Army of Two: the 40th Day – Review (X360, PS3)
EA has made great strides in the last few years to improve their reputation, but with Army of Two: the 40th Day, they have returned to their previous trend of running a promising series into the ground. This title is far worse than it’s predecessor in almost every way. Everything that made the original game stand out is gone and every effort was made to make this a Gears of War clone.
Things get off to an interesting enough start. Salem and Rios have been hired to plant some beacons in Shanghai. Immediately upon activating the last one, the city is bombarded by missiles and soldiers of the person that hired you for the job show up to kill you. From here, the entire plot never develops beyond ‘escape the city’. Not only does the story basically not exist, but you never leave Shanghai during the course of the game. Set piece moments from the original game, like running across the deck of a sinking aircraft carrier or driving a hovercraft through a flooded airport, are gone in this sequel. Since the city remains under bombardment throughout much of the game, it slowly morphs into Gears of War without the cool gothic architecture.
The game has two possible endings and I am still debating as to which one qualifies as the worst ending to a video game in history. One doesn’t make any logical sense, while the other is completely stupid and kills any chance of a sequel. At no point is the subtitle, The 40th Day, ever explained and only gets a passing mention if you search for all the hidden radio transmissions. Rest assured, though, that all your questions about the 40th day will be answered if you pay more money to purchase the DLC. I don’t think it is too much to ask to have a plot explained in the retail version without spending more to find out what the hell is going on.
Buying weapons can now be done at any time as long as you aren’t in combat. There are more options now (though only three sidearms) and the customization can be more personalized. In the first game, upgrading guns was a progression from worst to best. Now, different parts can be purchased to cater to your play style. Some upgrades improve damage, while others increase precision or stability. There now isn’t just one ‘best part’ and upgrading will proceed differently from player to player. one downside here is that many weapons are unlocked at first and the game doesn’t tell you what needs to be done in order to make them available. I have even completed the game and still have guns locked. One thing worth mentioning is that you receive money throughout the game for no apparent reason. The only job you are hired for is planting the beacons, but it is clear that the person who hired you had no intention of actually paying you for it. Some of the money comes from fallen soldiers; sometimes in increments of $1000. Because when I armor up for battle, I make sure my wallet is bulging with thousands of dollars.
Morality is implemented to spice up the gameplay, but these decisions don’t affect the plot in any way. Decisions will pop up at various points throughout the game, with one clearly being good and the other bad. Upon making your choice, the game goes into comic style still images that show the outcome of your choice, sometimes going hours or days into the future. The bad choices are have usually pretty obvious results and don’t show much of the future. The good choices, however, seems designed to make you feel like an idiot for trying to be good, with events like the person you saved turns out to be working with the enemy or making a right choice ends up in the deaths of innocents. Even worse is that often times neither choice is good and there is an obvious third course of action that the game doesn’t allow you to pursue.
While the original Army of Two had almost countless co-op moments that made it stand out from the competition, The 40th Day has almost none of these moments. There are only two ‘back-to-back’ sequences, which were probably my favorite scenes in the first game. Gone are the dual turrets, sniping while parachuting, or wide open areas that promote flanking maneuvers.
In another step backward, your teammate AI has gone from some of the best in the business to complete moron. During normal battles he will behave acceptably enough. As soon as a boss or major battle occurs, he will run forward to some predefined point and ignore all your orders until he reaches the spot the only he knows the location of. Because of this behavior, I had to fight the first heavy soldier in the game almost ten times because he would get himself killed before I had a chance to react. To add insult to injury, these fights are usually preceded by unskippable cutscenes that I had to watch every time I died.
It’s disappointing that most of the game it handled so poorly, because the basic action is solid and entertaining. The controls got a bit of an overhaul and the gameplay is more fluid. There really isn’t any tutorial to explain the changes to the controls, so it can take a while to figure them out. For example, I didn’t know that I could slide into cover until a loading screen told me how during my second playthrough.
The best way to sum up me experience with The 40th Day would be good action wrapped around a stupid plot, boring environments, horrible AI, and none of what made the first game great. The game isn’t terrible, but it lost some major points for being an almost complete step backward in the series.
The Bottom Line
| Pros |
|---|
| Enjoyable gunfights, Improved weapon purchasing and upgrading |
| Cons |
| Terrible teammate AI, Boring and pointless plot, Little variety in the missions and levels, Many features from original game scaled back or removed completely |
| Verdict |
| Almost feels like a Beta version of the original Army of Two and is a step in the wrong direction for the series |
| Overall |
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