displays brilliance are marred by the fact that the game is almost impossible to lose. On the other side of the coin, the right enemy placement allows for the player to simply run around and melee everything in sight. is a mixed bag at times they can present a noticeable and worthy challenge, carefully hiding behind cover and at times give the game an unorthodox feel, unlike most A-to-B-to-C shooters. Everything seemed to be in perfect during those sequences. There is the occasional set piece in a helicopter or a jeep, but these are few and far between – unfortunate seeing as how they were probably the most enjoyable parts of the game for me. Most of your time will be spent on foot, going from cover to cover and shooting bad guys.
Overall, the gameplay is fairly monotonous. It is demonstrated beautifully in the game’s few fixed-gun set pieces, in which large parts of the environment collapse and wreak havoc, but like Benito Martinez, it is underutilized. The effect is noticeable, but does not generate the amount of carnage and destruction that I have normally come to expect from the Frostbite 2 engine. Overkill obliterates not only the bodies of your enemies, but the surrounding environments as well. One of the premier features of the gameplay (in place of back-to-back and rock, paper, scissors, featured in the previous games) is Overkill. Constant use of the same color palette (“browns and beige! Earth tones people!”) drags it down some as well.
ARMY OF TWO MASKS RIOS FULL
Aside from the environments and overall graphics, the engine is not tapped for its full potential, given the game’s subject matter. The design of mimics the crisp and quasi-realistic nature of environments seen in games like Battlefield 3 to an extent.
ARMY OF TWO MASKS RIOS SERIES
The Devil’s Cartel is the first game in the series to utilize DICE’s popular Frostbite 2 Engine. The lacking story then causes the gameplay to feel more like a chore to get to the end, due to the fact that it simply cannot supplement what the story lacks and vice versa. In the attempt to emulate the campiness of the action film genre, The Devil’s Cartel finds itself being driven solely by clichés: the deaths we see coming and phoned in twists are the biggest culprits. The Devil’s Cartel has neither of those things and it lacks any charm or allure, as its narrative is very, very hollow. The difference between those films and The Devil’s Cartel is that there was something at least memorable or relatable about them. The writers of The Devil’s Cartel seemed to attempt to channel elements from Lethal Weapon, Bad Boys, and Die Hard, coupled with the aesthetic tones similar to films like Once Upon a Time in Mexico and The Expendables 2. Think of any famous buddy-cop action film that you may have seen in the past 20 years or so. There are inklings of this near the end of the game, but by then it is obviously too little, too late. For an action game that willingly takes many cues from the action genre, it was surprising that they did not use the oldest trick in the book to get me to hate Bautista: make the audience hate the villain, by whatever means necessary, no matter how cheap. Additionally, the dichotomy between the two different pairs of operatives is barely explored, and at times the relationship between Salem and Rios was much more interesting to watch, though it is barely explored beyond the most basic level.Įstaban Bautista is the primary antagonist for most of the game, though he is largely unseen and barely on screen a huge underutilization of Benito Martinez’s talents. There is just too much of a blank slate in regards to their characterization, there is nothing for the player to form an emotional tether with. The banter between the two is at times funny (though other times, facepalm-worthy). The names Alpha and Bravo were assigned to them in order to break down the barrier between gamer and playable character, so as the gamer can invest themselves more in the story and characters. Alpha and Bravo are largely reactionary characters we get a feel for them as soldiers and textbook badasses, but that is about all we get. David Sobolov and Joe Flanigan as Tyson Rios and Elliot Salem are decent as well. Zack Ward and Emerson Brooks do a good-enough job in their roles as Alpha and Bravo, respectively. There is not much to say about the game’s protagonists.