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.
***