That copy of Army of Two getting a little stale? Well, good news! Major Nelson just dropped word that new content is now available for EA's co-op action-shooter on the Xbox Live Marketplace.
For 600 MS Points ($7.50 US) gamers can add the SSC Challenge Map Pack to their experience. The package includes four two-player co-op maps which allows two teams to compete in the SSC Challenge versus mode for the chance to earn large boatloads of cash. You know, to help purchase that diamond studded shotgun you always wanted. Seriously, we always thought that Private Military corporations were filled with hardcore fighters with tons of baditude, not a bunch of guys who make-believe Pimp My Ride with their killing machines.
But hey, we canceled our subscription to Guns N' Ammo, so what do we know?
This week in the land of sarcastic game reviews with few pauses, Yahtzee targets the recently released Army of Two. Choosing to firmly grasp the obvious humor immediately, the review starts of with the expected bromance jokes, and then moves to the horribly cliched story, the poor AI and the lack of QA. As is custom with Zero Punctuation, there is substance behind the speed, and Yahtzee touches on some important gameplay and genre topics. But hey you don't listen to Zero Punctuation for the quality analysis, but rather the quality humor. As is the case with Zero Punctuation, the video can be found after the break, and is not safe for those of you at work.
Just as it was announced last week, a brand spanking newArmy of Two demo is available on the Xbox Live Marketplace to all Live subscribers except those in Germany. After downloading this 1.32GB multiplayer demo you and a friend will be able to experience Army of Two co-op battle tactics, co-op camaraderie and lots of co-op killing. Grab the demo if your Army of Two interest is piqued and be sure to bring a friend along for the ride. Death and destruction is always more enjoyable in pairs.
It's strange. Games releasing on 360 with no demo, when there is in fact a demo waiting to go live, is getting more and more common nowadays. Having been released for a while now (and having been hugely delayed) Army of Two is now getting a demo on XBLM. On what will soon be the dev blog of the game, Assistant Producer Matt Turner revealed that April 1 (har!) will see the release of the Army of Two demo, and that players should look forward to their upcoming DLC. The Demo will contain the training tutorial and the game's first level, and the DLC will have several components, a single multiplayer map, two new campaign maps, and a new mercs obstacle course called SSC Challenge. No price or release date was given for the DLC at this time, though with the coming-soon status of the EA Montreal dev blog, we can expect more news relatively quickly.
Not long after its release, it was discovered that Army of Twofeatured a regional lockout that prevented from playing with other parts of the world. In other words, players in North America, Europe, and Asia, have to be content to play with themselves. Hard-nosed problem solvers that they are, the fine folks at Joystiq got to the bottom of the issue by sticking the question to EA directly. The response from Reid Schneider, senior producer of Army of Two: the regional lockout was implemented to prevent slow connections. It seems that Army of Two requires comparable connection speeds from all users in order to properly sync up gameplay animations. As a result, someone with a slow connection can "bring down" the rest of a group, causing less than desirable play. Thus, the lockout was born. In an interesting note, the Asian version of the game is region locked for an entirely different reason: it doesn't allow players to shoot corpses. Attempting to make this feature compatible with the other versions over over Xbox Live caused the game to "fail."
So there you have it. There is a dim glow of hope at the end of the tunnel though, as EA is "actively looking into" finding a way to allow cross regional play while still eliminating slow connections.
"NOTE: The online game modes in Army of Two are not cross region compatible and is only supported between PAL discs." So says page six of the European Army of Two manual, as reported by Sarcastic Gamer. Or, to put it a different way, Europeans and Americans won't be playing any Army of Two together. it's unclear if the European version is still cross region compatible with other countries that use the PAL standard, such as Australia. We join in Sarcastic Gamer's belief that this is really the kind of information that should be listed on the box. We also wonder along with them whether or not this is something we should come to expect from future EA titles. Let's hope not.
Update: Some readers are letting us know that Army of Two servers are rolling back online now, but some are still experiencing connection drops and laggy gameplay experiences.
Email is flying in and message boards are lit like the eternal flame about Army of Two. Gamers are livid because EA servers are having multiple issues including the standard lag found in most online games all the way to not functioning at all. In some cases gamers are reporting that the only multiplayer modes currently working are local games, so no online co-op for you.
Message board posters are seem to be having different experiences with the newly released EA third-person shooter, but most agree the overall online experience is not functioning properly. PlayStation users aren't out of the wood either as messages confirm these issues are across the board, not surprising since EA uses their own server farm and does not subscribe to Xbox Live's peer-to-peer method of hosting.
At the time of this story three of our own soldiers of the X3F Army have expressed experiences with all available online multiplayer modes within the game.
The Xbox 360 plays host to three new games this week. We're not quite sure which one tops the list honestly. Army of Two is probably the most talked about recently. Given its rocky development cycle and the fact that there aren't any major reviews up yet, we're remaining cautious. Bully: Scholarship Edition also releases this week, marking the first time that Microsoft console owners will get a chance to try it out (now with achievements!). And then there's Major League Baseball 2K8, about which we haven't the foggiest. Anyone out there longing to pick up one of these this week?
Continuing the Army of Two news on X3F, we have the full list of Achievements for the game. The list consists of a total thirty-seven Achievements with six of those being secret Achievements. The balance (between online/offline, co-op/1p, hardcore/easy, etc) is rather well done compared to some other shooters, and movie and pop culture references abound. With Achievement name inspiration ranging from Predator (see above), to Army of Darkness, to Scarface, we expect these ones to be particularly popular.
Not only do we have the Achievement list, but Brian from Geekpulpz sent us the link to their impressions of the game from a hands on preview they were given. If you've been following the game or even if you were just wondering about the details, the video is well worth watching.
Army of Two, the upcoming third-person shooter from EA, was built from the ground up to be a cooperative experience where you and a friend plow through hordes of enemy soldiers in the pursuit of mo-money. Since its delay Army of Two has stepped into the shadows, but assistant producer Matt Turner recently sat down with CVG and discussed how the game has improved since it slipped off the 2007 calendar and promised the game will deliver, "a new type of multiplayer." CVG scored video footage of the Xbox 360 version in all its co-op glory but considering what we've heard in the past, we'd like to get our hands on it to find out how the game is shaping up since the delay ourselves.
There's a fresh and new Army of Two trailer making the internet rounds today and we're awarding it with the honor of being the first to use the words "camaraderie" and "cash" in the same trailer. Nice use of the English language EA, nice job. The trailer features a standard selection of Army of Two cooperation video, some sneaky tactics and one poor dude ending up with a broken neck. But like all baddies, he probably deserved it. Give the new Army of Two trailer a look over, decide which helmet you like best and ponder life's ultimate question ... to kill or not to kill.
Games Radar has posted an incredibly damning article about Army of Two from their sister magazine Xbox World. Apparently the magazine had been prepping to review the game -- they had played a near complete beta and were awaiting final code -- when EA decided to put the game back in the oven until next year. According to Xbox World, that was a good choice, but it's probably not going to save the game. It seems the game has no saving graces whatsoever, as the magazine can not come up with a single positive thing to say about it. The article damns everything, especially the plot ("based on some right-wing idea of how great the war on terror is") and characters ("infantile high-fiving redneck jackasses"). In a nutshell: "As it stands, Army of Two is a juvenile swear-fest with clumsy controls, a story apparently penned by a seven year old who hates them ay-rabs, laughable level design that tosses you into a cut-scene every thirty seconds, sub Perfect Dark Zero graphics and the two least likable characters in gaming history." The article concludes that the delay "is a stay of execution" and advises gamers to "Hope for a miracle." Wow, we can't wait for the actual review.
Posted Oct 23rd 2007 12:30PM by Dustin Burg Filed under: News
Delayed, delayed, delayed! That's the only adjective we can come up with to describe EA's Army of Two, because it has officially been pushed back into 2008. Yesterday, EA had the unfortunate task of releasing a press release notifying everyone that Army of Two would not make its November 13th release, instead being pushed back to a yet to be revealed 2008 date. The reason for the delay is quite simple, they need more time to polish and buff the game to make it sparkle. And we have no qualms with that, because we're willing to take a delay if the end result is a better end product. Something EA hasn't done too much of in the past (zing!).
