they might even make stuff up when asked by strokey beard people.
    Edited by 1 at 26/07/07 @ 15:51

  • bdc #51 5 years ago

    FUCK OFF YOU STUPID JRPG FREAKS.

  • spongebob #52 5 years ago

    And I don't even fancy JRPGs that much :)

    I do like this discussion, though, especially civilised individuals like Calgon. See you on another thread, mate!

  • Martin #53 5 years ago

    @kangarootoo

    "Rubbish. The klu klax klan probably have fun beating up black people, but that doesn't make it ok does it. Fun is not some disclaimer you can apply to something to validate it if it is otherwise objectionable. "

    Hmm, I understand that you are taking this to the extreme to prove your point but I would say that it's a bit harsh comparing that kind of "fun" to games.

    All I'm really commenting on is that it's very easy and common to bash any game that has big guns and even bigger biceps just because of that - no matter what the gameplay is.

    Would you not have played Katamari if the lead character had been Marcus Phoenix? Would you not have played R6: Las Vegas if it had featured the entire squad from GoW?

    An even more extreme comparison; there are hundreds of racing games featuring cars with big engines and even bigger wings but you don't call them rubbish just because of it. Motorstorm != Forza and so on.

    To show you where I'm coming from I would like to point out that I loved ICO, played Grandia II 'til my eyes bled and can't wait until Little Big Planet is released. And yes - my taste has evolved from when I was 12 but that doesn't mean that I automatically have to hate the less "refined" things in life.

    Sometimes a food fight is just what the doctor ordered. ;)