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[360] [PS3] Army of Two: The 40th Day

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[360] [PS3] Army of Two: The 40th Day

Unread postby MjFrancis » 19 Jan 2010 23:22

Private military contractors Rios and Salem are back for another cover-based TPS, as is their amusingly ambiguous relationship. It’s still not Gears of War, but the developers definitely took notes on their shortcomings from the first outing.

Rios and Salem are carrying out a routine mission in Shanghai when antagonist PMC’s bomb the hell out of the city and quarantine the area in a few short hours (I guess this is an alternate universe where the Chinese military isn’t all it’s cracked up to be). The paper-thin premise becomes absolutely laughable when the final cutscene reveals the motives behind the attack, but I didn’t really need justification to shoot hordes of PMCs anyways.

For the first few chapters, the level design is appealing; linear paths are convincingly created out of crumbling Shanghai alleyways and skyscrapers. One skyscraper you fight in has the ceiling torn from it mid-battle, and your escape is secured by descending the adjacent skyscraper that is now leaning on the original one! From chapter five on, the levels look like they were ripped from unused Gears of War maps. The typical cover becomes PMC-placed concrete barriers and the now desolate gray levels are punctuated with crimson propaganda posters. All this still looks more coherent than the worldwide locales of the first Army of Two.

The game retains the co-op play and Aggro mechanic of the previous title. Your aggression is reciprocated by the enemy and is represented by a sliding scale divided between you and your partner. When you max out the meter enemies will completely ignore your partner, allowing for a variety of tactical flanking and sniping maneuvers. At the most extreme difficulty level this is necessary for most every encounter since two three-round bursts of fire can floor you. Being resuscitated is easier since your partner can revive you while being shot this time around.

Manipulating Aggro is easier still since you can purchase new weapons at any time instead of the predefined checkpoints provided by the first Army of Two. Fantastic weapon attachments can be mixed and matched on an assortment of firearms to alter stats such as accuracy, handling and damage in addition to the amount of Aggro a weapon can incur. Most attachments lower some stats while raising others, so careful consideration is required so you don’t waste money watering down abilities.

Blind fire from cover is appropriately muted as well; I couldn’t kill anyone who wasn’t six feet in front of me. Blind fire is necessary for building Aggro when in a pinch. Some third person shooters provide uncanny blind fire abilities that feel like cheating; Uncharted comes to mind.

The new morality system is entirely unwelcomed. Each chapter presents a black and white choice in a cutscene, such as saving a woman from probable rape and murder or accepting her captor’s bribe to look the other way. Playing the nice guy reaps meager rewards later in the game, while being a dick rewards you with money to buy more useful equipment now. Since these morality ploys have no real consequences on friendly NPC interaction, just take the money. Most of the “positive” morality choices are monotonously ironic anyways, so it's no surprise when the woman you saved is a baby-killing assassin.

Most chapters have a few hostage situations that are also tied with the morality system. You are incentivized with instant cash infusions for every hostage saved, so the “positive” decision is always the better way to go. These situations have to be resolved quickly before the hostages are killed, and some even happen spontaneously, making reaction time critical. Most of these can be ended by taking a commanding officer hostage yourself, but sometimes that isn’t an option. If more hostage scenarios of increased frequency were included, it could have made the game much better.

Army of Two: The 40th Day really shines in the mini-boss battles. They are more frequent this time around, and without teamwork they are near-impossible to kill. These are typically one-man armies that are invincible save for a few choice areas, and can only be overcome with careful planning. Once their patterns are memorized, these enemies start appearing in more confined spaces, making flanking more difficult, and they are backed by grunts in increasing numbers to thwart your maneuvers.

The grunt A.I. rarely flanks, but instead stays behind cover and relies on numbers to be challenging. When I was able to advance faster than the game anticipated, I caught enemies crawling over a wall into the level and shot them like fish in a barrel. I did this more often than I should have been able to, though never on the highest difficulty selection.

I was pleased with the improved partner A.I. that is more capable of predictably following orders and actually healing me when I was down. The A.I. was more helpful than many of the random players I found online, who generally spent a great deal of time incapacitated (despite being able to choose difficulty levels independent of my own).

Army of Two: The 40th Day is tighter and more refined than the previous outing. At five or so hours on the default difficulty, it does not overstay it's welcome. The superfluous morality system and nonsensical story can be overlooked for the action that is much closer to the game EA Montreal surely meant to make the first time around.

***
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Re: [360] [PS3] Army of Two:The 40th Day

Unread postby icycalm » 20 Jan 2010 20:45

MjFrancis wrote:cover-based TPS


I'd rather you spelled it out in this one instance. I don't know why: I have no problem with "FPS", but I am not quite used to "TPS" just yet.

MjFrancis wrote:Manipulating Aggro is easier still since you can purchase new weapons at any time instead of the predefined checkpoints provided by the first Army of Two.


Is this a good or a bad thing? Where is your criticism of this aspect?

Just from reading that sentence I would say it's a bad thing -- you can buy weapons in the middle of a firefight?!

MjFrancis wrote:Most chapters have a few hostage situations that are also tied with the morality system. You are incentivized with instant cash infusions for every hostage saved, so the “positive” decision is always the better way to go.


So you gain cash in the middle of a firefight for saving a hostage? What is this -- an 80's arcade light gun shooter?

Also, what do you mean by "positive" decision? It doesn't quite make sense. You've already used this phrase in the previous paragraph, where it did make sense. Are there any other decisions to be made in a hostage situation apart from whether to save the hostages or not?

MjFrancis wrote:These situations have to be resolved quickly before the hostages are killed, and some even happen spontaneously, making reaction time critical.


What does spontaneously mean here? You've already said that some of these situations have to be resolved quickly -- how much quicker than quick can they get? Try to rephrase this more clearly.

MjFrancis wrote:If more hostage scenarios of increased frequency were included, it could have made the game much better.


"Of increased frequency"? What does that mean?

Also, why would more hostage scenarios make the game better? You haven't even told us whether you like them or not, and now you are telling us that more of them would have improved the game?

MjFrancis wrote:Army of Two: The 40th Day really shines in the mini-boss battles. They are more frequent this time around, and without teamwork they are near-impossible to kill.


If you read this carefully you will see that you are saying that "the mini-boss battles are near-impossible to kill". How does one kill a boss battle? By destroying the game's disc, perhaps?

MjFrancis wrote:Once their patterns are memorized, these enemies start appearing in more confined spaces


So the game reads the player's mind to see when he has memorized the patterns, and then and only then it makes these enemies appear in more confined spaces?

This entire paragraph is terribly written.

MjFrancis wrote:The grunt A.I. rarely flanks, but instead stays behind cover and relies on numbers to be challenging. When I was able to advance faster than the game anticipated, I caught enemies crawling over a wall into the level and shot them like fish in a barrel. I did this more often than I should have been able to, though never on the highest difficulty selection.


There's nothing wrong with this paragraph per se, but it is a good example of your tendency to describe instead of criticizing. I mean, I guess there's a kind of criticism in there, but I have to infer it -- and who knows if my inference will be correct? Why not just state outright whether you find the difficulty to your taste or not? Keep the example, but give us also some solid, unambiguous criticisms. Or play the game more if you don't have any so that you can acquire some.

MjFrancis wrote:I was pleased with the improved partner A.I. that is more capable of predictably following orders and actually healing me when I was down.


Perhaps "faithfully" or a synonym is a better word here than "predictably"?

MjFrancis wrote:The A.I. was more helpful than many of the random players I found online, who generally spent a great deal of time incapacitated (despite being able to choose difficulty levels independent of my own).


How can you possibly leave such a statement hanging there, and in a parenthesis no less? It is an astonishing comment -- I have no idea how something like that would work -- and yet you throw it out as an afterthought.

MjFrancis wrote:Army of Two: The 40th Day is tighter and more refined than the previous outing.


The phrase "tighter and more refined" does not quite match the impresion your review gives. In one or two aspects it even sounds dumbed down! How can you reconcile that with "more refined"? At best, I would say "somewhat tighter and improved" matches best what you have told us.

Also, not a single word on graphics or aesthetics (apart from some comments on the stage settings). You've played enough similar contemporary games, I am sure -- so how does this stack up next to them?
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Unread postby icycalm » 20 Jan 2010 22:37

I guess I left the most important part out -- much like you, lol.

Basically, you have just nitpicked the game. You have not bothered to justify the rating at all. Why is this not a four-star game? Would it be a five-star game if the plot was better, if there were no moral choices, more hostage situations, and the later levels more imaginative (from an aesthetic or a functional perspective -- you never make clear what exactly about them bothers you -- if they are "were ripped from unused Gears of War maps" then they must be awesome, right?)

MjFrancis wrote:It’s still not Gears of War.


Why? Because it has moral choices? Because it doesn't have enough hostage situations? (Gears didn't have any at all.) Because the plot is stupid?

Morevoer, the review seems to assume that the reader is already well aware of how you feel about the first game -- which obviously is not the case.



Overall I would say: a generally well-written review, and quite competent at nitpicking, but where's the beef? I still have no idea how this game or its predecessor stacks up against Gears, Uncharted and their predecessors.

I guess I have to play them myself to find out?
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Unread postby MjFrancis » 21 Jan 2010 20:28

Much of the review had been altered to account for your input in your initial response, but now I have more to work on. I'll thank you for complementing the details and helping me fix others, but pointing out that it leaves the reader with no frame of reference helps me most of all.

Thanks for the advice, I'll post a revision soon.
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Unread postby icycalm » 21 Jan 2010 22:04

Yes, do that. I am also planning to pick up copies of both games and check them out sometime soon, so we'll be able to compare notes even better when I've played them. Strange that they didn't come out for the PC...
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Unread postby icycalm » 22 Jan 2010 14:30

A suggestion: you might want to consider putting this review on hold and going back to review the original. In other words, if you were going to add a paragraph in THIS review with your opinion of the original, you might as well expand that into a full review. Because, at the end of the day, most of your comparisons of this series with Gears or Uncharted or whatever really belong in the review of the FIRST game... if you get what I am saying.

Then you will be free to nitpick the second game in the second review as you wish.
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Unread postby MjFrancis » 22 Jan 2010 18:24

I'll put up what I came up with before I read your last post. It was a stumbling block getting over the comparisons to the first game, which was horrendous, and Gears of War, which was awesome. There's still a lot of nitpicking, only with more opinions and comparisons this time around, lol.

I played through the first game again for a half-hour, and I'm pretty sure I won't waste time playing it again. Reviewing it, I can see, if only to save other people the time. It's worse than I remembered!

icycalm wrote:Strange that they didn't come out for the PC...

Xboxification, I suppose. A number of other developers I admire have done the same thing - Monolith with Condemned 2 and Starbreeze with The Darkness. It's a trend that I despise.

-----

Private military contractors Rios and‭ ‬Salem are back for another‭ ‬co-op‭ ‬cover-based third-person shooter,‭ ‬as is their amusingly ambiguous relationship.‭ ‬Rios and Salem are carrying out a routine mission in Shanghai when antagonist PMC’s bomb the hell out of the city and quarantine the area in a few short hours‭ (‬I guess this is an alternate universe where the Chinese military isn’t all it’s cracked up to be‭)‬.‭ ‬The paper-thin premise becomes absolutely laughable when the final cutscene reveals the motives behind the attack,‭ ‬but I didn’t really need justification to shoot hordes of PMCs anyways.‭ ‬The first game had an amusing premise executed horribly,‭ ‬so it wasn’t going to be hard to improve upon.

Linear paths‭ ‬in the levels‭ ‬are convincingly created out of‭ ‬colorful‭ ‬crumbling Shanghai alleyways and skyscrapers,‭ ‬but starting with the fifth chapter,‭ ‬most environments appear to be recycled from unused‭ ‬Gears of War maps.‭ ‬The typical cover becomes PMC-placed concrete barriers and desolate gray levels are punctuated with crimson propaganda posters.‭ ‬It still looks good,‭ ‬if a little unimaginative when compared to the first few levels where‭ ‬Shanghai’s disaster-movie backdrop kept me in constant awe of what’s going to be destroyed next.‭ ‬The graphics are on par with contemporary console shooters,‭ ‬but‭ ‬are expectantly improved‭ ‬over the first‭ ‬Army of Two and‭ ‬Gears of War.

The game retains the Aggro mechanic of the previous title,‭ ‬which‭ ‬was about the only things that differentiated‭ ‬Army of Two‭ ‬from other shooters.‭ ‬The enemy will prioritize attacks against the more aggressive player,‭ ‬building that’s player’s Aggro meter.‭ ‬When‭ ‬it is maxed out,‭ ‬enemies will completely ignore‭ ‬the passive player,‭ ‬allowing‭ ‬him to snipe or flank unimpeded.

Manipulating Aggro is easier since new weapons and accessories can be purchased between every battle instead of the predefined checkpoints provided by the first‭ ‬Army of Two.‭ ‬Purchased firearm attachments‭ ‬alter accuracy‭ ‬and damage stats in addition to the amount of Aggro a weapon can incur.‭ ‬Most attachments lower some stats while raising others,‭ ‬so careful consideration is required so‭ ‬they aren’t‭ ‬watered down.‭ ‬Being prevented from building an all-purpose‭ ‬weapon doesn’t make up for the invisible‭ ‬arms dealer that seems to be following‭ ‬Rios and‭ ‬Salem around in‭ ‬Shanghai‭; ‬this‭ ‬change was for the worse.

Blind fire from cover is appropriately muted‭; ‬I couldn’t kill anyone who wasn’t six feet in front of me.‭ ‬The first‭ ‬Army of Two‭ ‬provided uncanny blind fire abilities that felt like cheating,‭ ‬as do other third-person shooters like‭ ‬Uncharted.‭ ‬Making blind fire accurate in any way dumbs down a cover-based shooter,‭ ‬since‭ ‬attacks from this near-invulnerable state disregard much of the risk these games have to offer.‭ ‬Blind fire is still‭ ‬valuable for building Aggro in the face of overwhelming enemy force,‭ ‬especially since ammo won’t run low very often.

The new morality system is entirely unwelcomed.‭ ‬Each chapter presents a black and white choice in a cutscene,‭ ‬such as saving a woman from‭ ‬probable rape and‭ ‬murder or accepting her captor’s bribe to look the other way.‭ ‬Playing the nice guy reaps meager rewards‭ ‬later in the game,‭ ‬while being a dick rewards you with money to buy more useful equipment now.‭ ‬Since these morality ploys have no real consequences on friendly NPC interaction,‭ ‬I‭ ‬just take the money.‭ ‬Most of the‭ “‬positive‭” ‬morality choices are monotonously ironic anyways,‭ ‬like finding out the woman you saved is a baby-killing assassin.

Hostage situations tied to the morality system present themselves sporadically.‭ ‬The‭ ‬“positive‭” ‬points‭ ‬awarded for saving hostages are just as meaningless as the‭ “‬negative‭” ‬points received for letting them die since you are instantly awarded with cash to spend on weapons for saving them.‭ ‬A brief cutscene‭ ‬may give a few moments to put together a plan,‭ ‬but hostages will be killed‭ ‬shortly.‭ ‬Most of these can be successfully resolved by taking a commanding officer hostage yourself,‭ ‬but sometimes this isn’t an option.‭ ‬Saving the hostages through force requires twitch reflexes that generally take a back seat in cover-based shooters‭ – ‬enemies are extremely willing to use hostages for cover or even shoot them before they turn their sights on you.‭ ‬Saving all the hostages gets progressively difficult,‭ ‬but‭ ‬even‭ ‬more challenging‭ (‬and frequent‭) ‬hostage situations would have been more rewarding.‭ ‬Without the superfluous morality system,‭ ‬of course.

Army of Two:‭ ‬The‭ ‬40th Day has more boss encounters than the first title,‭ ‬and‭ ‬bosses are still invulnerable‭ ‬except for a few‭ ‬spots.‭ ‬Unlike the first game,‭ ‬these weak points are smaller.‭ ‬Bosses will also attack in confined spaces that make flanking more problematic,‭ ‬which is often the only way to take advantage of vulnerabilities.‭ B‬oss fights are more satisfying‭ – ‬though it wouldn’t have been much trouble to pit‭ ‬Salem and Rios against an occasional tank or helicopter built around the same mechanics.‭ ‬Third-person shooters have made screen-filling bosses a staple,‭ ‬so their absence sticks out.

The grunt A.I.‭ ‬rarely flanks,‭ ‬but instead stays behind cover,‭ ‬heals‭ ‬allies and relies on numbers to be challenging.‭ ‬When I was able to advance faster than the game anticipated,‭ ‬I caught enemies crawling over a wall into the level and shot them like fish in a barrel‭ ‬-‭ ‬though never on the highest difficulty selection.‭ ‬Damage‭ ‬received‭ ‬is the only variable affected by difficulty.‭ ‬The‭ ‬enemy‭ ‬A.I.‭ ‬could have been better‭ ‬than merely competent‭ ‬if it weren’t dumbed down to accommodate two difficulty levels‭ ‬simultaneously.‭ ‬It’s a neat gimmick at first that ultimately preys on the game’s replayability.‭ ‬Considering the first game had suicide bombers running straight at you,‭ ‬enemies who did not understand how to keep behind cover‭ (‬all with ridiculous life bars above their heads‭)‬,‭ ‬I’d say that‭ ‬The‭ ‬40th Day‭ ‬has shown lots of improvement regardless.

The partner A.I.‭ ‬is among the best I've come across in a co-op shooter,‭ ‬and certainly better than Dom ever was in‭ ‬Gears of War.‭ ‬The improved A.I.‭ ‬faithfully follows orders and actually heals me when I was down.‭ ‬It‭ ‬was more helpful than many of the random players I found online,‭ ‬who generally spent a great deal of time incapacitated and in need of assistance.

The games takes several steps back and a few more forward than it's predecessor,‭ ‬but still falls short of the standard left by‭ ‬Gears of War.‭ ‬It‭’‬s still a phenomenal third-person shooter that required a much greater skill-set on the highest difficulty setting than‭ ‬The‭ ‬40th‭ ‬Day‭ ‬ever demands.‭ ‬Gears of War‭ ‬made me suffer through enemies that were nearly as accurate a shot as I was.‭ ‬Ammo had to be horded like dirty magazines under a teenager’s bed.‭ ‬Weapons were balanced from the get-go.‭ ‬Even reloading required a precisely-timed second button press to maximize the damage each bullet could inflict.‭ ‬Enemies were more‭ ‬varied and unpredictable,‭ ‬like the Beserker‭ ‬– my adrenaline was pumping when I realized she could kill me by simple contact,‭ ‬and none of my weapons could damage her.‭ ‬There certainly wasn’t any moment of satisfaction like the final boss fight with General RAAM,‭ ‬where beating him on Insane can take half as long as the entirety of‭ ‬The‭ ‬40th Day’s campaign.‭ ‬A good cover shooter still requires reflexes that top-tier FPS players posses,‭ ‬and‭ ‬Gears‭ ‬does a better job of nurturing these skills.

Army of Two: The‭ ‬40th Day‭ made improvements over the first game, but efforts to make it more accessible held it back. Purchasing weapons and upgrades was too easy, the simultaneous co-op difficulty levels need improvement, and EA Montreal needs to tell a story that doesn't take me away from the action.
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Unread postby icycalm » 22 Jan 2010 23:07

You need to work on it more. You start with the nitpicking and the details, and end with a (largely failed) attempt to provide the big picture. Who the fuck cares what the later stages look like (which you tell us in the second paragraph), when you have not even made the slightest attempt to compare the game's MECHANICS to those of the games it tries to imitate or surpass?

WHY IS THIS GAME STILL NOT GEARS OF WAR?

I asked this question but you ignored it. It comes up on the very second sentence of your review!

Better yet:

WHY WAS THE FIRST GAME NOT GEARS OF WAR?

Also, your comments on the graphics are laughable, if not in fact idiotic.

The graphics are on par with contemporary console shooters,‭ ‬but‭ ‬are expectantly improved‭ ‬over the first‭ ‬Army of Two and‭ ‬Gears of War.


Is this really all you've got, lol? Are you blind or something? Or are you ENTIRELY INSENSITIVE to the aesthetic and technical aspects of videogames? If so, you cannot write game reviews. Or you can post comments on the mechanics in the forum, but you can't have your reviews published on the frontpage. These aspects are just as important as the mechanical ones -- you need to be as sensitive to resolutions, textures, colors, filters, effects, as well as forms, shapes and styles, as with anything that pertains to mechanics.

If you would like to keep trying, I have this advice for you: try to write one-minute reviews of both games. If you fail at this there's no way you'll ever write a decent full-length review. If you succeed, we can take it from there and see if we can expand those, or at least one of those, to full-length.

Or you can just sit back and wait for me to review both games. At that point I think you will see exactly what you have been doing wrong, and perhaps learn from that for future attempts...

Whatever you choose to do, I think it would be a good idea to write a bunch of one-minute reviews. Because these reviews must necessarily focus on the big picture, you see -- the part which for some reason you seem so intent on not covering in your full-length effort.

So think back to the last ten or twenty games you played extensively and know extensively, and start bumping threads in the games subforum (or creating new ones when necessary) with mini-reviews. Best reviewing practice you'll ever get.
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Unread postby icycalm » 22 Jan 2010 23:15

And lay off the drugs when writing:

The games takes several steps back and a few more forward than it's predecessor,‭ ‬but still falls short of the standard left by‭ ‬Gears of War.‭ ‬It‭’‬s still a phenomenal third-person shooter that required a much greater skill-set on the highest difficulty setting than‭ ‬The‭ ‬40th‭ ‬Day‭ ‬ever demands.‭


What the fuck does this even mean? Which game are you talking about here? The first sentence refers to The 40th Day, and then in the second sentence you seem to be referring to some other game which you never name, lol.

And then in the last paragraph you completely change the tense:

Army of Two: The‭ ‬40th Day‭ made improvements over the first game, but efforts to make it more accessible held it back. Purchasing weapons and upgrades was too easy, the simultaneous co-op difficulty levels need improvement, and EA Montreal needs to tell a story that doesn't take me away from the action.


The entire review is written in the present tense, and then the last paragraph in the past tense. As if you are talking about some classic from the 80's, lol.

Dude, more effort. This stuff is unacceptable.
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Unread postby icycalm » 30 Nov 2011 21:06

Review is up: http://culture.vg/reviews/in-depth/army ... 0-360.html

And discussion has moved here: http://culture.vg/forum/topic?f=3&t=3728

I wrote:I was going through the Submissions forum, tidying it up and picking whichever articles had potential, and came upon this forgotten thread from a while back. If you bother to go through the thread, you'll see that I gave poor Francis a really hard time in there -- and it is true that the original version of the review was lacking in several important areas. The second version, however, posted further down the same thread, is pretty much excellent -- at least as far as I can make out without having played the game. So I've no idea why I kept giving him shit even after he posted it. Perhaps I was bummed out on something at the time, and merely skimmed it while focusing on his inability to critique the visuals (which he calls with the blanket term "graphics", and says that they are better than Gears', but without any attempt at substantiation). The point is that no one who reviews modern Western games for this site seems to be capable of talking about visuals, nor even to so much as notice them really, and if I insisted on this point I'd either get no submissions, or it'd force people to talk about things they don't care about and hence manufacture idiocies to appease me. Pretty much every one of the new "modern Western game" reviews published on Insomnia 3.0 are lacking in this area (though I've done my best to add the odd comment here or there, but it's hard to do a good, accurate job when you are only going by screenshots and trailers...) So basically, we'll take what we can get in this area, and whenever I get around to trying any of these games I'll stealth-add my comments in the respective reviews and get this issue over with. Or people could post their comments re: graphics in the various forum threads, and if they seem to be reasonable I'll add them to the reviews.
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