Army of Two (PS3)

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Will AO2 cut the mustard? Time will tell.

During our hands-on time with the game, we had the opportunity to put this into practice against one of the game's early bosses - a mini-gun wielding nutcase who was impervious to our fire from the front. Here, one of us had to gain and hold aggro while the other flanked, killing him with well placed fire to his exposed parts. We also discovered a feign death move, which we've seen before in MMOs. This allows you to play dead, transferring all aggro to your mate and taking the heat off you. Nice.

All this means that playing online with a random will require headsets, because communication in Army of Two is pretty much essential. If you team up with someone who farts about, you're going to have a rough time. Army of Two might be a game to keep close to your friends list.

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If all this cooperation sounds a little over the top, well then you just don't get Army of Two. If you didn't know, Army of Two, even before it was panned by the critics, was built from the ground up for co-op play. Because of that, you'll be cooperating with your mate much more than in THAT OTHER THIRD-PERSON ACTION GAME. For example, there will be areas you'll need to access overhead. To get both of you up there, one will need to bend down, allowing the other to get up on your shoulders and climb up. Then you'll need to reach down and pull your mate up. Another example we had the chance to experience involved carefully timed sniper shots - both players need to fire at exactly the same time at separate targets in order to progress. Novelty? Perhaps. We'll have to wait and see how often you need to do this during the game before we say it'll get boring.

You and your mate can go back to back Mr. and Mrs. Smith style.

What we're less sure about is the Mr. and Mrs. Smith style back to back slow down time kill everything feature which you can do every now and again. This does exactly what it says on the tin - when things get a bit hectic (like multiple suicide bombers running towards you) this is pretty useful. And then there's the co-op parachuting sections, which see one player controlling the parachute, navigating expansive caverns in the section we saw, and the other firing at unsuspecting terrorists from afar. Like the Mr. and Mrs. Smith thing, this might end up being funny rather than cool. We'll see soon enough.

We're more encouraged by the extensive customisation options Army of Two has to offer. Because the game pretty much centres on collecting loads of cash (Rios and Salem are doing this for the money after all), in between missions you get the chance to spend your hard-earned green on kitting yourself out with some pretty cool weapons and gear. On top of that you can upgrade individual parts of weapons, like the barrel, stock, grip and cartridge. What's the point? The point is you'll end up with better, more powerful and accurate guns, which has an effect on the game's aggro system.

When we tried this out during our hands-on, we saw that many of the upgrades added gold and silver plating to weapons as well as diamonds. That's right, you can add diamonds to your weapons. Pimp My Ride? What about Pimp My Gun?

We can't hold on any longer. Army of Two inevitably rekindles memories of Epic's superb third-person shoot-em-up Gears of War. The similarities are obvious. There's a cover system, rolling about, melee attacks (clothesline anyone?) and, of course, co-op gameplay. Will Army of Two convince gamers to drop Marcus Fenix in favour of killing terrorists in Somalia and Afghanistan? That's a question we find ourselves asking more and more as publishers try and replicate that Gears magic. Perhaps it's an unfair question. Perhaps not. The harsh reality of the game industry is that Army of Two will be compared with Gears. If it doesn't turn out to be as much fun, and fun is the key word here, then expect Army of Two to disappear off the face of the gaming planet before too long. But if it turns out to be half decent, sells well and proves a hit online, expect EA to turn it into a franchise, and green light the inevitable sequel. Our tentative verdict is that Army of Two might be a bit of a drag played on your own, but could be a hoot split screen with a mate or online with a friend once you've had a few beers down the pub on a Saturday night. Watch this space - soon enough we'll know if all that polishing has been worth it.

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