With the ever expanding popularity of online gaming for consoles, game developers have been able to take virtual team based gaming to a new level beyond the once PC deathmatch FPS dominated online scene. FPS death matches and team death matches of course remains a very popular online choice for console gamers, but the trend to which I'm referring that's starting to really take shape is online co-op play. The actual concept of playing through campaigns and missions inside a storyline against CPU AI with another human gamer isn't exactly new in the gaming world (Still love those old TMNT co-op arcade games), but its mainstream adoption to the online world is only relatively fresh. I guess you could say co-op gaming is starting to make a bit of a come back.

However, while there has been a focus on online co-op in many action titles of late, few game developers have been as bold as to design an entire game around the concept. There has been a recent exception to this though from the folks at EA Montreal, with their title Army of Two. The name pretty much says it all, doesn't it? This third person action game is all about warfare and combat in some of today's real world hot spots, but it's played entirely in a co-op fashion with two main characters - 'Salem' and 'Rios'. The end result is an interesting combination of traditional action gaming fun with some unique team work dynamics, but this mixture isn't without its side effects.

As the story goes, Salem and Rios break off into the world of private security after a tenure in the US military, attracted by the higher pay and lowered restrictions, but stumble upon a disturbing plot that goes much higher in the chain of command than themselves. Treason, set ups, assassinations and the likes follow, and before you know it, you're deep into the plot of a cliche B grade action movie. This storyline is featured in the game's campaign mode, which can either be offline or online - EA know how to market games and they know that, despite the popularity of services like Xbox Live, making a game online only isn't a smart business move, so Army of Two still features a fully functional single player offline element, which is welcome.

This does mean one thing though - when you are playing offline, your partner in crime is obviously going to be driven by the game's AI, and if the single player mode is your first impression of the game like it was for me, unfortunately this isn't a very attractive prospect. The game revolves around the use of three major commands - 'stop', 'follow', and 'move forward' - and for each of these commands you can set a defensive or offensive mind set for your partner which dictates how he fulfills the command (i.e. aggressively or defensively). A lot of the time this system works fine, but your CPU AI partner will regularly botch commands, run around in circles, and basically prove to be a bit of a nitwit. This is unfortunate, but I can't say it's a huge surprise - AI always seems to be a concern in this type of game.

Don't get me wrong, the game is still very playable in single player, but there is absolutely no doubting that online multiplayer is Army of Two's primary focus, so you best be sure your Xbox Live Gold membership is alive and well before picking up this game. With two humans playing, the game does start to take on a different feel and can really produce some excellent action gaming. This will naturally depend on who you play with, but I can't say I encountered many issues finding serious and skilled gamers to play with throughout my time online. While issuing the aforementioned three commands online proves to be somewhat useless at times, the sheer fun of this game shines through much brighter when you're teaming up with another human gamer.

Unfortunately though, online play has some disappointments as well, because as outlined above, the campaign and missions you play online with another human are the same as the offline mode, so much of the flaws you see offline translate into the online co-op mode as well. For instance, while obviously your partner AI isn't a concern online (well, hopefully anyway), the AI of the CPU enemies remains an issue, and this comes through in a couple of ways. Firstly, whether you're playing offline or co-op online, the gameplay in Army of Two more or less entirely revolves around the concept of cover fire. The idea is pretty simple - one team member draws the attention of the enemies with fire, while the other team member flanks or simply pursues the enemies from a different angle, taking them off guard. This is portrayed in the game via the 'Aggro' meter, where the team member with the most 'Aggro' is the guy the enemies have their sights on. This is a real world warfare concept, but the execution at times can be a little odd and unrealistic, or in other words, 'Aggro' can be way too effective. Obviously EA Montreal had a tricky balance on their hands of making the 'Aggro' system work but not work so well it seems silly, and while a lot of the time it does work fine, a lot of other times you can basically run circles around enemies if your buddy has their attention, and they won't bat an eye lid to your presence. Does this detract from the gameplay? Not a whole lot, but in general you'll probably find the game's cover system is pretty easy to exploit in manners like this.