A little bit of politics
Without meaning to offend anyone, Army of Two is one of the most ‘American’ games I've ever player; it's loud and unashamedly over-the-top.It's also fairly brash in its interpretation of the current and past political situations, taking it's subject matter from 'real world' headlines (AKA FOX News) and at times, for instance when you shoot down a few Al-Qaeda 'terrorists' and then walk up to your teammate and slap palms with him in a gesture of celebration, its humour comes across as being unnecessarily crude.
However, if you're the kind of gamer who likes to see soldiers put their thumbs in the eyeballs of a terrorist and blowing up a suicide bomber that lunges toward you manically with an neatly packaged parcel on his back is your kind of thing, then Army of Two will be right up your street.
First up, before we get into the beef of the review, let me tell you a little bit about the background story to the game.
As well as being a videogame, it's clear that Army of Two is making some sort of political statement. Through its storyline it highlights the current 'news-reported' situation in places like Iraq where private military contractors (PMCs) are known to be hired to carry out operations, including bodyguard duties, reconnaissance, intelligence and assassinations, for significant cash rewards. In real life, this business is huge and the British Special Air Service, the American Special Forces and the Canadian Joint Task Force have allegedly been severely affected as staff leave their positions to take on work as highly paid contractors, where they have no boss to report to; they're essentially a law unto themselves. Obviously, there’s a morale issue here.
Click for larger image
Click for larger imageWhether the aim here is to flag up the current situation with PMCs or not won't really matter to the masses. The fact is that gamers will just want to blow some stuff up and be entertained. In that respect, Army of Two does its job well enough.
Army of Two follows the story of two private military contractors, Tyson Rios and Elliot Salem as they get sent by their employers, Security & Strategy Corporation, to military hotspots around the world, including Somalia, Iraq and China as they seek to secure a number of objectives, including assassinating targets and disabling missiles.
Everything in Army of Two is centered on two-man missions and two-man strategies, but unless you've got a friend to play with you’re going to have to rely on an AI team-mate to help you out when the going gets tough. This relies on you being able to issue commands quickly and thanks to a solid tutorial and a quick and easy-to-use interface this never proves to be a problem.
