(Impressions from the 360 version)
I'm guessing that most people will pick this up at a later date as a bargain buy, but a friend and I wanted a genuine co-op game and I'd heard this was substantially better than the first game.
Well, we had an absolute blast for 2 hours last night! The "bro" stuff is (in my opinion at least) completely toned down (though I think it's there if you want it) and they've added new (fun!) mechanics to the game as well.
They've taken advice from a lot of other games here and used it to good effect, for example the game has achievement trackers that pop up throughout the game for things like "150 pistol kills" etc.
Some of the things they've added, for me, add a whole new dimention to the game. For a game that was originally just a full on shooter, they've even added a stealth element if you want it. You can sneak up on the "leader" of a group of enemies and take him hostage, which forces his underlings to surrender their weapons, whereby you can choose to execute or tie them up.
It's a very cool thing to sneak up on the leader of a group, take him hostage then watch your partner tie up the other guys, you then tie up the leader and you then save their hostages. This sometimes has to be done quickly as they are about to execute the hostages. For me it just adds a really cool element. You can of course just say "sod this" and snipe them from a distance, or indeed just kill them AND the hostages, it's up to you.
Another thing we both found really fun was the "mock surrender". If you come to an area where you haven't yet engaged in combat with the enemy you can mock surrender. This leads to two situations, you can do a "dual" mock surrender where you AND your partner put your hands up and walk to the enemy (you can even press a button to drop to your knees!) then you can quick draw which activates a mini-slowdown section where you can mow them down. The alternative is that one of you hangs back, and the other activates the mock surrender, walking slowly toward the enemy then... BANNG --- BANG ---- BANG ...your partner has sniped them. Again, this is a really cool featured we enjoyed a lot.
The co-op sniping is back but we didn't encounter it as a forced thing even once, more a case of "lets get the co-op snipe achievement" and it's as simple as pressing "A" whilst scoped, then your character counts down and you both fire!
It also has moral choices, one per level, where you can say decide to kill someone who is "innocent" or let them go free. Either choice has a cool little still movie afterwards in comic book style, which I found to be a nice addition.
The story seems okay, nothing incredible but it's not really supposed to be shakespearian, it's an action movie so to speak.
The controls feel better to me as well. I remember having issues getting in and out of cover as easily as I wanted to, but it seems spot on in this game, it feels really...right!
A couple of things that should be in most games like this, they nail. For example, click right stick and you swap shoulders with your weapon! Another example is that you don't have to hit "X" to pick up ammo, you walk over it, you pick it up. This is an action game, you don't wanna spend time stooping over every ammo box when it's obvious you need ammo!
It's not gonna be anyone's game of the year of course, but if (like me) your favourite type of gameplay is co-op then you probably should check it out. It's seems relatively short (2-3 hours for first 2-3 chapters and it seems 6 chapters long) so that pleased me as well.
It's a LOT smoother than the original game as well, it's really slick in places.
Finally (for now) I'd say kudos to them for having the quickest startup in history, one EA logo then the main menu is there, great stuff!
I'm guessing that most people will pick this up at a later date as a bargain buy, but a friend and I wanted a genuine co-op game and I'd heard this was substantially better than the first game.
Well, we had an absolute blast for 2 hours last night! The "bro" stuff is (in my opinion at least) completely toned down (though I think it's there if you want it) and they've added new (fun!) mechanics to the game as well.
They've taken advice from a lot of other games here and used it to good effect, for example the game has achievement trackers that pop up throughout the game for things like "150 pistol kills" etc.
Some of the things they've added, for me, add a whole new dimention to the game. For a game that was originally just a full on shooter, they've even added a stealth element if you want it. You can sneak up on the "leader" of a group of enemies and take him hostage, which forces his underlings to surrender their weapons, whereby you can choose to execute or tie them up.
It's a very cool thing to sneak up on the leader of a group, take him hostage then watch your partner tie up the other guys, you then tie up the leader and you then save their hostages. This sometimes has to be done quickly as they are about to execute the hostages. For me it just adds a really cool element. You can of course just say "sod this" and snipe them from a distance, or indeed just kill them AND the hostages, it's up to you.
Another thing we both found really fun was the "mock surrender". If you come to an area where you haven't yet engaged in combat with the enemy you can mock surrender. This leads to two situations, you can do a "dual" mock surrender where you AND your partner put your hands up and walk to the enemy (you can even press a button to drop to your knees!) then you can quick draw which activates a mini-slowdown section where you can mow them down. The alternative is that one of you hangs back, and the other activates the mock surrender, walking slowly toward the enemy then... BANNG --- BANG ---- BANG ...your partner has sniped them. Again, this is a really cool featured we enjoyed a lot.
The co-op sniping is back but we didn't encounter it as a forced thing even once, more a case of "lets get the co-op snipe achievement" and it's as simple as pressing "A" whilst scoped, then your character counts down and you both fire!
It also has moral choices, one per level, where you can say decide to kill someone who is "innocent" or let them go free. Either choice has a cool little still movie afterwards in comic book style, which I found to be a nice addition.
The story seems okay, nothing incredible but it's not really supposed to be shakespearian, it's an action movie so to speak.
The controls feel better to me as well. I remember having issues getting in and out of cover as easily as I wanted to, but it seems spot on in this game, it feels really...right!
A couple of things that should be in most games like this, they nail. For example, click right stick and you swap shoulders with your weapon! Another example is that you don't have to hit "X" to pick up ammo, you walk over it, you pick it up. This is an action game, you don't wanna spend time stooping over every ammo box when it's obvious you need ammo!
It's not gonna be anyone's game of the year of course, but if (like me) your favourite type of gameplay is co-op then you probably should check it out. It's seems relatively short (2-3 hours for first 2-3 chapters and it seems 6 chapters long) so that pleased me as well.
It's a LOT smoother than the original game as well, it's really slick in places.
Finally (for now) I'd say kudos to them for having the quickest startup in history, one EA logo then the main menu is there, great stuff!
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