Gamernode: News - Pro Tip: Army of Two

Pro Tip: Army of Two

Category: Features, Posted: 03/27/2008 at 01:24PM CDT by Creighton DeSimone, Staff Writer

protip Welcome back to Pro Tip. This week we're tackling Army of Two, bro. Overall the game is... interesting. Yeah, I'm definitely going to go with interesting. Although I haven't played through the whole game, I feel I am able to make that call at this time.

Thus far, I have played the game entirely with my roommate and from a purely co-op perspective, I'll say it is absolutely worth grabbing. I can't imagine this game without actual human co-op and I'm pretty sure that is exactly what EA wanted. We know that 6 out of 5 times relying on AI in a game will lead to disastrous results so, yeah, make a friend.

Even though the game is pretty straight forward it does have some cool new game mechanics; the use of aggro being my favorite. This tactic requires one guy to distract your enemies by shooting a whole lot while the other literally become invisible and can sneak around the backside to, ideally, melee someone in the back of the face.

Pro Tip: It's a shooter, don't try and melee your enemies.

Though you may really, really, really want to shove the hilt of your gun into the face of a terrorist, EA doesn't want you to. Where most games will map melee to a certain button (like B for example), Army of Two doesn't have a dedicated button for melee. Seriously. Wanna have a brodown, that's mapped to A, but melee is the same button as shooting your weapon.

On paper, that sounds extremely logical: just push the same button for shooting and when your close enough it will melee. Unfortunately, it doesn't ever work out that way. Instead when you think your close enough, you will pull the trigger and either shoot the guy or miss shooting the guy.

If you miss, which happens more times than you'd expect, the terrorist literally kicks you in the balls; I kid you not. He actually turns around and kicks you in the balls. There's nothing more frustrating in a video game than getting kicked in the balls, especially when you are trying to execute a move that has become a mainstay in the shooter genre.

The targeting system and the guns work just fine and I think you'll find everything else, except the cover system, pretty OK as well. So please, do me a solid favor, just shoot at your enemies and don't try getting too close. But if you insist on venturing close to the enemy, at least wear a cup.

Posted by ninjalegend on 03/27/2008 at 01:53PM

Uncharted has spoiled me in the shooter melee style. Super effective, but if you do it in the open, you are a sitting target. Plus, you can do punches, throw people against a wall and beat them, a martial art style combo, and even a neck break takedown. I did also like gears of war's chainsaw. Simple but fun.

Posted by tigger on 03/27/2008 at 04:03PM

i found the melee attacks in army of two quite easy to be honest, and there effective as well; i used them all the time. Also, in my experience the cover system worked perfectly.

The AI is very good: the few times ive played on my own, the ai partner is responsive, intelligent and helpful (which i cant honestly always say about the people ive played with :p )

Posted by Conner on 03/27/2008 at 04:51PM

I figured this out quite quickly in the game. I am so used to Call of Duty 4 and Halo 3 that I want to melee almost every person I see. Plus in this game, you die very easily. So watch out.

Posted by BahamutBBob on 03/27/2008 at 11:31PM

I dunno what you were playing, but I found the cover system easier than in Gears of War, simply because you don't have to hit a button to actually use an object as cover. By the way, if you haven't played Gears of War, the cover system is easy to use in that game.