Army of Two: The 40th Day Review

Short Version: Army of Two: The 40th Day improves the controls but doesn’t polish them. Graphics seem both better and worse and the story is nonexistent. It’s not a great game but still worth a play-through with a friend cooperatively.

Game Rant reviews Army of Two: The 40th Day

I have to admit that when the sequel to Army of Two was first announced, I was really excited. The first game didn’t blow me away by any means, but it was definitely a blast to play. It had solid graphics, tons of action and my favorite feature in games, co-operative play. I thought with such a good base to work from, Army of Two: The 40th day has the potential to be a huge success. The question is, did Army of Two: The 40th day live up to my expectations or did it feel like a rushed expansion?

When I first booted up the game, I do what I always do and changed the controls for the y-axis to inverted in the options. I started the game and to my surprise the controls where not inverted. I paused the game and double checked the controls, which said they were inverted. I thought maybe EA just mixed up the two options so I set the controls to not inverted. I un-paused and was ready to kick some ass, or so I thought. The controls were still not inverted! After multiple times of switching the options during the gameplay I decided to shut off the game. I started the game back up. I didn’t touch the options on the main menu and started from a new save file. I then changed the options while I was in the game and presto, changeo, the controls were magically inverted. Talk about a bad first impression.

Not much can be said for the game’s story, except that it is virtually non-existent. With the exception of a brief cinematic when you first start the game, you really are left out in the dark. I remember playing through the first chapter and thinking to myself, “what the hell is going on?” Missiles were dropping from the sky over the city, buildings were blowing up and I was killing people even though I had no idea why they were my enemies. The game seemed to take a step back when compared to its predecessor in the story department. Let’s face it though, people aren’t exactly playing Army of Two for the story. It is all about the action.

Army of Two 40th Day plays just like the first. Aggro is back and in full force. For those of you that don’t know, there is a meter on the top of the screen that represents Aggro. If the meter is red on Salem’s (one of the Army of Two) side of the bar, then enemies are focusing their attention on him and Rios (the other member) will be free to flank with ease. This creates some great gameplay moments, but also creates some ridiculous ones as well. On one hand if you create a plan and execute it with the assistance of Aggro it is an amazing feeling. Aggro fails in what it does to the AI in some situations. On several instances I had enemy A.I. walk right past me because all of the Aggro was on my partner.

New to the series is the on the fly weapon customization. During the game, as long as there are no enemies in the area, you can customize your weapons. The problem with the customization system they created is  all of the weapons share parts with other weapons in the same class. So you may be able to customize the gun, but you will rarely find a new combination of weapon parts that was better than your last. Really it is just customizing your gun, not upgrading it. I prefer the  system in the original Army of Two where you pay money to improve with new parts. I like buying new guns and instantly feeling more powerful.

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