There’s not enough comedy in games. We’re either given screwball, slapstick, cartoony games with juvenile jesting (and by that I mean “suitable for young people”, rather than the good kind of infantile humour we see in South Park) or our games take on a deadly serious slant. Is there no room for immature, yet adult comedy in the games industry? The kind of cringe-worthy, hilarious moments amidst the blood and violence, like the scene from Pulp Fiction when John Travolta accidently shoots that kid in the head?

Army of Two makes a bold move toward this kind of bad-taste comedy the modern 30-something craves. Serious subjects, with real characters, viciously lampooned in the name of breaking taboos and mocking the horrors of reality. It also experiments with an unusual, but effective, new kind of single player co-operative gameplay (I realise what a contradiction this sounds like, but bear with me) to deliver a wholly unusual strain of the third person shooter.

As “independent military contractors”, the Army of Two consists of Tyson Rios and Elliot Salem – a suitably mismatched, yet complimentary, duo who regularly thrill at the spectacle of war. Such cavalier attitudes to flying bullets, genocide and terrorism in today’s wintery political climate seems completely inappropriate. And it is; in the most fantastic way. The pair’s boorish machismo and preference for profit over principle is exactly the kind of sledgehammer mockery modern warfare, and political warmongers, deserve, and regardless of whether you ultimately enjoy the gameplay you’ll certainly enjoy chewing on the delicious slice of satire served up by EA Montreal.

So, how does a single player co-op shooter work, you might be wondering? By taking on the role of one specific character, commands are given to the other soldier which allows players to carefully direct each micro-battle. This system has rather salaciously been called “Aggro” by the developers, and a most suitable moniker it is.

The real crux of the Aggro system is distraction and cover fire. Either your player of the CPU character can provide cover for the other – drawing enemy fire while his colleague achieves a more advantageous position. While Salem pins down the enemy and swaps blood and bullets with them, Rios can sneak around the side to flank the opposition and catch them unawares. As soon as Rios opens fire, however, he begins to draw attention (increase his Aggro rating) and the enemy trains their fire on him. This, in turn, allows Salem the freedom to either recover from the lead-battering he’s been taking or, indeed, move unseen around the enemy himself.

There are other co-operative aspects to Army of Two, such as offering (or being offered) a boost so the dynamic duo can scale the terrain, take out nested enemies or achieve a better sniping position. This co-op sniping is another feature of controlling two characters over one – allowing the player and the CPU to both train their sights on a target and shoot it out together.

While these aspects of the co-op play feel a little more fabricated than the superb, and intrinsic, Aggro system, there’s another feature that really brings Army of Two in line with the best and most cheeseball action flicks – back-to-back. At regular intervals, the two heroes will find themselves surrounded and outnumbered – all looks lost. Naturally, this leaves only one option for such gung-ho war machines; stand back-to-back in the open and gun down everything that moves in a slow motion action extravaganza! Utterly ridiculous, but twice the fun because of it.

All this tweaking of the typical third-person-shooter mechanics makes for a lot of buttons in controlling the Army of Two, but the highly accessible (and vital) Aggro system is represented so clearly and simply by a swinging gauge and glowing red characters (denoting their position on the Aggro scale) make it inherently understandable, and attention can be fully given over to dealing with the situations presented. Other aspects of find your way through Army of Two have been made equally simplistic – perhaps overly so in some cases (such as the “GPS system”, which essentially points big freakin’ arrows at whatever you’re supposed to do next), permeating the game with a very slight sense of having been dumbed down.

That said, the enemy A.I. is quite excellent. They duck for cover, retreat, advance and actively protect themselves in accordance with the gun fight – these certainly aren’t mindless drones. While their inherent knowledge of urban guerrilla tactics would probably make the game completely inaccessible to a typical, one player shooter, the added gamer advantage of controlling two characters makes the ground-floor co-op tactics a necessary, and invigorating, aspect of the gameplay.

Additional meat-head masculinity in the form of being able to high five your partner or play air-guitars on your machine guns after killing a group rebel insurgents is a subtle, yet ingenious addition to the pastiche proceedings. While these self-congratulatory antics seem to add nothing to the actual gameplay, they serve to remind players not to take things too seriously. The essential gameplay of Army of Two – when completely dissected and analysed – isn’t particularly new or even that impressive. But when combined with the frivolous veneer and vital co-op quirks, we see a game that appears significantly original and brazenly painted with lashing of unabashed fun. There’s a permeating essence throughout that suggest the dev team at EA quite simply had a lot of fun making this game, and that counts for a lot when it comes to playing.

Of course, a game so inherently hinged on co-operative play also includes full online and split-screen multiplayer – with no noticeable restriction working with another player. While this will probably form the real crux of enjoyment for many gamers, it’s impressive to see how EA has managed to bridge the gap between online multiplayer and offline single play; delivering a very similar, and equally enjoyable, experience on both counts. The addition of a versus mode also brightens the online horizon, and ensures that multiplayers will find a lot of value in Army of Two.

This game is a bold experiment in third person shooters; dropping its guard when it comes to rampant death and mayhem, while acknowledging the fact that one onscreen character doesn’t really cut it for the modern gamer. Still very basic at its core, this game proudly celebrates what it’s good at (being shamelessly manly, killin’ stuff and blowin’ shit up) and devotedly demanding gamers have fun at every juncture.