Comedy, Violence, and Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel Part of what makes Paul Verhoeven movies so special is their absurd, inconsistent tone. The subject matter is usually some pretty serious stuff, but the violence by which problems are solved is so obscene that it becomes comical. Remember that guy who gets run down by a drill truck in Total Recall? Or when that the acid-burn victim in Robocop gets hit by a car and explodes? Man, Verhoeven movies are the best.
Oh, right, video games. I didn’t expect to enjoy the crazy, silly fun of Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel nearly as much as I did. It gets tone right where past Army of Two games failed miserably. The violence was taken seriously, but the characters weren’t – Salem and Rios loved killing, and it was uncomfortable. In The Devil’s Cartel, the solemn heroes take no joy in ripping men to pieces in in absurd Verhoeven fashion
The cartoonish violence is part of the fun for Julian Beak, Executive Producer on Army of Two. “We wanted to create a game to honor the previous Army of Two games, where if we’re playing on the couch it’s like watching an action movie,” he says. “You’re going to laugh sometimes, there’s going to be a bit of levity. Sometimes the plot’s a bit serious, but we wanted it to be a bit more fun.”
Beak is leaving the photo-realistic drama up to other EA games using the Frostbite 2 engine. “We wanted this one to be the one where there are some chuckles,” he says. Enemies in Army of Two burst when players activate Overkill mode. With Overkill active, you don’t need to reload and you have unlimited ammo, which lets you recklessly lay into large groups of guys with explosive rounds. Their arms and legs go flying, heads pop off, and cover disintegrates. It’s nonsense. It's completely against the darker tone of its serious story. It made me uncomfortable, but I caught myself giggling anyway.
Levity is important to Army of Two because it’s how Beak wants players to release the tension of the serious story and more believable protagonists, Alpha and Bravo. Mechanically, The Devil’s Cartel will feel familiar to Army of Two players, so it’s these new characters that separate it from The 40th Day. “Alpha is a lot more straight laced, he understands why they’re there, how difficult the situation is. He’s very much the thinker, he takes it all very personally that they succeed. He’s fairly in touch,” Beak explains. “Then you’ve got Bravo, who is very skilled, is a natural at what he’s doing, didn’t want to be in the military, didn’t want that life. He left. So he’s much more the ‘take action’ kinda guy. He’s not a loose cannon.”
The cartoonish violence is part of the fun for Julian Beak, Executive Producer on Army of Two. “We wanted to create a game to honor the previous Army of Two games, where if we’re playing on the couch it’s like watching an action movie,” he says. “You’re going to laugh sometimes, there’s going to be a bit of levity. Sometimes the plot’s a bit serious, but we wanted it to be a bit more fun.”
Beak is leaving the photo-realistic drama up to other EA games using the Frostbite 2 engine. “We wanted this one to be the one where there are some chuckles,” he says. Enemies in Army of Two burst when players activate Overkill mode. With Overkill active, you don’t need to reload and you have unlimited ammo, which lets you recklessly lay into large groups of guys with explosive rounds. Their arms and legs go flying, heads pop off, and cover disintegrates. It’s nonsense. It's completely against the darker tone of its serious story. It made me uncomfortable, but I caught myself giggling anyway.
Levity is important to Army of Two because it’s how Beak wants players to release the tension of the serious story and more believable protagonists, Alpha and Bravo. Mechanically, The Devil’s Cartel will feel familiar to Army of Two players, so it’s these new characters that separate it from The 40th Day. “Alpha is a lot more straight laced, he understands why they’re there, how difficult the situation is. He’s very much the thinker, he takes it all very personally that they succeed. He’s fairly in touch,” Beak explains. “Then you’ve got Bravo, who is very skilled, is a natural at what he’s doing, didn’t want to be in the military, didn’t want that life. He left. So he’s much more the ‘take action’ kinda guy. He’s not a loose cannon.”
The new heroes are anything but thrilled to be where they are. They have people they care about and want to protect, and when their mission goes bad and terrible things start happening to those around them, Beak wants players to know Alpha and Bravo care. Beak says Visceral Montreal is “going to make this story and these characters unravel so that you feel for them.”
The Mexican Cartel is heavy material to work with. The drug syndicate tortures and kills journalists, cops, competitors, and families – and this is something that happens in present-day Central America. Call of Juarez: The Cartel tried tackling this, but it failed. Critics – both the public and press –chastised it for overt racism and insensitivity, which is something Visceral is acutely aware of and trying desperately to avoid. When I ask Beak if Call of Juarez was on their minds, he says, “the example you gave was the anti-hero for our game.” Early in development, Visceral used it as a frame of reference. “We have to do better than that” was the team’s goal. “Not just by a little bit, like, we have to be 180 degrees from that.”
So how does Visceral work with such sensitive material? “It’s really hard, it’s complicated,” Beak explains. The Cartel “infuses families. Whole cities are affected by this, political democracies.” He emphasizes that Mexico was “not a setting we chose lightly,” and says that many members of the development team grew up in or have family in Mexico.
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arms and legs go flying, heads pop off, and cover disintegrates. It’s nonsense.
"It’s always a risk when you’re making entertainment that you are exploiting anything, period. This is a setting that brings real tension to the game,” Beak Continues. “This is not a good thing that’s going on down there, this is really unpleasant for all walks of life.”
Visceral wants players to understand that they’re not white knights solving all of Mexico’s problems. “Your mission goes bad, you’re actually at the receiving end of some of the same things going on there to others,” says Beak. “If we’re doing it right in terms of the way you’ll feel when playing it, there will be an amount of empathy and compassion for the difficulty of that situation.”
Army of Two has an interesting blend of comedic violence and a dead-serious story. I enjoyed the mission I played because it was silly and fun to steamroll foes in ultra-violent fashion. I felt like a Robocop or a Rico or a Quaid.
At the same time, I’m curious to see how Visceral Montreal will balance that with its goals to make players think about what’s going on. With someone like Julian Beak behind The Devil’s Cartel, though, I’m less worried. “I think sometimes people will look at it superficially and make the assumption that it might be exploitive,” Beak says, “and they might basically butcher that experience. And you’ll feel almost dirty. That’s something we’re not comfortable with.”
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