Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel

The Devil’s Cartel is free on games with gold, for 360 at the moment. Why not play a free game right? I came into this not expecting much at all, mainly to do with the first two games. I didn’t have any fun with them, and had to force myself to play, before finally giving up on both titles. I had no knowledge into this one, it was free, so I gave it a shot.

Starting the story, I decided to go lone wolf, just me and the AI. I immediately noticed two new character were placed in the game, who names I can’t remember lol. We’ll go with Alpha and Bravo, since that’s what they usually called each other. The older duo Rios and Salem are still in the game, just partners of sorts along side you.

The story pits you in Mexico, going up against a powerful drug cartel. it doesn’t take long for the usual we got this, to man, things are going to hell real quick. This in turn throws a little twist at you, only to turn it into a bigger one later one. Here is the catch though, if you pay attention, you will know exactly what it is. The big twist will not be one at all.

The funny thing about this is the developer acknowledges this, between the character dialog. As one of them says he seen that coming from a mile away, while the other seems surprised by it.  The game is littered by little dialog like this through-out the game, which made me chuckle many times. The story isn’t nothing special, and doesn’t come with mind twisting events that will shock you, nor is it deep on any level. Yet, I found myself enjoying it to the end.

The gameplay isn’t nothing special either, still fun to play around with. You have a option of carrying three weapons, primary and secondary can be used with combinations between Assault Riffles, Sub Machine Guns, Light Machine Guns, Snipers, and shotguns. While the third is a pistol. I stuck with a AR for primary, and switching between a SMG, and LMG for secondary.

Nothing new is to be seen here, everything has been done before. It does however come with two features to help you out, one was TWO vision I believe, I never used it. As I believe it mapped enemies better, I mostly forgot it was even there. The second was Overkill mode, which is exactly what it sounds like. Going into this you become invincible for a short time, and you do more damage. This came in handy, especially when your partner goes down, it makes good use of being a run and gunner type of play style.

Customization is big in the game, being able to customize guns guns with different looks, pick different outfits, or masks. The mask part I really liked, instead of picking from a pre made mask, you can fully make one. Similarly in the same way as you can with the calling cards from the Black Ops series. With patience a person can make a neat mask.

When it all comes down to it though, customization isn’t a big deal to me. I’d rather not have any of that if it means better story, or overall better game. I can’t complain though, I got way more out of this than I originally thought I would. A nice story, that was a good length, and something I will probably play through again at some point.

The quality the game has compared to the first two in the series is great. It improves in my opinion on every level. I may not have that say so compared to fans of the series, but it makes me look forward to the next installment. That all comes down to the developer though right? Visceral Games done what EA Montreal tried to do with the first two, but fell short.

Have you dived into The Devil’s Cartel? If so what did you think?

Also, I got two new models of Zart and Trip, that I will be showing you guys soon.