Just the two of us

The first time we had seen Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel, we had played an over the top sequence ending with a helicopter crash that would put many action movies to shame. It was also the first time many of us met Alpha and Bravo and saw the Overkill ability in action where, when triggered, it granted our heroes the ability to turn their surroundings to Swiss cheese with gunfire, courtesy of the power of the Frostbite 2 engine of course.

Recently, we got to go hands-on again with Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel, and although this slice of game play was promised to be more in line with most of the game’s tone and pacing and not the adrenaline fueled sequence we had played earlier, it still provided us with an interesting look at Alpha and Bravo and how they don’t always have to work together to be effective.

When we started, Alpha and Bravo were making their way through a Mexican cartel stronghold, but events transpired that had separated the two. Bravo was then trapped, downed and bleeding out inside an open courtyard and was fending off enemies left and right. I was playing as Alpha, and had to work my through the stronghold as quickly as possible, for not only was I facing off against other gun wielding maniacs, but was racing the clock to get to Bravo as quickly as possible before he bled out completely. And yes, Bravo can die at this moment forcing you to restart the checkpoint so you had better have your running shoes on.

This sequence was interesting because it showed some role variety for each character, while the Overkill meter also reminded us that these two guys are inexorably linked as each kill either one of us did helped fill the meter for our partners. And a full Overkill meter is always useful when taking on hordes of guys out to kill you. Once I actually got to Bravo and revived him, we then took cover in a fountain and had to clear out the remaining gaggle of hired guns before moving on to a container yard.

In the container yard, a flood of cartel members had us in their sights so we triggered the Overkill ability to turn the crates and other cover many of the bad guys were using into confetti and mow them down with the greatest of ease. We quickly wished we hadn’t been so quick to trigger the Overkill however as after clearing the yard, another helicopter soon appeared over the horizon to makes things difficult for our duo.

The game didn’t penalize us too badly here though as they gave us some cannon fodder enemies with the chopper to rebuild our Overkill. After a few dozen clips into the metal hull of the whirly-bird and she crashed down, again in epic action movie fashion, bringing down a clock tower and a ton of brick red rubble with it.

This wrapped up our time with this new sequence with Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel and in terms of action the game definitely looks to deliver on all levels if this sequence was what most of the game is meant to be like. The game, again powered by Frostbite 2, also looked fantastic, especially when you start using Overkill to destroy objects in the environment. If you’re a fan of co-op and a fan of third-person shooters, then Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel looks like it might a game you’d want to keep an eye out for when it releases at the end of March 2013.