New Format?

So my review of Army of Two was, for many reasons, less than great. It was written all at once, while I was quite tired, before I even beat the game. Also, standard format reviews are pretty boring unless you have faith in the reviewer, and obviously I have yet to establish myself. So I’m going to try something shorter, more accessible, and a bit more unique for a while. I will list 5 things that work about the game, that I like, and then 5 things that I would change, or that suck, or could be done better. Hopefully this works out. I’ll start with Army of Two, since I’ve now beaten (and sold back to EB) the game.

WHAT WORKS

1. Designing a game around two-player scenarios is a sweet idea, and could force many players to interact and communicate more than in your average shooter. Dragging a fallen comrade out of harm’s way while still firing is pretty goddamn hardcore.

2. The game looks pretty good. The graphics aren’t the best I’ve ever seen, but they’re definitely strong, and the physics (ragdolls of enemies especially) are fairly realistic, with a little exaggeration for entertaining effect.

3. Aggro system makes for really intense fire-fights, gratifying pwnage. You can really get up close and personal with enemies, and trading aggro is fun and provides a bit of strategy that feels natural, rather than forcing complex strategies on the player.

4. Movement controls are great, characters responsive (same can’t be said for aiming, unfortunately), cover system works well enough to merit its near-constant use.

5. Customizing weapons feels rewarding, and even though “pimping” your gun doesn’t help you in any way, it is hilarious. Oh yeah, and the masks add a nice element of badassery to the mix.

—–

WHAT’S WEAK

1. Not enough enemy variety at all. Aside from the amusing suicide bombers, every enemy in this game (including the bosses) has the exact same feel. They are all smaller than you (which makes boss fights really lame – who wants to fight a boss that feels like a normal enemy?) and the enemies that need to be shot from behind feel like a ploy to force you to use the aggro system, rather than a well-designed foe

2. If you’re only going to have one vehicle in a game, why wouldn’t you at least make it good? The developers said they removed other vehicles from the game because they didn’t feel they were solid enough… I’d hate to see how bad they were, because the hovercraft is crap. It controls poorly and just doesn’t feel entirely necessary. Though the break from standard run-and-gun is welcome.

3. Characters are douches. BIG douches. In an attempt to make them more “hip,” they were turned into caricatures of modern douchebag culture, and I can’t sympathize with this. Stop calling me Bro, Salem.

4. The level design sucks. Sure, the aircraft carrier level is pretty good, but I found myself checking my “GPS” way too often. A level’s design should allow me to easily identify goals or usable objects. This doesn’t happen. Only with GPS does the obscure button in the dark corner become visible, whereas the bright yellow one in the middle of the room doesn’t do a thing. What the hell?

5. After beating the game (final boss was one of the weakest parts of the game… from this guy’s earlier displays of power, he really shouldn’t have just stood there letting me shoot him until he died. That was literally how the final battle went down. I digress), there is absolutely no reason to play again, unless you have a friend who is really interested in playing. AI is surprisingly stupid at times (refusing to help with small tasks like opening a required door), and there just isn’t enough interesting content to merit a second run-through.

So that’s it… hopefully you liked this format, because I kinda do, and I’m going to try to see how it works for a while, hopefully refining it all the time. Next review should be up soon, whenever I figure out which game to do. I just bought Condemned 2, so perhaps that will be it, if I can get through it relatively soon.