Army of Two Isn't So Awesome, Says Xbox World

Blog Style or Sort By Most Bumps This... Day Week Month Life

Army of Two Isn't So Awesome, Says Xbox WorldPosted 7:59pm Thu Dec 06, 2007 by Aaron Dunlap Tags: army of two, delays, EA, xbox world

At E3 2006, the biggest show in the history of the event, I was shepherded through the thumping mosh pit that was the EA booth by a company rep and led behind a rope and up a flight of stairs into their media demonstration area. It was there that I first saw Amy of Two.

I didn't get to play it; rather, I watched it being played in a room outfitted with two televisions and four Xbox 360s (a debug and retail version for each TV). The small, unventilated room was like a furnace thanks to the heat-machine 360s, but despite the involuntary sauna treatment, I absolutely loved what I saw. Army of Two is a game featuring two protagonists, the secondary character can either be controlled by a buddy in co-op mode or controlled by AI following voice commands given by you.

The voice command feature rocked my socks. The player would speak into his Xbox Live headset commands such as "shoot those guys," "cover me," "help me up," "I need ammo, and so on. I wanted that game so badly and I wanted it to be good.

Xbox World, who had a chance to play around with the code that would have shipped this month, says that what they saw was absolutely horrible.

The game received many release pushbacks, including a recent release-change from November/December 2007 to first-quarter 2008. The extra few months will have to be spent doing some serious fixing, Xbox World says.

They say the two characters are supposed to seem "rebelious" but actually come off as completely unlikeable, and that the entire story is chock full of a ridiculous amount of violence and swear words and comes off as adolescent. Hmm, that sounds like another game I played recently. Unlike Kane & Lynch, though, Army of Two isn't being shoved out the door and the delay may actually give the developers a chance to straighten things up.