The controls work well enough and are based on the basic run-and-gun mechanic of a thousand other games. The inclusion of the team controls is the unique part, as you can order your partner to generate all the aggro, or to sneak around to the other side while you blast away. The AI for this is pretty weak though, and will have you doing all the work most of the time. With the game’s severe difficulty spikes, that means you can expect to die, a lot.

Besides some forgettable motion controls, there are no noticeable differences between the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of the game with both having pretty standard online offerings. You can simply jump into a match with a random person, or you can set up an all out brawl between your friends to make for a fun experience. These matches all suffer from a disappointing amount of lag though. The servers are iffy as well, and wound up kicking me off after only a few matches my first time. I wasn’t able to log back in for the rest of the day. Needless to say, they need a good amount of work from the folks at EA.

I also want to call attention to the manual and the beautiful box art. I know it is slightly strange to make a point of this, but I have been digging this box art for long time now and love that EA has stepped away from the industry traditions. What is sad and pathetic though is the manual that comes with the game. It is more of a pamphlet, and a puny one at that. I know that game booklets are one of the most overlooked things in gaming, but even this is a sad offering at only about 4 pages long. Hopefully the sequel will do a better idea of rounding everything out, instead of having so many areas of unevenness.

Overall this game needs a lot of refinement. It is a fun experience, but really only with a friend since the friendly AI is not quite up to snuff. A few things need tweaking, mostly the funky camera which just zooms in way to close with no option to move it around. If you are looking for a fun game to pick up and play with your buddy, make sure he is a patient one and an experienced gamer.