Army of Two is a third person shooter that follows the adventures of Tyson Rios and Elliot Salem, a couple of soldiers recruited from the US Army and join a Private Military Contracting firm as soldiers of fortune.

The game begins with Tyson and Elliot on a mission in Somalia in 1993 and progresses through the 90’s through various parts of the middle east through to current events and beyond.


What makes the game play unique is it relies on a concept called ‘agro’. Agro is defined as the level of aggression a player exhibits against its enemies. The theory is, the more agro that is exhibited (usually through continuous sprays of gunfire), the more attention the player receives from its enemies which allows their partner in turn to become less visible and gives them the freedom to move around more freely without the attention of its enemies. The game relies on the ability to use agro to achieve your missions. Without using agro and working with your partner, the game cannot be completed.
This is a game for two players albeit the second player can be AI.


The game can be described as a third person shooter strategy game. The use of agro means the player must strategically consider their tactics as they progress through the missions. Apart from the usual gun controls, there are additional controls to engage your partner when you are using the AI partner. You can command your partner to go forward, or regroup as well as use agro or not. For instance if you want to slip behind your enemy and take them out, you command your partner to hold their position and provide agro to distract the enemy allowing you to be come almost invisible .


One important consideration when playing Army of Two is that both you and your partner are effectively one so if either is killed in action then you both die, so you must look out for each other to survive and progress through the game.

If either player is badly wounded in action and requires treatment, the wounded player must be dragged into a safe area where medication can be administered. This can be tedious at times particularly as much time is lost and slows the game down so keep an eye on yours and your partner’s health and avoid the need for treatment – it can be painful….


Once your players become Private Military Contractors, you will acquire payment with every mission completed. Of course there are sub-objectives within every mission for bonus payments. As your bank balance increases, you will be able to purchase alternative weapons to increase firepower or capability. You can even have your weapons gold plated to achieve more agro. All this is done by visiting and transacting with a few arms dealers that will happily show you what is available either between missions or during mid-mission shopping.

One hint that will prove useful. Complete the campaign on ‘easy’ mode and you will get all the primary weapons at no cost. This saves you money to spend on ‘specialised’ weapons which are both useful and good fun. Overall I found the game enjoyable without being intoxicating. It was a game you could play at your own pace and it had a logical and progressive storyline.

It was a whole different story when getting on-line with xBox live albeit the game is also available on PS3 which I did not review. The on-line experience was very disappointing or maybe non-existent. I tried it a few times and would either find myself in a game waiting for someoneto join or someone would join and the game would lag horribly and suddenly end. Interestingly after my various efforts I had amassed a score of zero and yet ranked about 3,000. I did some research to learn that the live experience is locked by regions so Australia/New Zealand is a locked region and so my ranking reflected a local and small community. The reason the regions are locked is the game has had to make a number of modifications to cater for cultural sensitivities.

For instance the Australian version doesn’t show a player being healed whereas in other countries a syringe is used to administer the medication. I think the failing to create a fluid and wide reaching on-line community was a major let down for the game.

I believe the game could evolve into something more special over time and it will be interesting to see if they make a sequel. The story line definitely left an opening for it so it’s just a question of the developers having the vision to take this game to the next level and of course make sure on-line play works for all.