Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel Hands-On Preview – Three's a Crowd

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Richard Walker

Graveyard shootouts are nothing new. Movies like Hard Target, Terminator 3, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and Seven Psychopaths all neglected to pay due respect to the dead by shooting up their tombstones and running roughshod over their burial plots. You can add Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel to that list, as new heroes Alpha and Bravo, lead by female bullet sponge, Fiona, stomp through a Day of the Dead festival seemingly exclusively attended by vicious members of drug cartels. It's a recipe for disaster.

Our hands-on demo takes place from the beginning of the game's nineteenth chapter, titled 'Among the Dead', meaning we're some way into the game's narrative. Though not the most original setting for a violent shoot 'em up sequence, the graveyard showcases the extra layer of destruction that the Frostbite 2 Engine brings to the party for The Devil's Cartel. Tombstones break and crumble as bullets thump into them in jets of dust, while enemies go down like proverbial sacks of crap as you spray hot lead in all directions.

Weapons in this Army of Two are loud and proud, all rasping fury and grinding metal. You can customise the hell out of them too with the cash you earn, more so than any Army of Two game to date, with muzzles, clips, barrels, attachments, scopes and other accoutrements, including custom paint jobs and what not. You pack three weapons, with a primary rifle, secondary heavy weapon and sidearm handgun, and you can always buy others to add to your armoury, all of which can be customised and switched out between missions. Fancy trading in your gold AK47 for a silver M16? Go for it. Fancy an assault shotgun rather than that rocket launcher you've been using to turn criminals into giblets? Change it up then.

You can customise Alpha and Bravo too, with various equipment such as flak jackets and other items of apparel to choose from, as well as more than a bit of ink, with tattoo designs that can be applied on any areas of exposed skin. Their arms, basically. Alpha and Bravo's masks can also be tinkered with, offering up a range of preset decals, alongside a tool that enables you to create your very own mask designs. Expect secret, unlockable mask designs from EA's other IP too.

The Devil's Cartel chapters we play during our demo time are fairly short and punchy, with firefights breaking out at every turn, once we've opened proceedings by infiltrating the festival in the cemetery. Sneaking in, we're left with the choice to either fire the first bullet or wait until a tattooed thug spots us and opens fire. We politely extend the courtesy of breaking the ice with a shotgun shell, shattering the silence and tearing the graveyard asunder. As we blast our way through the aggressive enemies who aren't exactly the sharpest tools in the box, running out in to the open to gladly accept their lead salad, chunks of masonry fly off of buildings and cover is reduced to lumps of grey Swiss cheese in a matter of seconds.

Most bad guys – the less stupid ones – retreat to cover and demand flanking tactics, and it's these kinds of manoeuvres that feed into the game's co-op loop, rewarding teamwork with a boost to your Overkill meter. Should you find yourself pinned down or in a tight spot with enemies bearing down on you, activating Overkill renders you temporarily invulnerable and able to blow cartel scum away with infinite bullets and no pesky reloading to slow down the wanton violence. It's during these Overkill moments that enemies are shredded to ribbons by bullets, upping the gore factor considerably with exposed rib cages, exploding heads and dismembered limbs flying around the screen. It gives Django Unchained a run for its money in the bloodsoaked shootout stakes.

Descending into the mausoleum, the next chapter leads us into more troublesome and frenetic firefights, before Alpha and Bravo descend ever further underground into the pitch darkness of the subterranean catacombs. This section proves to be rather novel, with the only light provided by muzzle flashes from the cartel members running around the labyrinthine tunnels. We need to stay frosty and keep an eye out for movement in the shadows. Following the electrical cables running through the passageways, we soon acquire a weapon with a mounted flashlight, and we're in business. Although we're still unprepared for the screeching maniacs hiding in dark corners brandishing machetes, we're more than well equipped to reach the end of the impenetrable pitch black after a few co-op revives and hair trigger kills, as enemies jump out from seemingly nowhere.

Before we even realise how much time has passed, we've ripped through four or five chapters with our co-op buddy and enjoyed a few entertaining gunfights with the odd novel twist thrown in here and there for good measure. It may not be much of a visual powerhouse at present, but Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel is shaping up to be an enjoyable co-op cover shooter in a similar mould to its predecessors. It's more solid and weighty than Army of Two and its follow-up however, with plenty of potential to provide a good few hours of somewhat throwaway fun, bolstered by the joyous destruction that Frostbite 2 affords. Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel isn't going to be the most refined, cerebral affair, but then who the hell ever expected that from an Army of Two game anyway?

Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel is out on March 26th in North America and March 29th in Europe.

Comments
29
  • Can't wait, sounds awesome!
  • Looks too much like the first two to me i.e. guff.
  • Haven't played AoT since the first tittle, think i'll be picking this up a little later in the year just to give it another shot.
  • I do look forward this game. But I weren't happy with EA and Crytek because of many players got glitchy or stupid random MP achievements. Crysis 3 is all over again from Crysis 2. Crytek is evil developers now. I am sorry to said but Crysis 2 got this problem then Crysis 3 again. Don't trust Crytek for Crysis's MP achievements. Crysis 3 is fantastic game yeah but achievements getting fucked up again. I hope EA not bring another glitchy achievements for game. Dead Space 3 got glitchy nobes, Crysis 3 came with achievements glitchy for many players. I dunno what to said to EA they bought many troublesome bugs and glitchy things and achievements for their games. Sorry I felt rights to angry with EA to release games like that all times. I am so pleased with Konami and Platinum Games for MGR: R. Because they released game with rare bugs and run it's smooth. Achievements is clean for everyone. Hate EA big time.
  • All this makes me even more exciting about the game! I,m def a Army Of Two fan so to speak as i played all the games and loved MP in the first one. Even if Rios and Salem are not the leading caracters anymore and Alpha and Bravo took over i think with the power of the frostbite 2 engine and Visceral behind it, its bound to be good. As i seen what the team did with DS3 and the awesome graphics i,m not at all worried.
  • @4 are you even human?
  • @6 He,s probly more human then you ever be ;) At least if your aiming at the usual grammar issue people seem to have on other people, so leave him be thnx.
  • @4 I def understand your anger,not even sure its EA in general or just the gamedevelopers that not check and test their products enough before releasing. I did noticed in the end credits that sometimes the play-test team and the MP test team sometimes only exist of two people and compared to the amount of people they used in the past thats always a bad sign realy. never fun to finaly get your game you been waiting for to only find out its buggy and glitchy. I not had any real trouble with DS3 to be honest, the only thing i realy noticed was that sometimes when in co-op the progress you made in some kills like fodder axes ect not been saved when save & quit. I not have Crysis 3 so i can't speak for that. I only seen the IGN review so far. The only trouble i had so far with a game and its achievements was ACIII but then again only two that proved buggy for most like the common men achievement. Hope they patch this soon and you can start to enjoy Crysis 3 abit more again.
  • Why are you releasing this on the same day as Bioshock???
  • @ 6 I agree with 7 This is the problem with Deadspace right here, same developer and publisher. How much of Visceral's talent was wasted on this project? They are not that great or big enough of a studio to work on multiple games at once.
  • @7 LOL 8, I have no issue with bad grammar, as I know that I myself am far from perfect, it's just come on...
  • @10: Highly unlikely it was the Usual DS team working on this, but just a different team working under the esame branding. The games are being released too close together for it to be the same team. EA Montreal are also credited with development for what that's worth. Also this game is out in just over a month and still no achievement list. Weird. They usually pop up 2-3 months beforehand. Probably get this with used game credit. Sounds pretty run of the mill and Rich seems to be struggling to hit a word count by just describing the scenery and bullets hitting people. No particularly new experiences to describe, just your standard banger. Could probably use a developer's video to highlight the minor details like Max Payne 3 had.
  • How is this IP not dead? EA really need to come up with some new stuff...
  • Just noticed that in the article it says about buying weapons and parts, so whats the betting a microtransaction system will be shoe horned into the game like dead space?
  • @14 Maybe it has the same concept of getting money for completing the objectives as the first 2 games? Since isn't the point of these games to kill your targets and get paid for it? OT: I am actually looking forward to this game.I got 1250 in both the first one and the second one and will get all the score in this one as well. Co-op is my favorite aspect to games and as long as this game has split-screen co-op that I can play with my brother I'm sold. Of course I will still wait for it to go on sale since it won't be very popular I'm sure. But that just means a quicker price drop :) Also no one should have to worry about the multiplayer for this game since it doesn't have any. Single player and Co-op only is a win in my book.
  • @15 i understand that you earn money in game, it is the same with a lot of titles.need for speed is another example where you primarily win cash to buy cars yet they still introduced a "shortcut". im sensing a hint of bitterness and patronisation in that first sentence... i was simply speculating that EA try to fleece every last penney out of the consumer whenever and wherever they can.
  • #6 Anyway what I said is my opinion and very crossed with EA lol
  • Hey everyone. News about Visceral Games there reportly that Visceral Games is shutdown and lay-offs in EA. Army of TWO: Devils Cartel is last Visceral Games. Sad isn't as they made some great games and recent ruined Dead Space 3. Oh dear. I don't like people losing jobs but I am so happy EA got problems with it and it is time their turn. But I very disappointed with Visceral Games shutdown. :(
  • Hey EA open the Army of Two servers for the original games so we can get those achievements.
  • Well, after what Dead Space 3 seems to look like from the demo/reviews, I won't cry if Dead Space 3 is the last one. Still it's not a good news as the staff most probably did the game the way EA wanted them to do and because Dead Space 1 and Dead Space 2 were pretty good (though the 2 was already a bit action oriented).
  • @16 Yeah I know that EA will definetly include microtransactions into this game as it's a new thing that they will implement into all of their games. And they can only get every penny out of the consumer if said consumer decides to purchase the content, which I know I sure as hell won't be. Just going to stick to any major DLC's. But I completely see where you're coming from, and I am sure there will be plenty of people who do buy the content.(well a few of the couple thousand who will actually get this game anyway lol) But in the end, all I will do is blow through this game co-op and have a blast, while getting all those pointless microtransactions they offer from normal gameplay. Also, not 100% sure where all of the hate for Dead Space 3 comes from. I've played through all 3 of the games and can say that while yes the 3rd isn't the best in the series, it certainly wasn't a terrible game. And I don't see how they removed the horror aspect from the first 2 games, since it was never there in the first place(IMO). The 3rd game just uses the same cheesey tactics that the first 2 used to try and scare you.
  • How in the hell is it possible that a game like this spawns two abominations of sequels ,i mean who buys these games after having played the first one? Surely there are much better games to waste your money on then this crap EA shovels in our faces.
  • @22 Funny how opinions work huh? Glad to see that you play far superior games and know what players like to spend their money on. I'm sure while we idiots purchase games like this, you're busy spending money on top notch titles like CoD, and then spending another retail games price on the top notch map packs that include great geometrical shapes such as squares, circles , and even the rare trapezoid. Thank you for being superior to the players with a different opinion than your own.
  • @23 pissed off because you bought the first two and preordered the third?....hahaha don`t hate the player ,hate the game(s)!!!
  • @22, i loved the first one, and thought the second was OK, I don't have this on preorder but I intend to pick it up at some point, does that make me retarded?
  • @24 I bought the 1st one, my brother bought the 2nd one, and the 3rd one will get picked up down the road after I get a few other games. And why would I be pissed about a pre-order? I could easily cancel it... And "don't hate the player, hate the games?" Since you hate these games so much, you obviously wouldn't be a player of the game.
  • @24 Mister dutchy should enlighten us what TOP games he consider are TOP games and what he,s playing realy. And before you get your punny ass on here cracking down on a game wasting our time and obvious there still gamers who like some good co-op games ;) If your personal more of a MP guy fine i,m sure your one of those highly fantastic gamers who think the world of COD and the new BO2 or? Woudn,t be supriced if you are realy.
  • @10 Noticed and recorded ;) Besides Cheevo was just bringing his oppinion realy, and hey mabye there reasons why someone isn,t great with the english grammar ;) Like not from the UK or mabye some other things that play a role. I just dislike when people that otherwise making a proper sence comment just posting their toughts are being laughed about and getting tumbs down, and thats something thats been going on sinds awhile now, just a bad thing realy.
  • 40th Day! One of the best off-line co-ops we've seen. (F3AR was pretty sweet too)
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