I’ve been referring to this one as Army of Three, Army of Two 2, and even Army of Tutu. All terrible titles, of course, but certainly no more terrible than the official one. I’m not one to suggest that a game with a bad title can’t be a good game, but it does raise questions regarding the people who made the decisions for this title. If they couldn’t even come up with a name based in sense-making and easy recognition, can they be trusted to put together a whole video game?
Well, apparently yes. The 40th Day takes the original Army of Two (or Army of One, if you prefer… or is it Army of Two 1?) and basically just makes it better and more awesome. Or so people say. I never played the first one, despite quite liking co-op shooters.
The setting is Shanghai, and shit is going down. Large buildings, for the most part. With explosions, and what have you. Straight away, the setting grabs you with its feeling of being in the midst of a massive disaster. With explosions, you understand.
This was spoiled a little for me by the macho can’t-help-but-be-too-awesome-for-words main characters who in real life would crap themselves if someone truly awesome, like Shatner, were to call them on their theatrics. It seems to aim for somewhere between Die Hard and Predator 2, but ends up coming off like a vague-genre-movie parody.
The much-lauded “pimping” features don’t help. Well, perhaps if you think a gold-plated AK is cool, then you’ll be down with it. That’s an opinion I’ll never be able to relate to, so it left me cold. I like the cold, brutal functionality of a well-designed firearm. Fitting one out with a mirror ball, fluttering streamers and a golden dildo bayonet seems a mockery.
Clearly then, I’m not the target audience. Who is? The internet seems to be of the opinion that the game’s aimed at people who like the first one. Which is fair enough. I can dig that. Apparently EA Montreal listened to fans when deciding how to go about making a sequel. That’s the sort of thing that can go either very well indeed, or extremely poorly for all concerned. In this case, fortunately, it’s the former. Those in the know tell me that it plays like a better version of the original, which was a solid if not particularly inspiring shooter.
Funnily enough, that’s exactly how I feel about Ao2:t40D. It does most things pretty right, but it’s when it tries to get clever that I’m least impressed. The aggro meter is an innovative addition, but being a reformed WoW addict, it felt like having training wheels. Yeah, aggro is a feature that makes good sense in a co-op shooter, but surely having a gauge displaying it is a little bit… I can’t think of a word that’s not excessively unkind but still conveys my feelings. Cool idea though, just the execution is perhaps a bit lacking.
Certain co-op special moves that were limited to certain areas or situations in the first game can now be performed anywhere, which is a sensible change. It seems like frippery, but they’re effective enough.
The bottom line really is that this is a co-op shooter. And a decent one, at that. If you want a shooter to play with a friend, then you might as well play one that’s specifically designed for it. It’s good to see co-op gameplay making something of a comeback, even if it is wearing a doo-rag and has a kilo of bling around its neck.
