Army of Two: The 40th Day attempts to add a layer of strategic considerations to co-op based third-person shooters – which is a welcome concept as the bulk of the shooter genre consist primarily of lining up the reticle at an enemies face, then pulling the trigger. EA Montreal attempted the same feat with the launch of the original Army of Two in 2008. Despite being a satisfying co-op experience, it didn’t quite grasp the players as well as it could have. If we disregard the technical faults and minor bugs, we had a core-foundation which was both fun to play and could be used as a platform for growth. Does The 40th Day learn from past mistakes, or fumble in the debrie of missed opportunity?
Rios and Salem are back, running missions for their own private military corporation, TransWorld Operations. Contrasting with the original, which spanned several years and different regions of the world, The 40th Day takes place solely in Shanghai over the course of a few days. The narrative begins as they take a contract that sounds way too easy: kill a few guards, handle a few objectives and score a large pay-check. Though, as things develop they quickly realise it is not as easy as initially thought. As all hell begins to break loose in Shanghai. Buildings blow up, aircraft fall from the skies — total chaos reigns. Why, exactly? That is where Army of Two begins to fall into familiar territory – the game doesn’t discernibly tell you with great detail as to why these things are happening. They just are.
Most of that greater detail is relegated to the pause menu. Throughout the campaign you will come across audio recordings, once located you can access them through the pause menu and roughly piece together the rough outline of the catastrophe – who is causing it – what are his intentions – maybe even a motivation or two. Maybe it was best that this element of the story was left to be explained through optional recordings, as you will later establish in your mind that the activities throughout the game are hardly justifiable. By the end of the game, when you finally confront the man responsible for the attack, you won’t even be sure why you want to stop him so badly. Or even more inexcusable – all this narration could distract from the action.
United you stand, Divided you fall.
Without a doubt is the action the main focus in The 40th Day. As you maneuver through the torn down city of Shanghai you will feel as though you are in an interactive movie cross between Bad Boys and disaster movie 2012. Never will you go five minutes without something blowing up or crumbling around you – which provides a much needed adrenaline rush as you fight through enemies or just surviving any obstacle in your way. As you will encounter buildings all across the skyline being ripped apart and collapsing, if not by bombs, then by helicopters or planes crashing into them in gorgeous almost cinematic fashion, destruction has never looked more glamorous than in The 40th Day. This all sets up some incredible-looking chaos which later serves as the backdrop as you make your way through the city trying to find the man responsible.
The 40th Day is in it’s element when you are playing co-operatively, either through split-screen or over Live. As you and a partner take control of Rios and Salem you will find advancing through the campaign a lot more satisfying and fun. If your friends are unable or attend, or if you simple do not have any, do not fret, as EA Montreal have you covered. As they will replace real life friends with an AI partner that does your bidding. You’ll be able to give a few orders to your partner, which lets you control when he’ll advance, when he’ll stick by your side, and when he’ll stop and take cover. Or even command him to distract the enemies as you flank from behind. Or even use the aggro-meter to your advantage, by commanding him to be aggressive, which as an effect pulls all the enemy attention onto him – leaving you clear to attack. You could quite easily choose to ignore these commands and leave him on auto-pilot – though you will need to take full advantage of these commands as you play through on harder difficulties.
The AI does have some issue’s when responding to orders, though. At times you will find your partner doing the opposite to what you say, or even take your orders quite literal. If you order him to stay back and not shoot, he will do that, even if an enemy is standing next to him slowly deplemishing his health. In the event that you get dropped by the opposition, your partner can drag you to safety and shoot you full of life-giving drugs. I would still try your utmost best to not get downed in the first place, though, as your AI partner does sometimes take it upon himself to drag your downed corpse out of cover and into an open space, before even trying to revive you. Or there was the time he blatantly ignored my commands to continue through the level – For these reasons, I strongly urge you to find a real-life partner if you want to behold what The 40th Day truly has to offer.
Witness some of the most destructive, yet breathtaking sequences as the city crashes down around you.
In what must have been an attempt to humanize the characters of Salem and Rios – the game will present you with one moral decision per chapter. It starts when your initial contact for your first mission turns out to be on your shadowy employer’s hit list. Do you kill the guy that helped you get through the early part of the game for a little extra cash, or have you become attached to him in the game’s first five or ten minutes? To make the decision even harder, you often get tempted with large-payouts and extra potent weapons. When you are faced with one of these scenarios, you are presented with the choice of two buttons. Depending on which you choose you will also be awarded with either positive or negative moral. Which alters some minor dialogue in the story, though not enough to warrant playing through twice to see the other unfold. Similar to that, it also affects your chosen characters opinion on his partner. You can end the game as best friends, or as feuding mercenaries. The choice is up to you, it makes no grave difference beside achievements, though.
In addition to the campaign, there are also a few different multiplayer modes. Even the game’s online deathmatch mode sticks to the Army of Two mentality by grouping you into teams of two. There is also a control point capture mode and warzone, which throws different types of objective based operations at you, one after the other, without leaving the map. In total the multiplayer modes allow for up to 10 players, with a variety of six different maps. Unfortunately, you are limited to a few different loadouts and weapon types in the multiplayer, which is unfortunate, since the gun customization is one of the best things about The 40th Day. I wouldn’t worry about this too much though, as most servers plagued by lag, and will struggle finding a single match with a connection steady enough to play.
While the annihilated city of Shanghai ends up making for a generic-feeling backdrop for the action, the early parts of the game, which is where more of the explosions and collapsing buildings are found, look great. You will often have a clear Shanghai skyline view, giving your front-row seats as you bare-witness to some of the most destructive, yet breathtaking sequences as the city crashes down around you. Despite being able to blow through campaign in about 4-5 hours – if you can look past the constant minor bugs and technical hiccups you are in for a very fun co-operative experience. With entertaining action, awe-inspiring visuals, and the ability to play rock-paper-scissors while standing over the corpses of your enemies, The 40th Day is a fun way for shooter fans to start off 2010.
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