August 2010
July 2010Joker's Semi-Regular Rants
Yo, this is my take on video games in general or whatever the hell else I want it to be!!!
Joker's Blog
Army of Two: First Look???
by Joker on Sat Sep 06, 2008 2:46 am
(originally posted Thu Mar 06, 2008 3:05 pm)
OK, well my first thoughts on the game (the single player campaign) is that this game is awesome for what it delivers. As a CO-OP style game, even in single payer, it's really cool all of the stuff you can do with your AI partner. One of the neatest things you can do is the CO-OP Snipe!!!
Being that this game is really made for you and a buddy to team up and take people out together, I can't help but think that I'm missing out on something. So, I picked the game up yesterday around 2pm and played for about an hour, then later played for a couple more hours, then after I got home from Hockey, I played for about 4 hours. When I awoke this morning, I played for about an hour or two and completed the story.
Yeah, it was a little short, but hell it was game packed full of action and intrigue. I played it on the Contractor level as that was the highest available right off the bat, and it was challenging at some points, but after you get the hang of what you're supposed to be doing as a team, the game really comes to you.
First I want to list my little complaints about the game, and then I'll get into what's great about it.
Customization! This game touted that you could customize your weapons and appearance, and in my opinion, it fell a little short in that area. Sure you can customize what you put on your weapons, like ammo clip, front grip, grenade launcher, even a shield, but when it comes to the appearance, all you can do is give it a gold or platinum-plating job! You're also decked out head to toe in armor, and you can't customize your armor in any way shape or form. You do get to purchase a new mask if you'd like, but there's no customization on the masks themselves, other than you paying another 10 grand for a new mask. So, IMO they kinda failed in the customization aspect of the game, but it's not a deal breaker.
Aiming? Well, at least this game doesn't have auto-aim! However, when someone is rushing you, and you try to put your cursor over them to shoot them, it is a little difficult to draw a bead on them and keep it on them. The computer AI simply moves too fast for this to be a constant. My setting was at HIGH sensitivity, so I might try it at VERY HIGH to see if that helps. But that's it, aiming is only an issue when someone rushes you.
AI! Well, at least when I was plying my partner's AI wasn't all that great. In the very last mission, I had 140 kills and he had 30, so much for "an Army of Two", it was more like an Army of One with an occasional kill by your buddy. However, you can instruct your partner to do a variety of different functions, and that part is extremely cool. I just wish he'd kill his fair share of baddies.
OK, well that's ALL of the negatives for single player mission, yep that's it. Here comes the positives...
Cooperative Game Play with the computer!!! The game brings and awesome idea to this genre, computer CO-OP. You're a two man team, and you really need to act as a team in order to complete most of the missions. You can get your partner to lay cover fire, to be aggressive and take the heat off of you, to switch weapons with you, or to CO-OP SNIPE!!! This last part is cool as all get out. You each line up your target and as soon as you pull the trigger, so does your partner, and BANG! both dead! Another nice aspect of this type of gameplay is what they call the "Aggro" meter. Basically you can take all of the attention on or away from you with the aggro meter rendering you invisible to the computer AI. It's a cool little feature, and I can't wait to see how it plays out online!
Interesting Story Line! Yes, a shooter video game that has some sort of cinematic feel towards it's plot. You kinda get drawn into what's happening to the characters, what they're going through, and how they feel, again, big plus!
Dialog? Yep there's plenty of dialog in the game and most of it is between the two main characters. They use "bro" a lot, almost to the point of it being comical. They also kid around a lot with each other, which I'm sure takes the edge off a little bit with what's happening around them.
Believability? Yep, there's plenty of it. You start out the game with a little training exercise while your characters are in the Army (something all games should have), and jump ahead a few years to where they're now in the Private Sector and you can tell a lot has happened to these guys. Oh yeah, did you know they put out a graphic novel for this game? I wonder if it deals with the time gaps in the game? I'm buying it and I'll update you later.
Difficulty. Some games nowadays are far too easy to complete and many times are often extremely short. While this game's story mode is a little short (perhaps 10 hours? - I lost track), the difficulty of the levels and how it progresses is reassuring. You go into a level guns a blazin' and die immediately. You have to use the game's two man team type of thing to even have a chance at being successful, and that's great!
Well, I think that's about it for this game and it's single player campaign mode. I'll try to squeeze a few games of online CO-OP and see if there's enough to write another blog about that. But do stay tuned for the graphic novel blog, I can't wait for that to hit my doorstep!!!
OK, well my first thoughts on the game (the single player campaign) is that this game is awesome for what it delivers. As a CO-OP style game, even in single payer, it's really cool all of the stuff you can do with your AI partner. One of the neatest things you can do is the CO-OP Snipe!!!
Being that this game is really made for you and a buddy to team up and take people out together, I can't help but think that I'm missing out on something. So, I picked the game up yesterday around 2pm and played for about an hour, then later played for a couple more hours, then after I got home from Hockey, I played for about 4 hours. When I awoke this morning, I played for about an hour or two and completed the story.
Yeah, it was a little short, but hell it was game packed full of action and intrigue. I played it on the Contractor level as that was the highest available right off the bat, and it was challenging at some points, but after you get the hang of what you're supposed to be doing as a team, the game really comes to you.
First I want to list my little complaints about the game, and then I'll get into what's great about it.
Customization! This game touted that you could customize your weapons and appearance, and in my opinion, it fell a little short in that area. Sure you can customize what you put on your weapons, like ammo clip, front grip, grenade launcher, even a shield, but when it comes to the appearance, all you can do is give it a gold or platinum-plating job! You're also decked out head to toe in armor, and you can't customize your armor in any way shape or form. You do get to purchase a new mask if you'd like, but there's no customization on the masks themselves, other than you paying another 10 grand for a new mask. So, IMO they kinda failed in the customization aspect of the game, but it's not a deal breaker.
Aiming? Well, at least this game doesn't have auto-aim! However, when someone is rushing you, and you try to put your cursor over them to shoot them, it is a little difficult to draw a bead on them and keep it on them. The computer AI simply moves too fast for this to be a constant. My setting was at HIGH sensitivity, so I might try it at VERY HIGH to see if that helps. But that's it, aiming is only an issue when someone rushes you.
AI! Well, at least when I was plying my partner's AI wasn't all that great. In the very last mission, I had 140 kills and he had 30, so much for "an Army of Two", it was more like an Army of One with an occasional kill by your buddy. However, you can instruct your partner to do a variety of different functions, and that part is extremely cool. I just wish he'd kill his fair share of baddies.
OK, well that's ALL of the negatives for single player mission, yep that's it. Here comes the positives...
Cooperative Game Play with the computer!!! The game brings and awesome idea to this genre, computer CO-OP. You're a two man team, and you really need to act as a team in order to complete most of the missions. You can get your partner to lay cover fire, to be aggressive and take the heat off of you, to switch weapons with you, or to CO-OP SNIPE!!! This last part is cool as all get out. You each line up your target and as soon as you pull the trigger, so does your partner, and BANG! both dead! Another nice aspect of this type of gameplay is what they call the "Aggro" meter. Basically you can take all of the attention on or away from you with the aggro meter rendering you invisible to the computer AI. It's a cool little feature, and I can't wait to see how it plays out online!
Interesting Story Line! Yes, a shooter video game that has some sort of cinematic feel towards it's plot. You kinda get drawn into what's happening to the characters, what they're going through, and how they feel, again, big plus!
Dialog? Yep there's plenty of dialog in the game and most of it is between the two main characters. They use "bro" a lot, almost to the point of it being comical. They also kid around a lot with each other, which I'm sure takes the edge off a little bit with what's happening around them.
Believability? Yep, there's plenty of it. You start out the game with a little training exercise while your characters are in the Army (something all games should have), and jump ahead a few years to where they're now in the Private Sector and you can tell a lot has happened to these guys. Oh yeah, did you know they put out a graphic novel for this game? I wonder if it deals with the time gaps in the game? I'm buying it and I'll update you later.
Difficulty. Some games nowadays are far too easy to complete and many times are often extremely short. While this game's story mode is a little short (perhaps 10 hours? - I lost track), the difficulty of the levels and how it progresses is reassuring. You go into a level guns a blazin' and die immediately. You have to use the game's two man team type of thing to even have a chance at being successful, and that's great!
Well, I think that's about it for this game and it's single player campaign mode. I'll try to squeeze a few games of online CO-OP and see if there's enough to write another blog about that. But do stay tuned for the graphic novel blog, I can't wait for that to hit my doorstep!!!
