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  Army of Two.  All in all, not a bad game.   Like most things, better with two people, but still enjoyable alone.

The basics of the game is you take the role of one of two “contractors” and are thrust into various battlegrounds of recent history (Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq)with specific objectives to achieve for cold hard cash.  Make no mistake, you are not there to win the war, and you certainly aren’t there to be a hero.  Just get in, get the job done (find this info, kill this person,etc) and get out.  Of course, allegiances and overall objectives change throughout the game, due to betrayals, backstabbing, the usual.  As you get more cash, you can then turn it in to buy new weapons, upgrade the ones you have, pimp them out, and buy a variety of menacing looking masks (which just look cool).  You’ll get money the moment you complete an objective, or optional objective, and you have the chance to cash in multiple times throughout a mission, so there is no real rush to spend just because you have the chance.  All the weapons are pretty varied, but except for obvious differences (sniper rifle vs RPG) they don’t play all that different, until you can get the REALLY big guns.  The upgrades are pretty interesting, multi leveled, and change how the guns handle and their effectiveness.  A nice twist to give it the semblance of an Role Playing Game, and give you the feeling of actually improving as you go. 

The big draw of this game is that it is a Co-op shooter (an area that most games these days sorely lack) along the lines of Gears of War.  You can do split screen, system link, or online co op, which gives you plenty of options if you know someone who’d also like to play (I on the other hand was threatened with a skillet whenever I tried to egg my wife into playing.)  But if you have a gamer roommate (and big enough tv) or friend that you can set up a “play date” with online, you both can compete for carnage.  Thankfully though, you don’t need a partner to play.  The AI is actually quite good in this game, and needs to be, since there are alot of situations, and a few enemies, that you have to attack from 2 directions to beat.  You give “commands” to your partner via the directional pad (advance, stay there, follow me, draw fire, etc) and it actually becomes pretty easy to use.  Except for a few silly “co-op snipes” and the ability to trade guns (which I never needed to do) your partner handles himself pretty well.  The only time they really seem to make strange decisions, is when you yourself get injured, and have to call them in to come and heal you.  While they are dragging you around in circles, and sometimes into enemy fire, you’ll accuse them of being complete morons, until you realize that they are coming to help you because YOU screwed up and got hurt.  Its pretty rare that you have to go help them.   Part of the whole “teamwork” aspect of it is the idea of “aggro”.  Gamers know the term, and what it means.  Basically, the more you shoot, kill, and blow up, the more “aggro” or attention you’ll draw.  In fact in this game you start to glow red.  And with all that glowing red, you attract the enemy, leaving your partner free to sneak around and hit them from behind.  As I said, its actually required to do quite a few times throughout the game. Kind of a neat twist on things.

The Goods:

The enemy AI is pretty effective, with them ducking behind cover, laying down suppressing fire, flanking, and bombarding you with grenades.  Would only be better if they could curse and mock your aim like all the 12 year olds that kick my ass in COD 4 Deathmatches.

The graphics are as beautiful and varied, but nowadays its pretty much a given on these machines (which is actually kinda sad).

Its a fun game, as far as shooters go.  The characters interactions are funny, the action is heavy and intense and the upgrades keep it so that you are shooting for something.  Plus, there are a whole lot of guns to go for and try out. 

Disappointments:

At only 6 chapters, its a bit of a short game (took me about 12 hours on normal difficulty).  The chapters last a while, but mostly go here shoot, go, shoot, go, shoot, go through a door, wait for the checkpoint to save. 

That’s another one, checkpoints.  No real way to save, or have multiple saves going.  once you beat a chapter, you can go back to it at any time or on any level, but keeping multiple single player games going on one system, no can do.

Yes there are alot of different guns, but most often, you won’t use any besides your main one.  That whole secondary gun category goes to waste.  The specialty weapons (third category), you’ll only use 3 or 4 times a mission (if at all) which actually works, since you only get about 5-8 shots out of them.  I actually wished that there wasn’t as much ammo to be found, so that I would HAVE to try out my other weapons. 

Non-destructible environments.  Getting spoiled these days I guess, but after awhile this started to annoy me, if for any reason more then the other, realism.    As good as plastics maybe these days, I highly doubt those plastic airport seats that I spent about 15 minutes hiding behind would have really have stopped all 12,000 rounds and grenades that were flying around.  The duck and cover played a big role throughout the game, but since they made it so easy to use, it also was easy to abuse.  Having your cover slowly getting chipped away would force you to move and dodge and really add some anxiety to the fights, although maybe you are a little too big and stiff to be that effective in it. Which would actually be a nice deviation between the 2 main characters.  Make one more agile, and the other better armored or hold more ammo.  As it is now, personality is the only real difference they have. 

Everything else is nit-picky minor stuff.   Some weird interactions up close, aiming movement a little stiff, the ending is a little anti-climatic, No real multiplayer besides varying Co op modes (okay there’s a 2 on 2 deathmatch that no ones really playing), and whats the deal with “need an EA account to play online” crap?

 Over all though, not a bad game, pretty damn fun.  If you got a partner who can shoot, and can’t wait till Gears of War 2 comes out (who can?), then this will definitely help whittle away the time.  Like I said, I beat it over a few days, and that was all with a couple stolen hours playing here and there, thankfully I rented.  But if you got the roommate,  brother or life-partner with a mean streak, that would be into playing with you, could be worth owning.  I will have to try and get sometime together with Med and see if it holds up, or we kill each other instead.