New Army of Two trailer has Poe's Law in full effect.

Triforceformer

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For the uninformed, Poe's Law can be described as "The more extreme a piece of media it is, the more difficult it is to tell whether it's parody or legitimate without outside confirmation." Now watch this new "Overkill" trailer for ArIIIy of Two: The Devil's Cartel in which the new main characters Alpha and Bravo shoot a bunch of brown people.


-What I can only describe as "Exaggeration of the Black Ops II villain during his machete rampage" kicks a grenade near one of his "troops" with a bit of a comedic pause.
-Unarmored, slim-figured attractive not-as-brown woman is the "backup" for Alpha and Bravo against "Grenade Kick McGee."
-The villain slowly walks towards the three characters, somehow never being shot. Also is not caught in big explosion after Alpha/Bravo (Impossible to tell who's who as it's never made clear) says "Adios" like it's clever.
-Unfunny and mildly racist line about tacos.
-ALL the wanton destruction with beat up vehicles and guns to make it "gritty."
-No implication of any sort of plot aside from "Shoot everything in Mexico."

All points to a fairly humorous and well-animated parody of Spunkgargleweewee with a third Army of Two game as the framing joke, right? Then you see EA's tag come up and the release date, and all of the above just makes a little too much sense. I mean yeah an MMS game with its trademark "Gung-Ho attitude towards 'realistic' violence and thinly veiled racism against brown people, intentional or not" but set in the Cartel, which I am almost certain the actual devs and writers don't know shit about? Worked so well when Cal of Juarez did it, right? Now this was all without me realizing they announced this game back in August, so maybe I'm just late to the party. But this is still just sort of off the deep-end as far as these games go.
 

Zhukov

The Laughing Arsehole
Dec 29, 2009
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I tend to assume this sort of thing is straight faced and mildly retarded until I see concrete proof to the contrary.

Given the game industry's past with this sort of content, it seems like the winning bet.
 

someonehairy-ish

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Only the 'I could go for a taco' line makes me think this is parody, because surely noone would be retarded enough to play that line straight? Surely? Please?

[sub]They did, didn't they?[/sub]
 

Strazdas

Robots will replace your job
May 28, 2011
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Well, it is an army of two. two mentally challenged racist chumps but still two.\I am inclined to believe this is just stupidity, not comedy.
 

Kirov Reporting

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Well, I'm prepared to be judged for saying that trailer's really got my interest and I will most likely play this.

Ao2 has always been so over-the-top that it's basically a parody, but played straight- an ultra-stylised version of something that you or I will never experience, massively bombastic and with everything cranked up to 11.5.

Burnout lives by the same code, you'll (probably) never drive like that, so let's kick it up to its most extreme so you can get an absurdly 'rule of cool' version of the experience you'll never have the 'realistic' version of.

Frankly, I'm surprised if anyone's surprised at all of the action movie cliches in this trailer.

-What I can only describe as "Exaggeration of the Black Ops II villain during his machete rampage" kicks a grenade near one of his "troops" with a bit of a comedic pause. - Big bad? Check.
-Unarmored, slim-figured attractive not-as-brown woman is the "backup" for Alpha and Bravo against "Grenade Kick McGee." - Tough chick backing up the lunkheaded protagonists? Check.
-The villain slowly walks towards the three characters, somehow never being shot. Also is not caught in big explosion after Alpha/Bravo (Impossible to tell who's who as it's never made clear) says "Adios" like it's clever. - The 'menacing' walk? Bit of a central character staple. Check.
-Unfunny and mildly racist line about tacos. - I reckon this is likely to be out of context. It's a bit out of place and if that's all there is to that line, it seems a bit pointless, but if they're about to hop in a taco truck or similar for the ridiculous car chase, it would make a bit of sense.
-ALL the wanton destruction with beat up vehicles and guns to make it "gritty." - How is that 'gritty'? It's just ridiculous splashy action. If you're expecting a grim discussion about how a blown up car probably means a father of three won't be able to drive to work and probably can't afford to replace it every time anything detonates, then this isn't the genre for you.
-No implication of any sort of plot aside from "Shoot everything in Mexico." - It's an under 2-minute trailer. It's aimed at people who want to blow stuff away. I'll go out on a limb and say 'Big bad is the leader of X. Guys, go take out him and X. Here's a chick to back you up.' Plot implied! Sartre this ain't, but it's never claimed to be.
 

felbot

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May 11, 2011
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subtlety? what the fuck is subtlety? we Michael bay now.

seriously, more ridiculous co-op violence for people who like co-op violence, seems normal. hell for once ea managed to keep a franchise on track for 3 consecutive games, that ought to be a record. the games are dumb shooters sure but at least the haven't changed it to ballet dancing of two.

and now i really want ballet dancing of two.
 

Shinsei-J

Prunus Girl is best girl!
Apr 28, 2011
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Anathrax said:
Adam Jensen said:
This looks terrible. Who's this game aimed at?
I have no clue but I'm 100% sure you never asked for this.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
I'm light headed after laughing so hard.
You may only have just joined but damn if I don't respect you more than most.
You are now one of my favorite people now, congrats.

OT: Seems just as silly as the last.
It's an over the top couch co-op made for bros, it's fun as hell and if asked I'd describe it as a Quentin Tarantino movie as a game.
Really hoping it gets a PC release this time 'cause it would be awhile before I could get it on PS3 and I don't want to wait.
 

Kirov Reporting

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Shinsei-J said:
OT: Seems just as silly as the last.
It's an over the top couch co-op made for bros, it's fun as hell and if asked I'd describe it as a Quentin Tarantino movie as a game.
Bang on target, it's one for beer-spilling, loud-mouthed mayhem, and I'm happy to see a return to that after the.. Slight downer that 40th Day turned out to be. I just hope they've lost the heavy-handed moral system.

That poor tiger..
 

Legion

Were it so easy
Oct 2, 2008
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rhizhim said:
army of two was always somewhat about comedy...
Indeed.

I thought the bro-fisting and the air guitaring made that quite obvious.
 

Celtic_Kerr

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someonehairy-ish said:
Only the 'I could go for a taco' line makes me think this is parody, because surely noone would be retarded enough to play that line straight? Surely? Please?

[sub]They did, didn't they?[/sub]
I think (and I really can't stress the word think enough) that he's mentioned his love of tacos in past games. The line seemed pretty familiar
 
Jun 11, 2008
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Not really Poe's Law it is just Army of Two. It has always been over the top shit for bros since the first game and this is nothing new or different here.
 

V8 Ninja

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Eh, the trailer played itself too straight for me to take it as a parody. If there were a few more explosions, I would be wiling to believe that Poe's Law was in effect.
 

tahrey

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Sep 18, 2009
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Let's just think for a moment:
They made Kane and Lynch, didn't they?

Anyway, yay pre-set protagonist models... two white males in their early thirties, naturally. Ngh.
And cutscene characters that look like they're made of plastic. Maybe it's supposed to be a "playing with action figures" simulation?

Analysis: All too real. Sadly. And it'll probably get mediocre reviews but still sell enough to make the publisher a reasonable, though unimpressive profit.

If it's parody, too much work's gone in, and it's been made a little too dry. It's a little too real, without any proper knowing nods. Bandwagon, not piss-take.
 

Gearhead mk2

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...it's EA. They're gonna play it straight-faced and hype it up and work a few more studios to death to get it out the door, then complain when it doesn't sell.
 

MammothBlade

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Oct 12, 2011
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Just the sort of turdmeat the douchebag energy-drink bro crowd are looking for. Nothing new here.
 

fix-the-spade

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tahrey said:
If it's parody, too much work's gone in, and it's been made a little too dry. It's a little too real, without any proper knowing nods. Bandwagon, not piss-take.
I think it's satire.
Satire never so much raises an eyebrow, if it does, the illusion's gone and it's just a joke.

Speaking of which, I think someone is having a ball making this, a ball that even EA don't realise is going on. There's no way the person who put that trailer didn't know that they were making the most bro-thing ever.