It prioritizes mindless shooting over anything that looks close to a plot yet somehow manages to still be a great game!
Basically, the player starts Rios and Salem (the protagonists) off Shanghi, China where they are helping another mercenary plant C4 in different locations around the city. The contact and the overall purpose of the mission is unknown to all three and ends (or begins...depending on how you look at it) with everything in the city being blown to kingdom come. Why is everything being blown up?...Who is doing it?...Why are we fighting all of these other mercenaries? The game really takes its time in answering any of these questions and the majority of them don't really get answered until darn near the end of the game. You spend most of the time saving people while trying to get out of Shanghi yourselves and only after a series of events do you eventually cross paths with the responsible party.
With that said, the action in this game is off the hook! All the mechanics from the previous installment are present as well as few extra tricks up its sleaves. No longer do players have to wait at the end of chapters to buy and/or install upgrades to their weaponry. This can be done at anytime during gameplay...except oddly if the player or their partner is holding a sheild. Speaking of weapons, there is an impressive amount of guns and parts to purchase/customize throughout the game. Also, you can now fake a surrender to the enemies or make them surrender. The way "mock surrender" works is that the player unarms themselves, throws their hands up and kneels as if they're actually surrendering and in slow motion they and their partner unleashes a fury of gunfire from their secondary weapons (pistols) on the enemy. This all is done of course in steps by in game button instructions. An enemy unit can surrender to players by grabbing their commanding officer by gunpoint in which they will drop their weapons a kneel...allow the player to tie them all up (which contributes to the new morality system) or kill them all. Its better to do the prior since hostages or item boxes are usually involved with these type of stand offs and if the enemy is fired upon while they are surrending, they will begin firing back and either kill the hostages or lock the item boxes. You want neither of these to happen because rescuing hostages or retrieving the contents of item boxes, usually results in getting crapload of money (which can be used for upgrades) and one of a kind gun enhancements. It also screws with trophy progression for all those achievement hunter out there.
Speaking of which, this is an excellent game to play if you're in to trophy hunting! There are plenty to go after and add a bit more challenge to the game. Many of them can be gained through an epic fail of an exploit that allows players to carry over all of their money and stats from checkpoints in the game to previous checkpoints early in the game. For example, the game will add 2 one of a kind guns in your arsenal to buy if it finds a save file for the previous Army of Two game. These guns are rediculously expensive ($300,000 and $450,000) but are accessable at the very beginning of game unlike many other powerful guns. If the player plays up to the check point after their first moral decision (which I'm going to cover in a moment), they can quit the game, choose to play the entire first chapter over, and all over their money and kills will carry over from the checkpoint! This means that this can be done over and over again until they have enough money to buy these guns and earn a bunch of achievements before stepping foot out of the first chapter!!! This type of scenerio can be done at any point of the game to buy more weapons or earn achievements that require a certain number of kills.
Another new feature to this entry of Army of Two are "moral decisions". In the majority of the chapters of the game, you will be presented with a choice on how to handle a particular situations. The result plays out like scenes from a comic book. Its not mechanic that the game heavily relies on and seems to serve more as something that goes along with the game's overall theme of "moral decomposition" and towards earning particular trophies. However, it is better to choose the immoral chooses the a majority of time because like the hostage/surrender scenerios, it will render the player one of a kind weapons and a load of money to upgrade guns. Plus, players can go back to any checkpoint passed in the game and replay the moral choices to view the results from positive decisions.
The multiplayer is pretty awesome. Many of the modes there are to play in take full advantage of the co-op centered gameplay and even has co-op team (3 or more) gameplay in the form of Extraction mode. In Extraction, the game pits 4 players against swarms of A.I. controlled enemies that increase in number weapon power with each new wave.
My Breakdown:
What's Good:
- None stop action from beginning to end
- Plenty of weapons to buy and customize
- Plenty of items find/earn during gameplay
- Excellent multiplayer
- Moral decisions are fun to watch
- Trophy hunting is fun
- Great voice acting
- Awesome sound and visuals
- A fair amount of difficulty
What's Not-So-Good:
- The game is kind of short
- Hostage situations can get a bit annoying at times
- DLC is ok but nothing special
- A few broken mechanics that are easy to exploit
What's Bad:
- Has a very shallow story
- The hoops you'll have to jump through just to get the "DIY PMC" trophy
- The ending
In all, if any you action junkies are looking for a shoot'em up with non-stop action, a fair amount difficulty, and don't care much for why you're shooting who you're shooting...then this game is definately for you. For anyone else who values a well told and quality story with their trigger happy mayhem...look elsewhere.