Army of two Notes

Story

Not much intro. We are soldiers in the us army.

We have been ordered to keep tabs, ride shotgun with a mercenary on a mission to assasinate someone called  Mo Alim.

We meet up with Clyde and he's an asshole of epic proportions.

Clyde lets us kill Moalim for him and take the cash for himself.

The wo heroes are tired of being ordered around to do anything and work with anyone. They take the offer to work for Security and strategy corporation, a private security firm, read mercenaries. This is five years prior and we then fast forward two the twin towers and it's off to afghanistan for a mission.

We are to infiltrate an old missile base which a terrorist cell is trying to reactivate. There is also a bonus for rescuing the previous soldier who tried to kill the terrorist and killing the terrorist himself.

Now on to iraq

Little comment dialogue between the two characters, about how one of them is betting 10 grand on a football game. Little comment on how the mercs are making a killing from the war.

ONe we blow up the warheads kill the terrorist and save the guy one of the grunts thinks there is something wrong with this mission out of the blue. strange.

Next mission is a carrier that has been hijacked by terrorists.

On the carrier mission clyde is back. We catch him up to know good. and give chase.

We find he has been selling troop movements to terrorists.

Now we find that the carrier is rigged with nukes and set to go to manilla and blow up. We have to sink it. which we do killing the captain.

We see some debate between senators, one wishes the privatisation of the military the other opposed.

The heroes debate the safety of going back to ssc and go off the radar for a bit.

Then stupidly decide to do one last missions for ssc before going public with the evidence that SSC operatives are screwing the real army.

It looks like ssc are trying to make the real army look bad by giving out info to terrorists. Then by doing everything right are trying to convince the senate that the military should be privatised and thus win the real money. Looks like our heros have cracked into the plan and must now be eliminated.

The mission turns out to be bogus and our boys have just blown up the senator opposed to the privatisation bill.

Now they have a huge price on their heads.

During the escape from china Murray the boy's radio operator is attacked.

She seems to be unaware of the plot and on the good guys side.

So it's off to rescue her and get to Dalton in the process.

Clyde turns up on the plane and in a nice cut scene, the military shoot them down as the three have a gunfight on the plane. Seems that clyde has gone down with the plane while out heroes escape in a hovercraft with parachutes. Have the feeling it's not the last we will see of Clyde.

Save Murray who is being held captive in marathon airport, we then have to go after Dalton. WHo it seems is the real rat here.

Storming the airport we rescue Murray.

THen on to ssc headquarters where we storm the building and eventually kill CLyde and Dalton.

The aftermath sees the two heroes set up their own pmc and invited Murray back to join them.

Gameplay

340 points over 5 days play. On contracter difficulty which unlocked the hardest so I can't play on it first time. Most ungot achievements are killing with specific weapons or in specific ways, in overkill, melee etc. Probably would need conscious effort of using specific weapons to achieve.

Choose either Rios or Salem character

Introduces the aggro meter, which simply means that the a.i. will ignore the player who doesn't shoot at them and concentrate on the one who is shooting.

Training misssion

Basic controls, no real cover system a la gears or uncharted, you can just duck behind walls.

Aggro system means that when an enemy is engaged by your partner they won't notice you unless you shoot or get right in their face.

You can trade weapons with each other.

Co-op snipe means that you can choose two targets and snipe them at the same time.

Back to back mode sends things into bullet time and you circle back to back and take out surrounding enemies.

it even does that bong for whom the bell tolls when all the enemies in an area are dead, like gears did.

little note to developers. when booting a game i don't expect to have to watch what I am doing to get back to where i left off the last time. You have to be careful and make sure you choose to start the game at the last checkpoint and also on the difficulty level you were playing on. I should just have to say resume, option for a new game etc should be firmly out of the way unless i want them. Especially when you are only afforded one save slot.

level 1

assasinate someone called  Mo Alim.

Keep tabs on Clyde.

Introduces step jump, you punt up your partner and they in turn pull you up.

Little shootout in the street until we meet up with clyde.

Into a courtyard where Moalim makes a speech and then lets his men attack, we do the back to back thing and then have to pull a chain to make a wall collapse so we can get up to the balcony.

Once up there we fight Mo-alim and kill him, he drops a grenade and we dive off the balcony and meet up with clyde

Now it's securing the landing zone. We fight through the market and get to turret guns.

The helicopter arrives and its into it and end of mission 1.

Level 2

You get to go shopping with your cash.

parachuting is introduced.

baddies with bombs strapped to them come running at you, bit controversial.

The system where you are shot and drop injured needs a bit of work. It's nice that your a.i partner will come and drag you around and then heal you, but in practice he seems to drag you around aimlessly for a bit then heal you.

I think you have to be in an enemy free zone.

We blow up a missile and then have to base jump to the next area further down the mountain.

We get to a sort of airlock which is the join between two maps.

big areas with lots of baddies, have to blow up launching missiles before they launch, ends mission if you don't do it in time, back to last checkpoint.

One of those guys that needs to be flanked to kill, using aggro.

into a gas filled bunker to find the hostage, but he isn't here it's only a tape.

Found a collectible. money and possibly achievements.

Find the hostage and one of you has to carry him out as he is injured. You cans still shoot but walk really slowly.

Now it's down into the basement of the bunker to kill alhabib and blow up the warheads.

Big shoot out in gantries with alhabib and then we blow up the warheads.

Level 3

We are to find corporal eisenhower who is being held prisoner in a base by iraqi's who have taken it from the Americans.

We storm it and rescue him.

Only to have his chopper blown out of the sky.

A terrorist called Ali Yousef claims responsibilty. Time for revenge.

We are given a tip that he is in a house nearby and storm it.There we chase out one of his deputies who calls him on his cellphone, which is intercepted and we get his location, and blow up the deputy as he gets away in his helicopter.

Now on the main bad guy.

Who leads us a merry dance.

Eventually we catch him up and he has a big helicopter gun.

Level 4

On an aircraft carrier, running around aimlessly on the rather nice deck.

Died behind a crate and the a.i. partner stood looking for me for about a minute until i died, it was circling three sides of the crate i was behind.

Lost here as to objectives. Have to disable planes, though only four out of 10 and it's hard to know which. Had to find one openable door out of fifty. there is a gps thing which shows the way when you remember how to use it though silly me.

Catch clyde up to no good.

Recover his usb drive and find he has been seling troop movements to the terrorists.

next we have to sink the carrier before it gets to manilla and make it a nuclear crater.

We put two nukes somewhere and detonate them. Captain dies too.

Nice sequence where we run up the tilting deck of the sinking ship.

Level 5 china

Destroy a bridge as a big leader goes over it. Turns out it's the wrong move and our boys are now on the run with a huge price on their head.

Bridge blowing up is nicely done.

Hovercraft section now.

Driving around, seems tacked on, reminds me of perfect dark zero only worse.

mucking about with switches to make a canal lock work, jumping in and out of hovercraft, can only enter and leave boat when the game presents you with the opportunity.

Big shoot out in a railway yard and escape by train.

Level 6

Rescue Murray from SSC.

Start at Marathon airport.

Fight way through huge airport lounge and into baggage, muck about with a ramp that needs swivelled around. Then you have to get out with Murray who is of course injured and needs carried.

The co-op mechanisms are a bit glitchy. You press use and it summons the other guy but somtimes does not work and you have to stop and press the button again.

We rescue Murray and are sent after dalton.

Some more hovercraft and mucking about getting power to a monorail. Nice graphics for water in hurricaine lashed florida. On rails monorail ride with bazooka men around the edges.

huge gun battle with lots of soldiers in lobby of ssc building, have to climb onto roof of elevator to bypass security.

What do you know clyde is alive and bodyguard to Dalton.

We have a shoot out with his private bodyguards and manage to upload encriminating data to our own ftp site. SO we can out Dalton to the world.

Noted here that the a.i. partner seems to be unable to respond to advance command. I suppse it's waiting for us to do some objective, but it also stops it from shooting and distracting the armoured guard for us.

checkpoint placed unfairly here.

a.i. if fucking thick, it just advanced into ten soldiers rather than retreat to heal me.

The ridiculous threats that clyde makes here have got to be jokes, and not serious, i mean taking out all their bones and blood and sitting them on a stage with elves and reindeer, sitting on their knees and tellling them what he wants for christmas isn't insane it's just a pisstake of action movies in general.

I hope.

We catch up with clyde and in a cut scene fight we take him out by dropping him out of the building. On to a scene where we blow up the helicopter of Dalton.