Shack: What's the multiplayer mode all about, and how much replayability is there overall?

Reid Schneider: Versus mode is basically all about two versus two. You and a buddy versus an opponent and a buddy. It's not traditional deathmatch. Obviously to be successful you need to take out the other team, but it's all about objectives and earning cash. Certain objectives are about blowing things up, other objectives are about rescuing hostages.

You're also upgrading your guns with money you earn, so it's also about earning cash. We've obviously taken some core ideas from Counter-Strike in that regard, like how to go when you're buying weaponry at the start, and then integrating that with some core objectives.

In terms of replayability overall, we have a pretty deep weapon system in Army of Two. The first time you go through the campaign mode, you're not going to be able to buy everyting, but as you go through the mode a second time you retain all your guns. If you want to, say, earn the heat-seeking RPG, you're going to have to play through it again. You accumulate, accumulate, accumulate more and more, and you pimp it out, and all that stuff has a real effect on the game. It's not just cosmetic.

Shack: One of the co-op features is being able to swap weapons in-game. If you've completed the game and you have expensive weapons, and you're playing with a buddy who's new, can you swap over an advanced weapon to him in the game?

Reid Schneider: Yep.

Shack: And he'll be able to use it?

Reid Schneider: Yep. He'll be able to use it and see all the cool stuff you have. You can't bring him into later missions and skip stuff he hasn't played, though. But he can use all the cool stuff you've gotten if you let him. I think that'll be really fun for players.

Shack: Do you see yourself taking this game concept and doing more in this vein?

Reid Schneider: Well, we really--

Shack: I mean, it's EA, so...

Reid Schneider: [laughs] Yeah, it's--the team has done a really great job of taking this concept and bringing it to reality. It's something we want to do more of. We have a lot of great ideas for what potential sequels could be like and what it could be down the road. What we want to do is release this one, and I'm sure we'll get a lot of feedback from players about what they like and what they don't like.

I worked on the Battlefield franchise, and one of the best things about Battlefield is that we have such a strong community, and the community really helped us from 1942 to Vietnam and then to Battlefield 2, they helped us to define the feature set in the following products. I want to build a strong community around this first game, and then to help us make design choices for future ones.

Shack: Speaking of Battlefield and its strong PC base, is there any chance of a PC version of Army of Two?

Reid Schneider: You know, we'll see.

Shack: I know it's tough these days.

Reid Schneider: Yeah, I think we really designed the game as a console game for the ground up, and that's not to say we won't bring it to the PC, but I think we wanted to focus on PS3 and Xbox 360 for the first versions. But if there's a strong market out there, I don't see why we wouldn't do it.

Shack: Speaking of PS3 and Xbox 360, are the online features fairly comparable? Obviously Xbox Live has extra features by default, but as far as Army of Two's own multiplayer?

Reid Schneider: Yeah, the feature set is 100% identical. If you're on 360, you have Xbox Live and all the stuff that comes with it, but the feature set in the software is the same.

Shack: I assume a game like this allows you go through the whole campaign in co-op without any fuss, but can you also drop in and out?

Reid Schneider: You can start with your buddy right from the start, and you can play through the whole game together, or you can start playing with your buddy and and then if he's not available for the second mission you can play with partner AI. So just because you start something through Live, for example, you're not limited--

Shack: Right, that makes sense, but I mean can you leave or enter in the middle of a mission?

Reid Schneider: You can leave in the middle of the mission and then have partner AI take over. As far as joining in the middle of a mission, the way the game is built and because we use a lot of synchronized animations, it uses a deterministic approach to the networking. There's no client/server, it's all peer-to-peer. So if you jump in, it will start at a defined checkpoint.

Shack: Okay, so you can drop in, just only at checkpoints?

Reid Schneider: Yes.

Shack: Any final words?

Reid Schneider: We're excited to release it. The team has done a great job, and they're proud of the game. Just got to get some final things done, get it through Sony and Microsoft, and it'll be in your hands.

Shack: Thanks, I appreciate your time.

Reid Schneider: Thank you. Great to meet you.