Copying the game mechanics from Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter seems like a no-brainer – until Rainbow 6: Vegas, nobody had done the cover mechanic better. Even the simple squad controls – cover, move, attack – are borrowed from GRAW.
And then, the ambition was to craft an elegant story. That’s what we heard all through the run-up to this game’s release – two men thrown together… the struggles, the choices.
I knew that they wouldn’t pull it off completely – I mean, how often do you hear about “groundbreaking gameplay” and “innovative storytelling” and “freedom of choice” when game companies talk about their games? Fact is, these things are what they WANT to do, not what they CAN accomplish. Krap & Lurch: Damn Mess would be a better title. (Sorry, that was the best I could come up with this morning.)
Graphics: Everything is either too light or too dark – there’s not “shading” per se. You will think you are going blind.
Controls: The best part is rubbing up against a flat surface and HOPING, PRAYING, WISHING that you would “stick” to it to take cover. This works as well as you think.
Gameplay: Hold the left trigger to “precision” aim. Only do this if you want to miss a lot. Fire from the hip, not even really in the direction of the bad guy, and you can Rambo your way through the level.
Story: Write a compelling “buddy” movie, say 20 scenes. Roll a 20-sided dice 10 times. Remove the scenes that correspond with the rolled numbers. Add the F-Bomb in every 3rd to 5th word. Hire terrible voice actors and let a drunken monkey direct them. Perfect.
It’s worth playing, just for the “wow, this DOES suck as much as everyone says” factor, but only on rental.
The partner controls are easy to use and a snap to control aggression/cover/attack conventions. With co-op this would be even easier, as you don’t need to control your partner (though you might want to at times).
Don’t look for story. At all. This is just an excuse for two dudes to kick the crap out of about 30,000 generic terrorist-type people. And, for that, it’s a lot of fun. And the game time is longer than expected for a co-op, 3rd-person shooter, so you can enjoy the carnage longer.
This is kind of the Doublemint of games – double your treasure, double your guns.
But, play it with a friend you like. One with a brain, preferably, or else you’ll spend half your time trying to fight your way over to revive them.