You’re eventual fun factor from Army of Two depends entirely on how you’ve played it. A solo experience, it’s a frustrating mess as your A.I. partner never goes where you want or need him. As a co-operative piece, it’s a repetitive yet fun third person shooter in the Gears of War mold.
Everything in Army of Two is designed around Aggro. The concept is that enemies will focus on the player with the bigger gun or the one shooting more. This makes the opposite player invisible to sneak around and gain position.
Shoot out set pieces are entirely about positioning. Running and shooting is practically useless. You’ll need to find cover behind the conveniently placed objects, firing from behind cover or blindly if needed. Bullet hits are satisfying with fun physics and animation routines from those who take the shot to their body.
The stop and pop mechanics offer a decent array of strategic options. Firing blind can be surprisingly effective. The enemy A.I. also uses this to their advantage, though you simply have to question someone who fires a sniper rifle or RPG blindly.
Excellent cinematics try to make a point about privatized militaries, while the array of double crosses are blatantly obvious from the start. They also contain some of the best action sequences in the game, none of which the players partake in. The final boss fight is well beyond the point of being lackluster and feels like every battle before it.
Constant enemy spawns can grow tiresome, and the later stages prove the game has limited legs even with the co-op concept. Being pinned down for excessively long periods simply isn’t enjoyable, and running out even for cover can easily lead to death. Aggro can only take a team so far.
With a computer controlled teammate, this is even worse. Trying to make him make the right moves is almost impossible, and it’s hard not to laugh when he tries to drag you into cover for healing, only to pull you right past into heavy fire.
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