Personally I find Coop games pretty hit or miss. Coop games are typically built for two players and concentrate on team based play styles. If a game is specifically built for two players it generally means the single player experience is going to be lacking (usually due to pore team AI) - Gears of War is a notable exception here.

The problem I consistently encounter is finding people to play with. Most of my friends are casual gamers and almost none of them have the expendable income to rent or buy games regularly. That means I play my Coop games single player - which is what this review will be based on, a single player's review of EAs Army of Two.

Story Development and Execution

Characters

In my first impressions post I shared how the game was developing early on. While the story was hardly inventive or original it was certainly as engrossing as about 90% of the buddy cop movies you've ever seen. The two main characters are evenly developed and play off each other nicely. In the single player campaign you take the reigns of Rios a conspiracy minded soldier who's head is in the job but who questions the motives behind everything.

Your partner Salem is a bit less level headed. While he's 100% faithful he's all about the money and cares more about what he's being paid than what he's doing. Even at the end of the game, when you've been betrayed and hung out to dry, Salem is more concerned with collecting bonus objectives than about clearing your name.

The pairing is pretty much a sound setup and while the characters don't develop further than what you're initially shown the player can easily accept the bond between the games titular mercenary "Army of Two."

Plot

At the heart of Army of Two is a grand conspiracy to disable the US' armed forces. Through a series of cut scenes the player is introduced to a political power struggle which revolves around keeping the army together and disbanding it in favor of independent contractors (think Blackwater). As grunts in the field your team is somewhat indifferent - it'd be nice to have a more regular source of income but war is war.

Through your first few missions Rios begins to get the feeling that something isn't right. Time after time the enemy gets a little too close for comfort and more innocent soldiers are dying. His questioning of the mission values ultimately leads to his teams betrayal. As it turns out your company has a lot invested in becoming the sole provider of military power and they've decided you're in the way.

While the front of the game concentrates on completing contracts for SSC the back is all about taking them down and rescuing your handler. There are no glaring inconsistencies and despite being a bit familiar it still manages to entertain.

Presentation

Level Design and Tone

For the most part Army of Two is presented in a pretty solid fashion. Technically the game performs well and with the exception of a few instances of ghosting into objects after being incapacitated there was little to really pull you out of the game.

Greens, browns, grays and other earth tones are used heavily but it's a common complaint about most action games this generation. It's not necessarily a bad thing, in this game or others, but it would have been nice to see a bit more variety. One of my few complaints about how the game was designed, though, isn't in the presentation of any of the different levels but rather in the game's mid-mission and in-mission shopping sprees.

Between each mission, as well as at certain points in each mission, you're given the chance to visit arms dealers in order to stock up, change weapons and even change gear. We'll cover weapon balance shortly - the presentation of these stores left a lot to be desired. For some silly reason Army of Two expects us to believe that your only source of weapons are international arms dealers from around the globe - and they're really specific about what they sell.

One dealer might carry "primary weapons" while another only carries "secondary" ones. What's more annoying is that you're supposedly visiting them DURING your missions even though you're led to believe these dealers are in other parts of the world.

To make matters worse the visits seemed to be (they may not have been but they felt) tethered to certain physical locations. This meant that starting a level would initiate a dialog. Any movement thereafter would then trigger a loading screen that brought you to an interface where you would choose who to buy from and what to buy.

I got tripped up by this several times - it's really inexcusable to follow level loading with pulling the player out of the game just to load an unnecessary shopping interface.

I was also thoroughly disappointed with the off-camera character named s3kShun8. Why introduce a character that no one can hear and who's dialog flies by so fast it's impossible to read? Thankfully Rios always relays the upshot of s3kShun8's speeches so it's not a total loss.

All that aside I think the game itself was presented well enough for most games of it's genre. It's certainly not as cinematic as games like Gears of War but it was still immersive.

Game Mechanics and AI

It's with game mechanics and AI that the game really started to falter. While most levels were well supplied with cover and choke points getting your partner to take advantage of them was a bit difficult. The game offers an OK method of issuing commands but it lacks some of the polish that games like Full Spectrum Warrior and even Republic Commando had.

There are times when you'll tell you're partner to get active and he'll just sit in place (or worse yet be ignored). Similarly there are times you'll call for backup and he'll take the single worst path possible to find you. The aggro system offered by the game (in which you collect aggro in order to make your team-mate less visible) was certainly interesting.

Once gaining a good position you simply become more active, usually by either blind-firing or sniping, and this draws enemy attention. Your partner, meanwhile, is free to move ahead of you and either advance your line or take out enemies that have weak spots in the rear. Of course this means enemies aren't terribly bright either. While you enemy AI is good at finding the best cover they also tend to ignore you sometimes which makes certain areas a bit too easy. It seems as though the designers seemed to balance against that by making certain enemies tougher - not a good balance.

A head shot is a head shot.

Final Analisys

The game is short - very short - which prevents this from getting a buy rating. I can say with confidence that anyone who enjoys third person action games will get a kick out of the title as long as you expect something less than Gears of War.

I enjoyed Army of Two to the point where I'd be interested in sequel but with the caveat that certain changes need to be made. The game could certainly use a little more polish as well as a more developed AI. Having the ability to better control your partner and adopting a different method of gaining weapons would be a real plus. I'd also like to see more done with some of the "emotes" that you get to use.

Because they had no real effect on the game I didn't talk about them here which also means they probably could have been left out or built upon.

In all Army of Two is a great rainy weekend rental but not really worth the full retail price tag.

When I first saw trailers for Army of Two, close to a year ago, I thought we might finally witness the first really solid "buddy cop" action game to make an appearance in the console market. While there are plenty of humorous pairings in the platformer realm few coop shooters have really embraced the genre that brought us movies like Lethal Weapon.

So yes, I was excited for what Army of Two promised.

While it's too early to really review the whole game I figured this would be a good time to briefly relate the early portion of the game's story. Once I finish the whole game we'll do a full review.

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I've been messing around with the demo for John Woo's Stranglehold for a couple of days now. While the Demo really doesn't showcase much of what the story is about it sure is a ton of fun. It's hard to ignore some of the similarities between Stranglehold and Chili Con Carnage and that's not a bad thing.

The mix of gunfire and acrobatics is extremely fun and video of the full game offers some interesting new mechanics and possibilities. One of my favorite parts about Stranglehold is it's destructible environment. With a slew of signs, platforms and air-conditioning units there are some really cool options for taking out enemies without direct fire.

With only a few weeks left before the release of Halo 3 this one looks like it might be a good option for filling the void. The verdict is still out on whether it's a 'buy' but I can guarantee a rental would be money well spent.

Earlier this weekend we downloaded the Shadowrun demo (available on the XBox Live MarketPlace) in order to give Microsoft and FasaStudio's new FPS a go. Based on the popular pen and paper RPG Shadowrun, Microsoft's version isn't quite what fans of the franchise were expecting. Rather than being a true RPG the XBox version of the title was made as an FPS.

While Shadowrun does offer a pretty entertaining FPS experience it fails at producing anything really akin to an RPG. Dwarves, Elves and Trolls are present as is some simple magic ... that's about it.

Spellcasting in Shadowrun

There is no class system in Shadowrun. While players can choose between four different races (Dwarves, Elves, Humans and Trolls) it doesn't really affect their ability use any of the available magical abilities. Each race has strengths and weaknesses but the arsenal of seven magical abilities is available to anyone. Even choosing between the two available sides (RNA or Lineage) doesn't change what spells can be cast by whom.

In essence there are only two controls placed on the use of magical abilities. Each player has access to "essence" which is essentially mana that regenerates over time. Players also can't use spells until they've been purchased using the "Buy Menu" available at the start of each match. Spells, tech and weapons are all purchased using the same cash from the same menu so it's basically just a question of how a player wants to deck out their character.

Weapons and Tech

Weapons and Tech are distributed in the same manner as Magical Abilities. Depending on their performance in previous matches players are awarded cash to spend at the beginning of each match. While there is some decent variety among the weapons they're generally familiar and have obvious roles. There's really nothing unique or special with the exception of the Glider - a piece of tech that works a lot like the parachute in Just Cause. Turn it on and you shoot up into the air ... if you're in the air you can use it to drift down safely.

Gameplay

While Shadowrun lacks a really unique gameplay experience it still manages to deliver a certain amount of fun. If you enjoy playing Halo 2 or CounterStrike online you'll get a kick out of Shadowrun it just may be short-lived. Despite having several maps Shadowrun only offers two types of gameplay. "Attrition" is basically a team death-match while "Raid" is basically capture the flag. Because there are only two factions, only four classes and only two gametypes things can get familiar pretty quick.

There is, however, something immensely fun about jumping on a team and battling it out for supremacy on any given map.

The demo was certainly intriguing enough to warrant getting my hands on the full game but after seeing that it retailed for $60 I went the rental route. Because it lacks any type of true singleplayer game (aside from bot matches) and because it lacks any type of story at all it stands as a rental right now. If it had sold for $40 I could have given it the nod as a purchase but right now the pricetag is too steep.

The final verdict on Shadowrun right now is that it's ideal as a rental but that's about it. Because it relies so heavily on multiplayer gameplay by the time the price drops it'll probably be hard to get any decent matchmaking games setup. Unless you've got several friends with copies you'll probably end up out in the cold. If you're not interested in playing multiplayer you could easily download the demo and get the full game experience as well.

The following review is based on playing through the entire Lost Planet: Extreme Condition campaign on the HARD difficulty. It does not take into account the multi-player game.

One of the first demos I downloaded after my XBox360 purchase was Lost Planet. Even before I really got a chance to play the game I was surprised at how attractive the game was. Having now played it on an HDTV I'm no less impressed by the game's presentation.
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