EA’s contribution to the current co-op craze is Army of Two, a third-person shooter that puts the player in the roles of Salem and Rhios, two trigger-happy American soldiers. At the very start of the game they succumb to the lure of the vast sums of money that can be earned by working for Private Military Contractors. These companies operate in international war zones, with almost unlimited resources to get the dirty jobs done. This sets the scene to bounce the player from one global hotspot to another, taking in the delights of Iraq, Afghanistan and Mogadishu to rack up the big money without the restrictions of Uncle Sam’s lumbering war machine.

While this should provide the backdrop for a variety of interesting missions, things are fairly run-of-the-mill, with the main missions for levels consisting of shooting targets or blowing things up, and sub-missions involving recovering intelligence from briefcases or hard drives. Completing these rewards the player with cash which can be used to buy and upgrade weapons. There’s a comprehensive arsenal too, with everything from several variations of pistols, submachine guns, rifles and even Stinger Missiles. For an additional price each weapon can be modified to provide more accuracy or damage and all of them can also be blinged up with a gold or silver finish, useful for little more than showing off. This variation, with each weapon feeling suitably like a instrument of death, is definitely one of the game's highlights and only let down by the controls. Close-range fights tend to be a mad scramble due to enemies always being able to move much faster than you are able to target.

Army of Two’s premise and story makes several roundabout attempts at hard-hitting commentary on the state of modern conflict and the use of battle zones for profit, but ends up with all the appeal of taking the kids on a day trip to a seal-clubbing factory. It’s full of baffling characters and unintentional comedy moments like a spacesuit-wearing Taliban member with a branded forehead, a gold-hat-wearing warlord who explodes on death for no apparent reason. The game is left swinging somewhere between the ridiculous and the downright insulting, with its finger-wagging lecturing about the futility of conflict treating you like an inbred, mouth-breathing five year old.

EA would have us believe that Army of Two was built from the ground up around co-op play. It includes buddy manoeuvres such as dragging your injured partner out of trouble to heal them, back-to-back shooting, boosting them over high walls or tandem parachute rides with one piloting and the other picking off targets. However these are stretching the definition of 'innovation' that EA touted before release, particularly when most of the actions and their locations are scripted. By the time the game starts implementing tandem button presses to open doors, hardly the most revolutionary of ideas, you get the feeling their mouth may well have run away with them.

Despite its co-op billing, Army of Two does feature single player with the capable A.I. taking the role of the second character and, while competent, it does require a high degree of babysitting. Commands include getting them to stick close, hold position or advance, with passive and aggressive modes available for each action. A single button tap means the A.I. will hold fire when carrying out the action unless directly threatened, while a double tap means they’ll do it with maximum aggression. This is useful for causing diversions or steaming in with all guns blazing and the intuitive system, coupled with the responsive A.I., makes handling the two characters at once surprisingly easy.

The games fundamental system is the Aggro meter. Carrying big menacing weapons and firing them at enemies raises the level of aggravation being caused, so they will make that particular player the focus of their attention. This allows the other player to sneak around undetected, useful for flanking tactics and especially on enemies that cannot be tackled head-on like armoured turrets. The system works well in single player where it can be used to full effect and functions almost flawlessly, but in co-op mode the whole system falls apart. All of a sudden and for no apparent reason the game is unable to determine which player is the biggest threat. Despite the Aggro meter being full, it’s not uncommon for the other player (who should be virtually invisible at this point) to still be the focus of enemy attention and any attempt at tactics gets the player a slap across the chops and a trip back to the restart point for their efforts.

Along with the broken Aggro meter there are other design flaws that start to show up in co-op mode. In single player the management of ammo is restricted since the A.I. has unlimited reserves and the player only has to worry about themselves. But in co-op the games doesn’t supply extra ammo from downed enemies so players will find themselves scrabbling for bullets. The need to blind fire and suppress enemies to raise Aggro means that running dry is a regular and frustrating occurrence. Also, the lack of a radar in co-op mode means that it is sometime difficult to spot and pick off enemies which are able to blind fire and still hit you from considerable distance. This is frustrating, but at least in single player the AI partner is also able to perform this amazing feat of shooting prowess, something which is largely an impossibility for a human player.

Unsurprisingly, the game features an online multiplayer mode where players compete two vs two. Again the emphasis is on the money, with players winning by earning the most cash from completing objectives and killing enemies. It’s an interesting spin that certainly promotes an element of team-work as some objectives cannot be reached alone.

Not matter the hyperbole, Army of Two is a single player game that has been hastily dressed up for co-op. With just six stages the single player adventure is short but entertaining thanks to the A.I., but this doesn’t cover the fact that EA should be embarrassed to have taken the concept of co-operative play and shown that it can be a truly horrible and frustrating experience which is more of a chore than a pleasure.