Army of One and Half.

Oh. Dear.

That is my responce to Army of Two.How can you screw up a game with such a simple concept, this bad?

A quick summary of the story:

Rios and Salem are two hired mercenaries who start to get a little suspicious about their boss and co-workers as they begin to spiral into more and more trouble. Or so

that is what I gathered from the rather pathetic story line. It had so much potential, and it is just gunned down. The wafer thin story line has so much back story that

isn't developed. Why can't we play through the years shown in a particular cutscene? Because the game is litterally too generic and repetive to do so.

The explosive montage cutscene towards the begining was the highlight of the game. The polish of the cutscenes in the game, with the rather cell shaded textures and

bold colours. So why does the game have such a bland and lackluster settings for it's missions? Why do the graphics look generic and flat? If you can work cutscenes

like that, I'm sure you can make a decent looking game.

The combat does a good job- if you have a secondary human controlling the other member of the group. The AI in this game is flabagasting. Never have I seen such poor AI

from a well funded game. Let me give you an example of what happened to make me hate it so much: I had gotten myself into a spot of bother with some terrorists, and

needed assistance from my good chap Salem. As he wandered over to me, walking right past the enemy troops and dragging me from decent cover I had, to the begining of

the checkpoint. From there he ran forward and took out most of the men shooting those darn bullets, and left me to die. When he had finished, he began to walk in

circles until I had perished. Another time, in a simple 'puzzle' the game had given us the task of, was to press a switch, so that I could open a door on the other

side. The AI walked past the switch and out the door. Leaving me stranded on the other side awaiting his return. The enemy AI has no problems, they take good cover, and

shoot you. So why can't my guy do the simple task of pressing a goddamned switch?!

The best is when you get knocked down. You sit like a primary school student, awaiting to be dragged around and healed. You can't move, but you can shoot. This is

painful to watch, as the enemy disappears behind the wall, and you can't crawl to do such things as, blast his face.

The cover mechanic in this game is confusing. It works, but has this odd feeling about it. It isn't Gears of War, where it is clear you are taking cover, but you crouch

and you'll nestle in nicely, or press why and you'll be flung from your spot to a near by wall. It works, but it seems a little light. No solid ground being taken. The

guns also don't feel solid when you shoot. There isn't any feedback from getting a satisfying headshot. Once you unlock a particular gun, it becomes more fun, but

that's not the point. Why should I wait to unlock fun? You have a whole range of guns to choose from, but you end up just sticking to one sort, and upgrading it.

Another mechaninc which was also a high point in the game, was the Aggro Meter. Now this, is how games should do it more often. What this does is, the more you shoot

and the type of gun it is, the more aggro you'll pull towards you, making the enemies focus on the Rambo of the team. This also means you can activate Overkill, a

mindless feature in which you get two times the damage on enemies. The one with the least aggro can then sneak up on enemies and take them out.

The back to back feature was poorly used. It was used at the wrong times and the wrong places. Why couldn't it be used in the boring final shoot out to make things a

little more exhilarating?

'Boss' fights were umongst the most useless things in the game. Along with the sniper rifle, Co-Op Snipe, (the AI partner kept declining, when it could've proved

useful). They are basically the more stronger enemies that you see scattering the stages. Shoot till one has more aggro, and run behind and shoot. Boring, tedious and

just downright dumb. To add to this, there is no actual character or build up to fighting them, it sort of just happens without you knowing. This doesn't help when the

boss tends to be half way down the map, and if you die, you have to rewatch the unimaginative cutscene all over again.

Army of Two. More like Army of One and a Half, if you play how I did. Dear lord, please don't. If you do have to play this game, please find someone willing to waste

their time. It is just so boring and unoriginal. The guns don't feel great, and the mechanics are wasted. The enemies are bland and the antagonists are goofy and daft.

I have little hopes for the sequel and this has put an impression on me, as to where the third person shooter genre is going. Boring, generic, cover based shooters. Oh dear.

Retro Binge: Super Castlevania IV

Ah, Castlevania. For those of patience and skill. If you don't meet these requirements, you are surely to be enraged and throw your controller through the 16 inch TV.

The story is sufficent enough, nothing compared to other SNES games, but it suffices enough, as you won't be concentrating on such things we take for granted today. You are here to beat down Dracula, and you are doing it as fast as you can.In a way, it is a remake of the original Castlevania from the NES, just with improvements and a complete make over.

Castlevania is known for its difficulty, and its nuisences.For example, the original Castlevania trilogy, when the player was hit, he would fly backwards, and usually into a pit; resulting in death. This little punch in the balls, was slightly fixed by three, with platforms being cleverly placed within a level, to prevent death- this carries over to Four, but the whole thing should have been removed. It isn't game breaking, but it is incredibly annoying.

If you do die, you are sent back to the start of that particular screen, no shits and giggles in this game. If you die, you are going through hell to get to where you have been. You will also lose the metal and more powerful whip, and have to recover it again before you can start kicking demon ass properly. This isn't hard though, with the classic Castlevania candles littering the stages, even the outside areas, leave power-ups, and usually subtle upgrades for the whip. Whether it be making it a metal or even longer whip. Among the other power-ups, which consist of: holy water; the cross; knives and axes, hearts will fall from the candles. These do not replenish life, but infact are your ammunition for the weapons you aquire. When you die, you lose all the hearts you collected and restart with five. Again, no shits and giggles. If you don't concentrate, you are going to be cussing like a fishwife.

While on the subject of weapons, the whip has now been given a feature of eight way movement. This makes it the most advanced whip out of the entire series; it was dropped for later 2D Castlevanias, in which Simon Belmont was involved.


The game requires you to have utter control over Simon Belmont, pure concentration and the ability to time jumps and whip lashes together to bring down enemies. Failing to do so, will result in death. And once again, brought to that dreaded remastered 8-bit death tune. But with the games utterly tight controls, you shan't fail because of the game, but because of your own skill.

For a game that tried to distill a slight horror tinge on the gamers of yesteryear, once you leave the start screen and it's chilling music, it becomes more scary for the game's uncanny ability to turn you into a raging monster yourself. The monsters in the game are incredibly unfair if they get the advantage on you. The easier enemies- such as skeletons- are not so much of a hassle one on one, but when three decide to gang up on you, you better be able to be quick on your feet. Flying enemies are incredibly annoying, and over powered. Bats shouldn't be able to destroy such a powerful man, and the Madusa heads hadn't been given a correct pattern. The stronger looking enemies are a complete piss take now. With Simon's whip, you can let it hang loose by holding the attack button. This gives you an incredibly unfair advantage over them - I'm not one to complain but I found some enemies a little too easy. Knights in the first Castlevania were the one of the most feared to the 8-bit gamer. 9 hits with the whip and almost impossible to hit without getting touched. But in IV, you have this loose spin with the whip, meaning a less powerful hit, but if you can find a ledge in which the knight cannot reach you, it'll be dead in no time. This was amusing to me. How much we have progressed with AI. Now a days, the enemy would clamber to you and destroy you if you camped, but in this, it cannot leave it's path.

The levels are cleverly designed and much fun to plough through. The whip is one of the most fun weapons I have used in a while, and the enemies are imaginitive and downright hard to defeat at times. Leaving this game was hard for me, and after beating down Dracula, I went through it all over again. Todays games do not do this as often as they should, with replayability litterally due to achievments.

Fuck achievments.