Army of Two: The 40th Day Review

Welcome back to the world of Salem and Rios, in Army of Two: The 40^th Day. This sequel is essentially a disaster movie in which you play the central characters. This is largely due to there being explosions and crumbling buildings around every turn. But they don’t pack the same deep experience as seen in Uncharted 2: Among Thieves.

One thing that is clear with 40^th Day, it is by far a superior game to the first Army of Two game. EA Montreal has paid close attention to the problems that hampered the original and fixed them. Well, there are s few problems here and there but it is a much better experience than Army of Two. One element that has definitely been improved is the online co-op, in the first game I while playing online with one friend it was more of a lagfest than a fragfest. But online, is much improved, with co-op working solidly with minimal lag.

The story of the 40^th Day takes place over a few days and is set solely in Shanghai, unlike the first game that spanned several years and was set all around the world. After the events of the first game, Salem and Rios are now running their own Private Military Company called TransWorld Operations. At the start of the story, they are employed in a small time contract to plant a few objectives around Shanghai and get out of there. But as they finish the mission all hell breaks loose, buildings explode, planes drop from the air the normal cataclysmic stuff. Rios and Salem have to investigate reason behind the attack and if they are involved somehow.

The base gameplay hasn’t really changed; there is still the Aggro system in place, where one of the two partners takes the heat from enemy fire while the other is free to take down the targets without much hassle. The character that has the heat on them is shown as glowing orange. But one department that has been expanded is the customisation of weapons, one of the key ingredients in the first game, it never felt in-depth enough, but now with 40^th Day you can equip almost anything to your weapons. It goes from normal stock and barrel changes to equipping a screwdriver to create a bayonet. This adapts your playstyle as the addition of a bayonet allows your melee attack to have an added power to them.

The AI is one of the problems that I mentioned earlier, while it is improved and feels more aggressive there are points where it doesn’t press the advantage or attack as you feel it should making enemy soldiers easy to pick off. In one instance, I was down and bleeding out my AI partner came over and started saving me while he did that the soldiers we were just fighting just waited for the save and me to get back to cover before attacking again. But on the team side of the AI fence things are much better. Your AI partner is much smarter than before, with options like co-op sniping feeling more substantial, upon switching to the sniper your partner will do the same at the same time. Allowing for  double shots syncing as they should.

The current trend of having a moral choice in games has spread to Ao2 as well. Here there are certain points in which you have to make a choice. This choice can have profound affects; you also see the result of your choice in a cartoon style scene. For instance, there is one point at the start of the game where you need to decide whether to kill the comrade you have just been working with or pretend to kill him. Choosing to kill him awards you with his weapons, but not killing him gives you nothing except the possibility that he could be helpful later. So it is a choice, not just of moral cord but also if you want more weapons or cash.

The Multiplayer has also been updated and has a better feel to it. There is three modes to play on with up to 12 players, there is a fourth but that is currently only open to people who preordered the game. In Co-Op deathmatch, you and a partner battle against up to 6 other partnerships. Then there is Control, which is a game of capture and hold. Where you need to hold a position while you are awarded point. Finally of the free to air modes you have, Warzone, this mode is an objective based one. Where you need to complete objectives that constantly update. The side with the most objective completed wins. Extraction is the preorder exclusive mode, this works like firefight in Halo: ODST. It is limited to four players and you need to fight off increasingly harder waves of enemies until you get extracted.

Overall, 40^th Day is much better than that of the last Ao2 game. The concepts are more realised and thus work better. It seems that EA have really learn from the past and created a much better game. The disaster movie setting, works well with the theme of the series, there are a few holes that cause problems but overall it is a solid game.

Stars: 3 out of 5