Having some hidden accessibility goldmines that make this game appeal to disabled gamers the menu provides a barrier.
Requests are something that I receive very rarely so I didn't expect a request to do a review of Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel demo on the Xbox marketplace. Having never played an Army of Two game I'd figured that this would be an excellent time to get my feet wet in this franchise. I was so clueless about the name Army of Two that it didn't occur to me until the download was partially completed that Army of Two was a glaring hint that told me that it was going to rely heavily on multiplayer. The title also told me that this was going to be a shooter. Why? Because it had the word "army" in it and anything involving a video game with army in the title is going to be an action packed shooter.
Not having any knowledge of the previous games or the franchise made it strikingly easy to give this demo its own merits and selling points because it definitely has some that will make physically disabled and some visually impaired gamers cheer in delight.
The really nice thing about the demo, apart from the notion that it doesn't eat your hard drive like a gorilla, is that it's a fully functional demo. It's complete on its own even if none of the demo's story was explained to me at all.
Even though this demo had many good gems for this disabled gamer it completely sidestepped and kicked away a vital feature that would have made my score shoot higher, a menu with larger legible text. I admit that I was jovially anticipating the blast of the action until I endured the headache trying to read small glowing letters. To these visually impaired eyes I might as well have been staring at a shrunken rubrics cube. To navigate to the control options with this awful menu readout had me confused as to why the game developers would challenge me so early on in the demo. It was like trying to read an excel spreadsheet upside down through 3D glasses while riding on a drunken pony. I felt really good about doing something as simple as getting to the correct menu and, naturally, didn't think that should even happen. It soon grew so frustrating I actually took a break from the ruthless glowing daggers.
When my eye stopped having a stroke I returned to try and start the game. I assumed that the top glowing migraine inducer said "start game" so I pressed it. When the screen didn't fade to black I pressed the other floating hell spawn. Another menu popped up. After frenziedly searching through all the glowing things the screen finally faded to black and the game finally began. This took me, excluding the headache break, 12 minutes to start the game.
The rest of the demo redeemed itself in so many ways that I can't possibly list them all here. Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel is a third person shooter that relies very heavily on cooperative play, either with a computer or a friend over Xbox live and locally. The demo even opens up with a trailer like sequence where a voiceover introduces the characters, originally, called alpha, and beta. The intro sequence is a weird introductory trailer without telling me any bit of the story at all. The actual demo starts with you and your partner, who's stereotypically black, dropping in on guys in a warehouse. Why? I don't know. The game never told me why I was there. I assumed that it was to rescue Princess Peach or, even, Sam Fisher. At least the game didn't squelch my imagination.
Apart from the exciting realistic sound effects the first thing that caught my attention was the controls. To my disabled limbs buttons and actions are placed logically. A few examples are as follows. Left bumper is to toss a grenade whereas the left trigger is used to focus on aiming your gun. The analog sticks are like the Halo control map in the sense that left analog moves and right turns.
Visually this game was very forgiving to my remaining visually impaired eye. The only visual frustration in the game comes from following the blue highlighted prompts that flash so fast you'd think the developers took display lessons from traffic lights. Despite this frustration the game redeems itself by having a unique targeting assist, enabling you to aim in an enemy's general direction and your character will lock onto him with a press of the left trigger. It helps that your partner isn't a bat wit **** also.
My stereotypically loud partner had a blue arrow over his head that allowed me to easily detect where he was in case I needed to smack the gull out of him because he tossed a grenade at a batch of enemies when I wanted to stealth kill them.
Even though my partner yelled a lot like he didn't know how to whisper he was very competent in battle. As I was traveling through the complex to rescue Princes Peach from Darth Vader my partners AI outmatched my expectations. Hence the title, Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel pivoted me into situations where teamwork was required. In one section I gave Mr. Megaphone a boost over a wall to which a wooden bridge broke and I had to provide him cover. I didn't have to do nearly as much work as I thought I would. He outwitted me as I peppered enemies with machine gun fire by tossing grenades when the bad guys grouped together to try and gang up on him. Once the path was clear he got me across. It's worth noting that you can't directly control every movement your smart bullhorn can do but he can interact with objects, leaving you to cover him. There are various sections in the game where the two in Army of Two becomes a core gameplay mechanic.
The level design was nice and linear and easy to follow but it was a tad hard to see at times even when I cranked up the games brightness settings. The shadow effects accompanying the same contrast textures on some surfaces had me doing odd things like trying to open a wall because I thought a crack was a door among other things. Even though the environment can be a bit hard to see the easy control scheme made it really easy to interact with my environment such as hide behind walls. With a single tap of the A button I was able to successfully take cover while my vocal alarm shouted alongside me, shooting. I didn't get as lost as I thought I would while trying to rescue Princes Peach. My mate bellowed his trek, allowing me to easily follow him to a landing pad where we took down minions in slow motion.
The last part of the demo to save Princess Peach was the most fun I'd ever had. After clearing the pad a chopper flies in, making you decide if you take the ground or provide cover in the chopper. I loved my stereotypical friend but I wanted him to scream at the pilot so I couldn't hit that stay on ground option fast enough. I soon made my way to the end of the demo where Princes peach was to be rescued but an unknown chopper blasted my partner out of the sky, leaving me to help him up, where the journey to save Princess Peach ends with me shooting the pilot in that chopper that shot down my homie.
Up until this point my reticle was very easy to spot at all times. Since this section was in slow motion suspense gameplay I had to try eight times to shoot the pilot. Having no reticle to go by, I blindly swished my right analog stick around hoping I'd hit him. When I finally did and the demo ended I was so happy that I bellowed into a megaphone.
Even though this demo has a text menu that makes me want to shave with a poisonous spider the adaptable gameplay mechanics, AI competency, use of sound to place objects, and tiny visual aids that make small apologies for the menu at the start this demo showed me that a lot of thought has been put into Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel. Since the demo provided me with an avid batch of enjoyable goodies on my quest to save Princes Peach I couldn't deny that the demo had great features for my disabilities, both visually and physically. Since the demo was a rumble of enjoyable zest this demo made me have, not only soaring hopes for the game, which I'm sure will be as equally accessible but a fun environment that didn't even whisper the word boredom. The demo didn't just show me what it can do it also showed me how much fun this game will be. The adventure will be paved with a rush of epic fun and accessibility, I'm certain.