"Army of Two" is the first game actively marketed as a "co-operative shooter," which either means you need a friend to play or you need to have the patience of a saint to put up with the dim-witted intelligence of a computer partner. You control two mercenaries hired to trot around the globe to real life places like Somalia, China and Iraq (not just the "24" and "Call of Duty 4" cop-out of "somewhere in the Middle East") where you get paid to blow up shit and kill terrorist leaders, all the while unraveling a conspiracy theory that will surely reveal one of the cast as a traitor. The control scheme is a more slippery version of the one found in "Gears of War," and the entire game is essentially "Gears" with everyone wearing skull helmets. Unfortunately, it's not nearly as good.

Cast of Characters: Players are given the option of playing with either Rios or Salem, two mercenaries hired by the U.S. government to kill every terrorist on the planet, because, as we all know, our military is a bunch of pansies. Rios looks like a cross between Fenix from "Gears" and the Thing from "Fantastic Four" and he's always saying manly things like "Stop bitching!" The one doing the bitching is Salem, who looks like the lead singer of "The Starting Line" and enjoys wearing backwards hats and saying "bro" at least once in every line of dialogue. Both wear bulletproof skull masks and are actually pretty impressive-looking video game heroes, considering that all the manly buff men in these kinds of games tend to blur together over time. The best part of the game is that when there's nothing going on, you can walk up to your partner and press A, and they'll do some sort of hand-pound. But if you're lucky, they'll bust out an air guitar solo together, which could be one of the best features in a video game in recent memory.

AGGRO!: There should be a rule that any game featuring the word "aggro" in it from now on is automatically deducted a full star (this comes after the "aggro kick" found in "Tony Hawk's Proving Grounds"). But in "Army of Two," aggro is something else and, unfortunately, is quite key to the game. If you're shooting at enemies with a big gun, they shoot at you because you have all the aggro (not sure if you have aggro? Check your handy aggro-meter). When you have aggro, you glow bright red like you're about to explode, and, in contrast, your partner becomes transparent and is able to sneak around in an almost unfair way and snipe the enemies attacking you. And that's 95 percent of the fighting in "Army of Two." It's an interesting idea, but starts to feels very repetitive about 20 minutes into the game.

The Buddy System: The whole "2-player teamwork" aspect of the game feels very forced. You can tandem parachute, use a car door as a mobile shield together, go back to back, unload a spray of bullets in a circle and boost your partner up to a better sniping perch. But God forbid he dies up there and you have no way to revive him. Speaking of which, when playing with a friend you'll constantly be running back and forth reviving each other because no one can agree on who should have the aggro. Unlike "Gears of War," which involves just one button press, revival here involves dragging your partner to safety and waiting for a little bar to fill up as you inject him with adrenaline or steroids or something.

Custom Made, Custom Paid: Since you're operating as a mercenary rather than a standard solider, it actually makes sense to receive cash payments for completing certain objectives during your missions. Finding a file crucial for intelligence might net you $2,000, but taking out a high-profile terrorist target could land you a cool 10 Gs. You can use this money to buy new weapons and customize them with different stocks, ammo clips and silencers, not to mention the "pimped" option, which paints your gun chrome or gold and etches tribal designs on it. The weapon upgrade system is one of the best aspects of the game and even trumps the system found in the far superior "Call of Duty 4."