Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel: Army has little to offer

The Army of Two series reminds me of Michael Bay's Transformers series - popular, but by no means would you consider them thought-provoking.

 

Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel

From: EA

For: Xbox 360, PS3

Two and a half stars (out of five)

 

When I played Army of Two 40th Day, I'm not sure it even had a story.

In place of that, the game's hook was its two main playable characters, Salem and Rios.

Well, not anymore.

In The Devil's Cartel, for some inexplicable reason, you play the role of Alpha and Bravo, with Salem and Rios relegated to secondary status. To say that Alpha and Bravo are lacking in personality is a vast understatement. A bowl of cornflakes has more personality.

For those new to the series, Army of Two's main point of difference is that it's almost entirely aimed at being played co-operatively, either split-screen or online. The previous games had an ''Aggro'' aspect - if one guy shot at the enemies, they'd focus their fire on him and the other one could sneakily flank. For Devil's Cartel, that's gone as well. In its place, ''Overkill''.

This is really Michael Bay territory, as once your Overkill metre is full, you can become invulnerable and your (unlimited) regular bullets suddenly cause enormous explosions, all in glorious slow-mo. While it's all very impressive, it's hardly making use of the co-operative nature of the game.

What it does do better this time around is the story (it has one). This time around, you're in Mexico hunting down a drug cartel. It's not going to win any awards for its depth, but I've got to give it points for trying.

Visually it is pretty good, but there are a few wee niggles when playing split-screen. Enemies in the game tend to attack you from reasonably far away, and hide behind cover.

When playing split-screen, this makes them extremely difficult to see, unless you're using a sniper rifle (which is a one hit-kill, and is awesome). They also tend to appear out of nowhere, which means that if you get caught short exploring the areas, it's a one way ticket back to the previous checkpoint.

Mercifully, there are regularly-spaced checkpoints (every 10-15 minutes).

As anyone who has played Ratchet and Clank: All 4 One will know, there is nothing worse than being forced to play hour-long levels (at the very least) just to reach the next checkpoint.

Co-op games should be suited to short bursts of playing, and Devil's Cartel, to its credit, recognises this.

In terms of value for money, the story campaign is as long as most games are these days, in that it'll provide a distraction for a few nights at most. Most games pad this out with a multiplayer mode, but not here. Online multiplayer is restricted to co-op only, and replay value is low, as a result.

Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel is not a bad game by any means. It's not broken or flawed in the way that a game like Aliens Colonial Marines is. It's just nothing to write home about.

There's nothing about it that makes you want to play it for hours on end, and when it's competing with titles such as BioShock Infinite, it's difficult to recommend.

Best left to the bargain bin vultures.

- by Simon Bishop