EA admits to "p**sing off a lot of people" with first Army of Two

EA has admitted that it "p**sed a few people off" over the ability to kill terrorists for cash in the first Army of Two game.

However, according to EA Montreal boss Alain Tascan, the development team toned down Salem and Rios' "over-the-top behavior" for the sequel.

"The mistake we made was we thought that what is going to make a certain type of person laugh, is going to make everybody laugh, he told Videogamer (via D'toid). "The reality is, you can laugh off everything but not with everybody.

"When we mixed killing in North Africa, killing terrorists for money and then fist pumping and saying something funny afterward, in a place where real life our troops are dying, people just felt whatever the game is, this is wrong. You can't do that.

"People from the left thought we were on the right; people from the right thought we were on the left. We were able to p**s off a lot of people.

"We needed to correct that because it was taking away from what the game was. Some people focused so much on that they didn't see the game. They just thought, how can you do that? My brother is in Afghanistan and in Iraq, you cannot do this kind of thing. We got carried away.

"The reality is we have real recordings from mercenaries in the field, and let me tell you, we took ten percent in the first game of what was said in war. But is not like in the movies, it's not appropriate.

"What we're discovering, now that we're a mass market entertainment medium, is, like movies, we have to filter. What would be the reality via our medium? And things evolve. Television evolves and movies evolve. We have to respect that, and we've learned good ways to do that.

"The new one I feel is still very funny, but at least it's more Bruce Willis funny than Steven Seagal funny."

Army of Two: The 40th Day hit the US with middling reviews yesterday and lands at retail on January 15 in Europe.