E3 Disclaimer: AMN’s E3 previews are designed to inform you of what each game at E3 plays like, and what we think of what’s shown. These previews are not reviews, and we reserve final judgment of each game until it is finished and released. These previews offer an honest opinion of what a publisher chose to demo at E3. So, without further ado, read on.
What the Game’s About
Most of the tensions felt between Ubisoft and EA these days can be traced back to Army of Two. The key minds behind the original Splinter Cell jumped ship from Ubisoft Montreal to serve as the central team at EA’s Montreal studio. Army of Two is the group’s first game under the EA banner and it has been built around the idea of evolving co-op play from a feature to the center of the game experience. Players take control of one half of a two-man mercenary team while their teammate is controlled either by another player or by convincing partner AI. The two mercenaries have a host of double-team abilities at their disposal as well as a slew of weapons that the US government is to stingy to provide to their official troops. A new ‘aggro-meter’ displays who’s getting most of attention from the hostiles, useful knowledge for making flanking maneuvers.
What’s Hot
Army of Two has come a long way since the last time we saw it. The game has always shown a great deal of promise, but until now the project has generally come off as a lot of great concepts floating around without an actual game to tie them all together. This year’s E3 demo on the other hand is far more focused. All the big ideas are still there, but they’ve been joined by a host of smaller, practical gameplay features that help push players through the action. The resulting experience is less intimidating and a lot more fun to actually play. One example is the new GPS system that both mercenaries are equipped with. The system feeds directly into the HUD and highlights routes, objectives and important pieces of the environment – such as a bridge that could be destroyed with rockets. It’s a small addition, but given the amount of activity happening on-screen at any given time, it helps cut down on confusion and speeds up the action.
The biggest addition is definitely the aggro-meter, placed rather prominently on the HUD. Those who play MMOs (or have friends who won’t stop talking about them) will recognize the term, but all the rest of you really need to know is that the more aggro a player has, the more the AI wants that person dead. The two players share a ‘pool’ of aggro, and the aggrometer illustrates who is drawing more of it at any given time. Drawing aggro is really just a matter of causing a ruckus – unloading torrents of bullets, racking up kills and setting off explosions will all get enemies to focus more intently on the player doing the damage. If the aggrometer hits a full reading, that player will deal more damage and be capable of some powerful abilities. Meanwhile, the other player will have no aggro the enemy will almost completely ignore them. In addition to the on-screen meter, players can tell who has more aggro by the red aura covering one of the players and the semi-transparency of the player loosing aggro. Balancing and transferring aggro back and forth between both characters enables players to manipulate enemies on the fly, opening up use distractions and some fancy flanking maneuvers to take out the opposition and clear areas of the combat zone.
Coming into what looked like an underground supply depot, we and our partner quickly spread out a bit and started clearing the immediate perimeter. From there, we gave our teammate a boost onto a huge cargo container and he promptly began raining fire down on the enemy. As he drew fire, we snuck around behind an armored turret, headbutted the soldier operating it in the face, and then used his turret to mow down most of the enemies firing at our buddy. With our aggro maxed we didn’t feel too comfortable staying put, so we put some cover between us and the opposition and strafed across the area to meet our buddy. He had made himself useful while we were the center of attention by ripping a car door off its hinges, and we maneuvered behind him to share the makeshift shield and pick off the enemies that had chased us. We made our way deeper into the camp and eventually found another wave of enemies. Here we decided to make use of an aggro special, a powerful technique that can only be accessed when one teammate has maxed out the aggrometer. We went back-to-back with our partner, forming ourselves into an impenetrable tank that spit gunfire in every direction, dropping enemies like flies. Coordinating amid the chaos required a great deal of communication, and we were chatting with our partner from first shot to the last.
That is, of course, just one possible sequence of events. There’s almost a sandbox quality to the combat in Army of Two since players have so many abilities at their disposal and a whole range of tactical possibilities to experiment with. The aggro mechanic adds a whole new layer of tactics to the already intense action in Army of Two, and now the game is just an unbelievable amount of fun to play.
What’s Not
The only problems we had with the demo were fairly minor, and the developers assured us that they would be ironed out as they polished the game up for its winter release. The most irritating problem was the twitchy sensitivity of the on-screen reticule that made lining up headshots a little tricky, especially when we were on the run. The feel of the reticule actually felt very similar to that of Splinter Cell, and while it works, it’s certainly suited more toward single, precise shots made from a stationary position than shifting streams of auto-fire unleashed mid-sprint.
We also weren’t too impressed with the lack of enemy variety or the artificial intelligence of the enemies we did see. We only saw a few types of enemies in the level we played, and while some of them were equipped with better armor and weapons all of them seemed to react the same way to the two players. Sometimes they would flank around our position, but it never really felt as though there was a coordinated assault underway. In general, the enemies gave off an impression that they were acting independently of one another, a hundred minds focused on us but indifferent to each other. The developers assured us that as players made their way through the game they would encounter a greater variety of enemies that would make full use of the environment, combine their specialties effectively, and force players to work together to exploit their weaknesses.
The revive mechanic also left us a little cold. We like the idea of having to mend our fallen ally through a few simple mini-games, but the presentation completely cuts the player off from the action and stops the pace dead. When a player revives their teammate, the background darkens, at which point they are both incapable of being hurt or even found by the enemy. Players can opt to start the procedure at any time, even if they’re surrounded by hostiles and being shot at. As such, there’s no sense of urgency – healing provides a breather right when the combat should be at its most tense. Obviously the mechanic wouldn’t work if enemies could take pot-shots at the healthy mercenary while they worked on their helpless teammate, but it would have been preferable if the action in the background stayed visible – even if it was in super-slow-motion – just to maintain the sense of being in the middle of combat. Another possible alternative would be to force players to clear the immediate area before allowing them to revive their teammate. At least then the action would decline naturally and cutting to the isolated healing mini-game wouldn’t feel so jarring.
Finally, the graphics are a little rough around the edges. The worst offenders are the enemies, with their repetitive and generic designs and robotic animations. On the other hand, all of the animations for the main characters are fantastic, from their standard movements to the special abilities, and even the rather pointless but very cool interpersonal actions they can perform – high fives, slapping each other across the back of the head, and playing air guitar with an assault rifle. Furthermore, their look – with their bulky physiques and customized face-plates – has grown on us. The texture work ranges from impressive to drab depending on the environments. Granted the shanty-towns of the Middle East aren’t exactly the most colorful places in the world, but sometimes the abundance of brown and grey hues feels downright oppressive despite impressive detail. One of the levels we saw was a more developed city, complete with more detailed architecture and varied surface textures. It provided a much needed break from the visual tedium, and it was slightly more fun to play through just for that reason alone. The developers promise that there will be plenty of different locales for players to tear up.
Outlook
Despite a few problems, Army of Two was one of the most fun games we got our hands on at E3. The double-team maneuvers and integration of the aggro mechanic both provide for a far more involved and flexible cooperative gameplay experience than the standard side-by-side fare found in a Halo or even a Gears of War. We hope that EA Montreal comes through on their promise of more impressive enemy AI, though, because even after one play-through we were ready for more of a challenge. Keep an eye on this one – it could do for co-op what Splinter Cell did for the stealth genre.
