I picked up Army of TWO: The 40th Day a day after release hoping for a game that had a good co-op experience - I was not disappointed. Army of TWO: TFD continues the story of Salem and Rios, two mercenaries for hire now running their own company. All starts off well just doing the job they were hired to do in Shanghai, plant some beacons, when all hell breaks loose. Buildings start exploding, planes come crashing down and Salem and Rios now find themselves the targets of a larger mercenary group who apparently is wiping out a lot of smaller teams of mercenaries - teams who were hired to do small jobs which apparently are all a part of a bigger scheme.
Unfortunately this first mission or two are about the extent of the intriguing story. Although you do find out what the bigger scheme was in the long run - the story in this game was lacking compared to the first. The first kept you interested and each mission revealed a little more of the sinister plot of the first story (no I won't ruin it for you if you haven't played it). In the sequel each mission felt like nothing more than survival, random stops on the way to just happening to confront the mastermind behind the attack on Shanghai.
The only additional feature that helps make up for the lack of a main story is the addition of major decisions along the way - decisions that have either a negative or positive morality associated with them. After making a choice you get a short cutscene showing how your decision affected people - sometimes not in the way you would imagine. The only other bonus to some of these decisions is you are occasionally awarded money or weaponry. I would like to talk more about the story - but this is it folks, it really was lacking in this department - although Alice was included from the original game, she was very uninvolved through most of this story and S3kshun8 went completely AWOL.
The first thing I should mention when it comes to gameplay is that this is a CO-OP game. The mechanics are all designed around you working with a partner, whether that is a human controlled partner or an AI controlled partner. Controls were solid in this game but they are different than other third person shooters, so you might not like them compared to another game but I felt they got the job done. Two noteworthy points were when using the A button to run, you needed to slow down right before cover to slide in behind the cover, otherwise you would vault over low cover and keep running. This could be irritating until you got used to it, but then I found it very handy for not having to avoid cover when I was running for my life. The other point that should be made is when your partner was down the A button was also used to drag/revive him. This one was very irritating as I found myself frequently running or rolling past my partner instead of picking them up, you had to stand still for a moment before pressing A to get them back up and going.
I read another review on this game in a magazine (I won't mention which one) that bashed the game a bit because you couldn't run ahead without your partner without getting killed. After slamming my head into the table several times I felt it was worth mentioning again that this is a CO-OP game. I mean come on - its called Army of TWO - two like the number 2, like a duo as in NOT Army of ONE. /rant over Anyhow so the way you survive this game is to work with your partner to use the Aggro system to draw the attention of the enemies so your partner can advance/flank/reload, etc. The Aggro system is pretty simple - the more you shoot and kill, the more the enemies will focus their attacks on you. Weapons can be customized to enhance or detract from the amount of Aggro you draw - more on this later though. The main focus of the Aggro system is to use it to your advantage - if your partner is drawing all the fire you can sneak around behind and enemy and take them out - very useful for the "heavies" that come in and can do massive damage. You can not use this system like the first game to become "invisible," if you go at an enemy head on, they will shoot at you even if your partner has all the Aggro going his way. Communication is the key playing with a friend and you have control of the AI - regroup, stop, advance and you can control whether they draw a lot of Aggro or very little. The downside is that if the AI draws a lot they will do so until the enemies are killed or they are downed. AI characters are also fairly weak about reviving you if you have gone too far away from them - but I don't see that as a downside, it is something to encourage you to work together even if you are separated (which happens only a couple times in the game).
Gun customization is the big improvement in this game. Although you did have some choices to customize in the first game, this one goes light years beyond what they did originally. Upgrades can be found lying around in story mode, can be unlocked by completing missions or by morality choices in the game. You can customize your weapon even using some parts of other weapons - some stocks, barrels and scopes can be essentially "removed" from one gun and added to another. This doesn't disassemble the first gun, it is just something you can use to customize your other weapons. You can still use a Primary, Secondary and Special weapon with the added feature this time of putting a second Primary weapon in your special slot. You can do this if you don't like using sniper rifles or RPGs or other high explosive special weapons. I personally loved my sniper rifle so I never really did this, but for those of you who like to play Rambo on casual difficulty - this is a good option for you.
Playing co-op with a friend is the way to go on the story mode. Although the AI does a decent job, it really requires you to be fully aware of where it is and what it is doing for it to be most effective since you are controlling its general actions. I did experience a few glitches in the on-line co-op mode including dropping out of the game (which of course could have been my connection) and the sound dropping out. It would frequently drop out for both players so it could be fairly irritating, it dropped out a couple times in the middle of cutscenes and once during one of the endings!
I do have to make one disclaimer before I talk about multiplayer: I have NOT played Extraction mode as this was a feature that you are only able to play if you pre-ordered the game. It will be released to the public for FREE on February 12th, but until then it is locked for those of us who <gasp> bought the game ONE DAY after it came out. I wasn't terribly impressed with the other modes of multiplayer, I really had enjoyed the multiplayer in the first game - I thought it was original and different but very fun even though it wasn't that popular. The Co-op Deathmatch mode was nothing more than a game of "Wingman" from Gears 2 - up to 5 teams of 2 go at each other trying to get the most points in a certain amount of time. Unlike Wingman you do get to respawn but I found this feature to be more irritating because you didn't always spawn near your partner - sometimes you would spawn on the opposite side of the map! Control is a mode where you are awarded points for capturing and defending certain points (think King of the Hill). Warzone was by far my favorite as it was very similar to the multiplayer from the first game with different objectives needing to be completed including stealing/protecting intel or killing/protecting VIPs to planting a bomb. You still work in a group of two, but there are only two teams, so you can have multiple groups of two working together against the other team. Extraction has been compared to a Horde mode which has become so popular in the past couple years - a team of four has to survive wave after wave of enemy with each wave becoming more difficult. All your hard work unlocking weapons and attachments in story mode does not carry over to MP, and you are forced to use a generic set of weapons which you can't customize. There is also a set including a shotgun (Close Combat 2 I believe) which is overpowered and can take out pretty much any opponent at short to medium range. The shotgun has too much of a reach and can take out a player in a couple shots even if you aren't very close. Much like the story mode, this mode is best experienced with a friend.
Overall I gave this game a 7.5/10. Story and multiplayer were lacking, but overall a solid game best enjoyed in co-op.
For the achivement whores/completionists out there this game isn't too difficult. Two playthroughs are required to do all the "good" moral choices and all the "bad," and although there are three endings you can simply reload the last chapter to get the third ending that you didn't get during the first two playthroughs. There are collectables - radios, cats and there is an achievement for obtaining all the weapons and attachments. There is also a time consuming achievement in "The Beast" where you have to kill 6,666 enemies in story mode, its not hard just takes a while.
There are around 300 points to be obtained in multiplayer with 80 of those only able to be obtained in Extraction mode - so if you didn't preorder it, be prepared to wait until Feb. 12th to be able to 1k the game. The rest of the MP achievements aren't too bad with the only difficult ones being killing a person with every weapon available in MP and one for winning on every map in each of the modes (3 modes - 6 maps = 18 wins). I have heard the winning achievement is a bit glitchy at the moment and you HAVE to be in the game from the point it starts for it to count towards your wins. If you don't do anything to try to boost the MP, you will have a bit of time on your hands, but nothing I felt was too difficult.
All in all its not what I would call a "waffle" but it is a fun game where you can get several hundred points without too much trouble, and it does not appear to be too difficult a game to complete.
I will try to add on a brief review of Extraction mode at a later date - though I might just make a separate article.
Feel free to discuss this game and let me know what you thought of it!
