Army of Two Progress Report

February 15, 2008 - Last October, EA made a decision to push back Army of Two, their upcoming co-op action title, from its initial release date of November 15th to early 2008. This was probably a wise move to help the title stand out, particularly with Mass Effect, Rock Band and Assassin's Creed all being released within a seven day period. It was surprising, particularly because the title seemed to be complete and ready to ship. However, EA Montreal decided to take the extra time to revamp and even remove some gameplay elements that they felt weren't working particularly well, making the game into the title they always wanted it to be.

As a result, the game that will be released on March 4th will be a leaner, cleaner title -- both visually and in terms of gameplay. As we grabbed the controls, Reid Schneider, the Senior Producer of Army of Two, pointed out a number of changes that have been made since our last hands-on session, primarily as a result of extended focus testing for three months. The first -- and most obvious -- tweaks are within the HUD, which have radically streamlined the artwork. Gone are the larger icons that indicated player health, the Aggrometer that dominated the upper center of the screen and the kill count meter. Now, players will receive visual updates as to the number of kills they've made and cash they've received for objectives during checkpoints only.



Players will only see the health meter of their partner as a slim bar as well; their own health meter won't be shown in favor of the screen slowly turning red and obscuring your vision, as well as a heartbeat sound and vibration as you take damage. Finally, weapon reticles have been tweaked to appear different for each gun, and players can toggle a partner cam feed to continually have an idea of their partner's position. This is particularly useful in the midst of a battle if he falls and needs to be healed before he died.

However, you won't be healing your ally with the tampon mini-game that we've previously reported on. Schneider mentioned that the co-op mechanic with the tampons felt like it removed players from the action, and the three healing attempts before death mechanic was too difficult for some testers to achieve. As a result, while players will now be able to infinitely heal their partners, they'll be able to return to the fight faster and improve their kill count quicker than before. Losing the tampon mini-game isn't the only subtraction to the gameplay; the developers eliminated the dune buggy and tank sequences that were initially found within the game because their controls were somewhat unwieldy and their inclusion was unnecessary to the story itself. Some of the language was eliminated as well; the script didn't become PG rated, but some of the repetitive curse words that were simply thrown in were eliminated because it weakened the dialogue.

Kiss this old HUD goodbye.
Kiss this old HUD goodbye.
Enemies have received a few new adjustments to how they respond to game situations. The first one is that enemy troops have a much stronger AI, which is a result of an additional three months of programming. Now, players won't be able to simply run for cover and continually lay down suppressing fire on one spot. Enemies will throw grenades, perform flanking maneuvers and continually attempt to get behind you to ambush your forces and injure you faster. Enemies that you eliminate will animate differently based on what they're shot with, and you'll have the opportunity to blow up opponents with a larger number of explosives scattered around stages. What's more, once you kill enemies, you no longer have to worry about finding their guns to replenish your ammo stores. Now, you'll be able to pick up the ammo packs left behind from dead soldiers.



Speaking of the guns, the developers noted that many testers mentioned that the guns didn't feel particularly right in previous builds of the game. They didn't reflect the power of the firearms or the recoil accurately, which could make it too easy to draw a bead on someone and continually fire on the same spot. The final version of the game now fully takes recoil into effect, forcing players to fire in quick, short bursts to maximize their accuracy in battle. This was demonstrated to great effect on the environment, which is featuring brand new particle effects as bullets strike different materials. Not only will the size of the bullet holes be different based on what it hits (i.e. concrete holes will be much larger than that of reinforced metal or steel), the resulting debris that sprays from it will react dynamically.



One of the other things that we noticed within the game was the thoroughly engaging multiplayer, which we jumped right into. Multiplayer will still be two against two, and will let players fight across maps set in Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq or China. While the game will ship with four maps at launch, new maps will be released every month thereafter to help expand the gameplay. In fact, we were told that the developers plan on supporting the multiplayer side of the game for a long time because of the nature of the gameplay. Based on the mode you choose, such as Extraction, Assassination or Warzones, objectives will continually respawn in, giving you multiple jobs to accomplish as you eliminate the other team and AI controlled soldiers.

We were also told that the developers are working on a new gameplay mode which is similar to an American Gladiators-style arena, where both teams will be tasked with performing co-op moves to get through obstacle courses. Not only will you need to try to clear these hazards as quickly as possible, you'll need to avoid incoming fire from the rival team which is attempting to do the same thing. If a team is blasted, they return to the beginning of the course and have to start all over again. Sounds like players will need to have their teamwork down if they want to rule this mode.