In our previous post, we explained at length how our initial excitement over the upcoming Electronic Arts game Army of Two had turned to skepticism in the wake of the sophomoric brand of humor displayed in a pair of trailers. EA was kind enough to put us on the phone with Alain Tascan, EA Montreal's general manager, so that he could address our concerns directly.
Tascan is one of the industry's most thoughtful and colorful conversationalists, and during two separate conversations, he absorbed our critique with Gallic nonchalance, never once striking a defensive note. "Humor is one of the most difficult things to get right," he told Level Up. "We want to add some humor to the game to differentiate it from the competition. Because shoot shoot shoot and hide is not all we want to do."
Tascan and the game's publicist repeatedly emphasized that what was shown in the trailer is not necessarily representative of what we'll see when the game ships later this year. "While we're happy and on target on the gameplay side, we're still experimenting with the dialogue," says Tascan. "The trailer, for us, is a way to gather feedback. It's like a mini-demo. We're able to provoke strong reactions like yours and incorporate that feedback into the game"
EA publicist Pete Nguyen adds, "The trailer is there to get people excited about the game. Is it indicative of the final experience? No. You're not going to see these guys saying one-liners every minute when you're playing. But there is interaction and humor between these two characters, and we wanted to show that." Tascan concluded our first chat by saying, "We're still working [the humor] out. Like the music, the dialogue in the game will come in at the end."
As we were putting the finishing touches our previous post, it occurred to us that perhaps the reason that the writing in the game had taken a meathead-ish, hyper-macho turn was because a number of videogame journalists had poked fun at what they saw as the game's gay overtones. We posed the question to Nguyen, and he once again put us on the phone with Tascan.
"We were a bit naive," says Tascan of the ribbing his game has taken in some of its previews. "At E3, a bunch of [reporters] jumped on that. The first trailer was really focused on the gameplay mechanic--you are these two guys who are always together--and [the reporters] came back with this comment."
Ultimately, the comments and jibes don't concern Tascan in the slightest. "We're going to make a game, we're completely neutral on this thing," he says. "We just want to make something that's fun to play. Some people may take it a certain way; other people will take it another way. There's no point in trying to change people's perceptions. It doesn't really work."
It's ironic that Tascan and the Army of Two team in fact drew their inspiration from buddy cop movies ("like," he says "'Bad Boys' and 'Men in Black'"), because film critics have often pointed out the homoerotic overtones in these stories of men who prefer firing big guns with their male partners to any other activity. Nevertheless, we find ourselves somewhat reassured by Tascan's statement that the dialogue is still a work in progress, and we hope the finished script is worthy of the gameplay it surrounds.
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