Army of Two for PS3 has been one of my favorite games since the first time I played it on the 360 the day it came out. You control one of two characters: Elliot Salem the smaller cockier one, or Tyson Rios the older more grizzled badass.
Gameplay Gameplay mechanics require both of you to work together through a system called "Agro" to keep the enemies' attention on the character shooting more bullets with the meanest gun while the other character stealths around with a less pimped out gun.
Throughout the game you will come across many elements such as step jumps or solid steel doors that you somehow can rip straight out of a wall with just two men. All actions like this require you and your partner to cooperate to progress forward. At other times you will be surrounded and have to go back to back where you just start shooting down whole mobs of terrorists with infinite ammo for a limited amount of time.
Within every level you have your main objectives which are necessary to complete for story progression. But you also have supplementary objectives which will allow you to earn extra money through intel collection so you can modify your weapons or characters.
I highly recommend playing this game with a friend or online; I have always had problems with the AI partner on single player being just plain stupid especially on the harder difficulties.
Overall I would give the gameplay a solid B, not the best over the shoulder shooter but one you will most likely play more of.
Graphics Honestly the first time I played this game I was rather impressed. They don't look bad by today's standards (Q4 2010) but they cannot keep up with today's A list titles. AoT features many different weapons to choose from: from assault rifles to miniguns and Glocks, all of which look very impressive and can be upgraded to your liking.
Character models are very smooth with little clipping if any. My only problem with the graphics is that some of the more grand explosions didn't turn out so well and sometimes the thing getting blown up will just disappear before the explosion is big enough to cover it up.
Overall I would give the graphics a B, they are not as good as brand new games but you won't be squinting to try and figure out what something is either. The guns and characters are the best looking part and really what you probably got this game for.
Sound What can I really say about sound, the guns sound nice and realistic. All the explosions are decent and characters speak with believable voices. Little to no soundtrack.
Because of the lack of a good soundtrack I only give sound a C+. Sometimes you have a hard time going wild because of the lack of a good song. However that can be remedied by having a stereo play some tunes.
Replay value
A++, with dozens of weapons to choose from and customize to your liking you can replay this game a ton of times. Also, if you log on to PSN you can download two more levels for free and they are not easy levels by any means. The second of the two has a final boss fight that is much better than the original ending in my opinion. So this is definitely a game you will play a few times over.
Learning curve With controls similar to most other shooters it should not take you very long to adjust to Army of Two, however if you don't like the controls you can't change very much. For instance I hate having R2 and L2 for aim and shoot but I got over it. In the beginning you start with an easy and medium difficulty and can move on to hard mode after beating the game once.
The "agro" system is explained in a training mission at the beginning and is very easy to use as long as you have a human companion. If playing with the computer expect to be the one who has all the agro all the time.
I would say this has an A- for an easy learning curve, and if you are new to shooters the easy mode is more than forgiving to help you learn.
Hope you enjoyed my first video game review. I give Army of Two a solid above average B+ if you play with a friend, however I would give it a C+ if you play with the AI.
