The Buddies Are Back

by I Commentator I

© 2010 Declan S

Army of Two, released in March 2008, and developed by EA Montreal, promised to be an original co-op based 3rd person shooter which set players as guns for hire, exploring the world of private mercenaries.

Army of Two the 40th Day continues the story of Tyson Rios and Elliot Salem, several years after the first. Set in Shanghai, Rios and Salem must escape the city whilst completing missions along the way.

To get things straight, the story of Army of Two: the 40th day isn’t going to win any awards. Despite the fact you can’t even skip the cut scenes, I still wasn’t able to understand the story, as the majority of cut scenes are just buildings blowing up. From what I could gather, forces had invaded Shanghai and you were trying to escape, or something like that.

• Army Of Two: 40Tth Day – My Name Is Jonha

Army of Two 40th day isn’t the type of game that needs a strong story anyway. The levels are of a good length and instead of the status quo spawn at A and get to B, 40th day throws it up a bit by adding both hostage situations and moral decisions throughout the levels.

Hostage or Ambush?

The hostage situations entail you and your partner coming across a group of the enemy about to execute some civilians, and in these situations you will be asked to save them. Although these situations are few and far between, it is good fun planning out how you will rescue them.

You can do this either by taking the enemy commander as a hostage and disarming the enemy, or by killing them instead. Whatever you choose affects your morality, which is another main component of the game.

In each level, you will be given a moral decision to make, such as do you kill an endangered species to recover a weapon for use in your arsenal.

In addition to this, there are also multiple hostage situations on every level, and saving or letting these guys die also is a moral factor. As well as this you can take any enemy hostage during the levels and tie him up for a moral bonus.

In all, these decisions are meant to factor in on certain points during the story, however throughout the whole game, I can only think of two points where real moral choices came into play- and of those two only one seemed to have any major impact on the game. Needless to say that whilst the Morality factor is a nice little inclusion, it is very underutilised.

Graphically, 40th day is decent, but nothing special. Its visuals aren’t going to wow anyone but aren’t an eyesore either.

The Storyline

However the cutscenes are a different story. Due to Army Of Two: 40th day playing out as a survival story – escaping from a war ravaged Shanghai, just about every cutscene entails another building being blown up.

This is made even more boring by the fact that you can’t skip them; luckily they aren’t too long, so they aren’t too major an inconvenience, although disappointing to say the least.

Just like its predecessor, Army of two, The Army Of Two: 40th Day is really a game meant for a co-op experience. Most of the cool features such as Co-op sniping, both hiding behind the same shield and back to back sections are only really apparent whilst playing on Co-op, which is available in local play or over Live.

The game holds up quite well over Xbox Live. However despite the fact both my partner and I have great and stable connections, the game lobby did close once a level or more. I am not sure if this is a problem experienced by others, yet it was a great source of annoyance to us.

Army of Two: the 40th Day, unlike its predecessor, also ships with a fully implemented multiplayer mode, which features 3 game types – a standard 5v5 team deathmatch, a capture the territory mode, and most interestingly, a game which resembles Wingman from Gears of War, a 2v2v2v2v2 free for all.

Multiplayer

The multiplayer seems like it could be great fun, although for players outside the US, the game is unplayable due to bad latency problems. Along with this, the game offers little in the way of leveling etc. and lacks the depth of its competition in terms of Xbox live shooters.

A mode resembling horde from Gears of War 2 is also included in the game – yet as I didn’t pre-order the game, I was not able to test it. Fortunately it will be released free to all players a month after release.

Overall Army of Two: the 40th day is a decent co-op experience, and generally improves on the first game. However due to the single player being so short (it is possible to finish in under 4 hours, with 7 levels roughly half an hour each), and the multiplayer not meeting the standards of other shooters such as Gears of War or Call of Duty, overall Army of Two does not have a long lasting appeal.

However it does provide some fun for a week, and is best played in Co-op.

© 2010 Declan S

“7/10

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Filed under: 3rd Party Games, Console gaming, Game Impressions, New Xbox 360 Games, Xbox 360, Xbox 360 Game Reviews, Xbox 360 News Tagged: | Army of Two, Army of Two: 40th Day, Army of Two: 40th Day Review, Army of Two: the 40th Day, Army of Two: the 40th Day Review, EA Montreal, Electronnic Arts Montreal, Elliot Salem, Rios, Rios Army of two, Salem, Salem Army of two, Tyson Rios, xbox live