Army of Two is the Gayest Thing I've Ever Seen

And I've seen 300. Sure, you could make the argument that since that was about gay soldiers, and Army of Two moves the homosexual themes of its protagonists into the realm of subtext, that 300 is the gayer of the two, but you would be wrong.

The primary reason for this is that while the Spartans were literally having sex with one another all the damn time, they actually took the whole 'war' thing seriously, and are remembered primarily for their fighting acumen, and secondarily for their child molestation.

Compare this to the main characters from the game Army of Two:

While I'm not saying that writing the word 'Merc' across the codpiece of your body armour is necessarily an advertisement for your services as a male prostitute, it certainly makes a persuasive impression in that direction, and I haven't seen anything in the game to suggest another interpretation.

Especially suspicious is the way the game depicts the two mercenaries congratulating and encouraging one another after every murder. Here they are clasping hands and gazing soulfully into one another's eyes:

It's almost as if they're the new millennium's answer to Leopold and Loeb. Vicious repressed psychopaths who can't let their attraction to one another out in healthy, normal ways, so they resort to ever-escalating acts of violence, always urging each other forward to greater heights of murder.

And I haven't even touched on the game's signature feature: Pimping your weapons!

While myriad games have offered players the chance to modify and improve their weapons, this may be the first to proudly encourage the player to make their guns prettier. Pimp culture has always been about giving the appearance of being as flamboyantly homosexual as possible. The jewelry, the fine clothes, the larger than life persona. Pimps believe that seeming as 'femme' as possible is a challenge to be overcome. They want to prove how masculine they are by looking as gay as possible without having anyone consider the possibility that they are, in fact, men who are attracted to other men. So their flamboyant appearance and behavior is counterbalanced by surrounding themselves with whores, who they viciously beat at every opportunity. Because, in the pimp's mind, there's nothing more masculine than abusing women.

The mercenaries in Army of Two have no similar excuse for this behavior. Their obsession with gold-plated, diamond studded weaponry seems to go no farther than their literal love of how pretty it looks. They buy a platinum shotgun not because they're trying to make an ironic comment about how masculine they are, but rather because they desperately want to use a shotgun that's more beautiful than all the other shotguns out there. If anything, their predilection for flamboyant weaponry seems to be their one obvious outlet for their otherwise suppressed desires. It's almost as if they want to taunt their victims with the way that they kill them. "You weren't just brutally shot to death. You were brutally shot to death by a gun that's prettier than your wife. Want to make something out of it?" They're getting revenge for all the people who ever called them sissies or persecuted them for their nature, and doing it in the most humiliating way possible, by killing these proxies with fancy, impractical weapons.

Army of Two's homosexual subtext is so close to the surface that I have a hard time believing that it's unintentional. From the way the game melds fashion-doll accessorizing with with brutal murder, to the 'trying too hard to seem straight' way the main characters taunt and shove one another, Army of Two is a masterpiece of subculture infiltration. This is a game being mass marketed around the world whose central theme is a gay love affair between two soldiers. That their love is expressed by killing other people is beside the point. It's there. It's queer. Get used to it.