Army Of Two: The 40th Day Review

Written by Chad Tuesday, 19 January 2010 22:09

User Rating: / 8
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Foul-mouthed, high-fiving, hockey-mask enthusiasts Salem and Rios are back for more aggro-grabbing action with Army Of Two: The 40th Day.  The co-op heavy game goes even lighter on story this time around, choosing to spend its time offering up civilians to save and morality choices.  The first title was a success in large part due to the mindless fun of it all, but the added weight of the morality adds an emotional strain on a title with a story not strong enough to support it.  

The game begins with the duo setting up to meet a contact in Shanghai, and setting up a beacon.  Things go downhill fast from there, with a large-scale terrorist attack launched on the city itself.  Despite the collectable radios delivering some additional information, the reasoning and people responsible for the attack is not explored until the final moments of the game.  The game plays out as a survival story, with Salem and Rios attempting to reconnect with their company contact and escape the carnage.  The idea of escaping a horrific situation that has nothing to do with you seems fine for an action title, but you want a little more meat on the story with the thought-provoking choices you are forced to make.  

While the morality choices do add some replay value, with a positive and negative moral choice for each, they feel undercooked.  They deserve some credit for not providing you with much information to go on, and dropping the choices into the levels where they make sense, but the aftermath of your choices feels too random.  Fail to shoot an endangered tiger and it ends up escaping the zoo and mauling a robber.  That result felt right, if odd, but latter choices have much more dire consequences, having nothing to do with either of the main characters.  It feels like a misstep when you make a positive morality choice, only to have it come back and bite you later in the game.  After you make each choice, you see a stylized animated cut-scene delivering the results of your decision.  You might want to make sure you and your partner on the same page, since, when playing co-op, the first choice selected is what happens.  

There are small moral decisions along the way regarding civilians rounded up by the enemy.  There are typically three soldiers standing around a few kneeling civilians, and must decide whether to attempt to save them or not.  Doing so requires a bit of stealth, which is not one of the game's strong points.  Sneaking up on the ranking officer and holding him hostage forces the others to drop their weapons.  You then choose whether to kill or restrain the soldiers and free the civilians.  It is fine in theory, but too often sneaking around with the lumbering characters alerts the enemy of your presence before you can reach them; resulting in civilian blood on your hands.  In addition to the positive morality rewarded for saving civilians, the final level rewards you for saving most of them with rooftop assistance from civilians shooting at the enemy along with you.  With the clunky stealth abilities, your chances of seeing this happen are thin. 

The game is designed completely as a co-op experience.  While you are sure to enjoy this more with a friend, the developers did a nice job implementing smart partner A.I. when playing solo.  Your partner does a fine job targeting and eliminating enemies on their own, and can generally be trusted to save you when you are down and avoid trouble themselves.  You issue orders with the d-pad, instructing your partner to hold, advance, or re-group with you.  You toggle the passive and aggressive options for each with a second press in the direction of the order, which is important when managing 'aggro'.  The 'aggro' gameplay concept returns from the first game, with a meter on the top of the screen monitoring which partner is getting the most enemy attention.  Flanking the 'heavy' enemies in the game is almost required; because of the explosive packs on their hips you need to blow-up to defeat them.  The 'hold' command works fine for this, but the game's 'advance' option could really use a reticule to show your partner exactly where you need him.  

The control scheme feels a bit unwieldy most times, since the majority of the character actions are tied to a single button.  The same button you hold to run also dives, jumps over cover, opens doors, and climbs ladders.  There are far too many times your character will jump over a barricade when you want him to run into cover.  These frustrating deaths could be easily avoided if they made better use of the controller.  The iconic hockey masks get an update for the sequel, turning them into more than a fashion statement.  Hitting the back button brings up an infrared view of the battle area, allowing you to more easily spot and tag enemies for your partner.  The system could use some work though, since it seems it occasionally fails to tag all enemies easily spotted on screen the first time.  The same view also provides you with a green line pointing you toward your next objective, similar to Dead Space.  It is a nice system, so why they limited your use with a quickly draining battery is confusing.  

Being mercenaries, the game makes smart use of the in-game cash by offering up a deep weapon shop; which you can access at nearly any point in the game.  There is plenty here to spend your cash on, with loads of muzzle, mount, scope, and attachments that alter your weapon's various attributes in addition to the loads of new guns to buy.  There are also supply crates, guarded by enemies.  If you can take the enemy down without alerting them first, you get a nice cash or weapon bonus.  The moment they are alerted, the crate comes crashing shut for good.  The increased reliance on stealth in the sequel is a strange decision.  

The score is one of the stars of the show this time, with a rousing theme that seems to ebb and flow at just the right moments.  The voice work is solid, but repetitive.  They tone down the f-bombs this time around in an attempt to build a more realistic relationship between the two main characters.  It works in the cut-scenes, but it feels like they are trying to win a bet that it really is possible to tire of Nolan North (Uncharted 2, Assassin's Creed II).  Each time Salem tags an enemy, he utters, "bagged and tagged".  Yes, every time.  It is enough to make you reconsider using the tagging system halfway through the game.  The game looks fantastic most times, especially when you step back and notice the crumbling city.  The hazy, orange-red sunset and burning buildings make a striking backdrop to plow through.  

There are three modes to play on Live at launch, with a fourth (Extraction) available only to those who pre-ordered.  Co-op Deathmatch and Control offer the expected modes, but it is Warzone where you will spend most of your time.  Taking a hint from Killzone 2, the mode offers a series of quickly changing game types within a single map until one team has won five of them.  The addictive mode would be plenty to hold your attention after beating the campaign, but some serious lag issues at launch seriously hamper the experience.  Like the campaign, your enjoyment will be much greater if played with a friend, rather than a random stranger who may not have a mic.  Extraction will be available to all players in around a month, but unless they fix the laggy play, it will not matter.  

The 40th Day makes some minor improvements on the first title, but still feels like a half-baked experience that could be much better.