Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel Review

Playing Dumb.

→ March 29, 2013 Army of Two has lost its way. While it never really grew into a huge franchise, it deserves much better than this lacklustre third instalment. After two decent games, The Devil’s Cartel is a mediocre sequel that seems to have forgotten what the series is all about.

One thing Army of Two used to be about is how it brought a cheesy bro-fisting attitude to its co-op shooting. Refreshingly, it never took itself very seriously, with a brash yet rather endearing love of the stupid. For example, after surviving a firefight, brothers in arms Salem and Rios could break out the air guitars to celebrate.

But in The Devil’s Cartel those irreverent asides have gone, and to a large extent, so have Salem and Rios. The mostly enjoyable duo has been pushed into supporting roles,

letting new recruits Alpha and Bravo step into the spotlight – only to promptly waste it. The change in focus may be essential to the story – and I don’t want to tread into spoiler territory – but I will say that fans of the previous games will likely feel aggrieved by the direction it takes. Alpha and Bravo have none of the bickering camaraderie that defined their predecessors. Comedic asides still punctuate firefights, but they’re frequently misjudged and poorly delivered. "Bullet cancer", seriously? There’s a very fine line between being knowingly stupid – see Bulletstorm – and just being an idiot. Alpha and Bravo are simply morons, and bland ones at that.

The story is equally insipid, following the un-dynamic duo to Mexico on a mission to rescue a political hostage from a drug cartel's private army. But Mexico never feels like an authentic place. A variety of locations are toured – from war-torn luxury hotels to candlelit graveyards, crowded inner-city slums, and rusty scrapyards – but they all feel drab and lifeless. Even locales teeming with Day of the Dead decorations and boxes stuffed full of exploding fireworks feels flat. There’s no bustle to these city streets – they’re eerily unpopulated, except for wave after unending wave of cookie-cutter enemies. The best thing about these insipid environments is that you get to destroy them, which looks unexpectedly good.

It didn't take long for the seven-hour campaign to devolve into one relentless slog, irritatingly punctuated by frequent score updates that add little to the overall experience. You’re awarded points for different types of kills and performing co-op actions, but even as your ranking increases there's very little real impact on gameplay. New guns and gear unlock, but the arsenal is small and lacks real personality.

Unlike the previous two Army of Two games, Devil's Cartel has no competitive multiplayer, which EA justified by claiming they wanted to create a “very intense co-op campaign”. This is baffling, since interaction between the two player characters seems less central to the experience than ever before. Sure, the riot shield puts in an appearance and flanking is sometimes the most expedient course of action, but these moments are infrequent. For the most part, it doesn’t feel like a co-op experience at all. You can progress just as easily by simply looking out for yourself.

Even when playing that way, Devil’s Cartel is disappointingly simplified and less varied compared to previous entries. There’s no ‘aggro’ meter or morality moments this time around; only the fundamentals remain. You’ll still rescue hostages, escort VIPs, man turrets both on the ground and in the air, make last stands in open spaces, and flank turrets. You’ll do that again and again, in a variety of bland, lifeless locations: in churches, in hotels, in junkyards, and haciendas that somehow manage to always feel the same. It attempts to relieve the monotony with set-pieces but they’re underwhelming moments.

One new addition is the Overkill Mode, which makes you invincible for a limited time and gives each bullet extra, explosive damage. It occasionally got me out of trouble and is especially useful when taking on brutes, but it can't save the pacing of this campaign. After a while, Devil’s Cartel settles into a monotonous rhythm from which it never deviates.

Shooting things over and over again can still be a good time if the actual gameplay mechanics are innately satisfying. But here, they’re not – they’re just infuriatingly shoddy and counterintuitive. The cover system is by far the worst offender. Moving between cover is unnecessarily tricky – I couldn’t always select the cover I wanted and sometimes I couldn’t get into cover at all. You have to hold down the left analogue to run, which is awkward when you’re also using it to shift between and move out of cover. This is all painfully exacerbated by how little mobility the main characters possess. Alpha and Bravo can’t even roll to avoid enemy fire. Frequently, I got shot through no fault of my own. I was supposed to be an elite soldier of fortune, but at times I felt more like an idiot statue on roller-skates.

The enemies are easily the worst aspect of the experience. The AI is just risible. Characters will just charge out of cover with a death wish, they’ll let you run up and stab them without even reaching for the trigger. In one section, you’re tiptoeing through darkened tunnels, but guards don’t even notice an incredibly bright torch being shone behind them. Mercifully, the partner AI is decent – he can always be counted upon to revive you and not get into too much trouble on his own.