Players are, as usual, expected to work as a pair to distract enemies by drawing fire, flanking positions, and combining their firepower to tackle heavily armored foes. If both players initiate Overkill at once, it lasts longer and instigates a slow-motion effect. As players gain kills, they rack up an Overkill meter which, when full, can activate a temporary state of invincibility, unlimited ammo, and extra damage. From beginning to end, you slog your way through the environments and mow down armies of indistinguishable opposition. The game gets a solid eight hours of third-person cover-based warfare, and for the most part it works as intended. Mindless shooting is the heart of the experience, and there’s plenty of that. This is all par for the course, however - Army of Two has never had a story worth telling, to the point where I’ve often wondered why we don’t get to just create our own character and partake in random missions. Alpha and Bravo are alienating in their canned dialog littered with gay and mom jokes, and flavored with uninspired grunt speak. There’s a typical Mexican drug cartel, a typical girl out for revenge against the villain (getting herself predictably in need of rescue now and then), and a typical bad guy who we’re expected to hate for very little on-screen reason. The story is as one would expect - forgettable, cliched, and generally a flimsy excuse to get to the action. By contrast, Salem and Rios finally evolve into borderline interesting characters the moment they are no longer playable.
The names and lack of history are supposed to make players feel more connected to the game, as if they are the ones leading the charge, yet the story paradoxically attempts to give Alpha and Bravo personalities and conflicting ideals in a way that just seems cynical.
Army of two the devil's cartel series#
There’s plenty wrong with this iteration of it.Īrmy of Two: The Devil’s Cartel (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 )Īrmy of Two: The Devil’s Cartel replaces series protagonists Salem and Rios with two even more generic heroes, the imaginatively named Alpha and Bravo.
There’s nothing wrong with a game like Army of Two, fundamentally. Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel is EA Montreal’s second sequel, yet it bears all the missteps of a first attempt, and retreads old ground in a less than forgivable way. There’s only so much mileage in any idea, and when your idea is this spartan, there’s not much gas in the tank at the best of times.
Army of two the devil's cartel crack#
That said, having had its third crack at the whip, Army of Two would do well to evolve or at the very least refine itself. Nothing acutely wrong with that, it simply is what it is. It’s one of those series with a rudimentary purpose, and it fulfills that purpose without going the extra distance. Providing simplified cooperative shooting action, as dumb and dirty as can be, the series has clearly found a fanbase for its particular brand of not very particular action. Army of Two has never been an especially bad series, it’s just never been an especially good one.
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