Eurogamer Expo 2009 Hands-on: Army of Two: The 40th Day

Xbox 360 preview by Terence Gage, published on Friday 6th November 2009

I always felt that the original Army of Two got a rough deal. It was a solid third-person shooter which probably suffered from comparisons to genre favourite Gears of War, rather than doing anything particularly wrong. Irritating characters and fairly boring art style were notable failings, but on the whole it was a decent if unremarkable game.

The 40th Day is really a case of extra polish and refinement of the gameplay as well as the Aggro idea from the original game, in EA Montreal’s effort to make a cover-based shooter which can compete at the peak of the genre. Going by an initial playtest, while it probably won’t garner the same acclaim as Gears or Uncharted, it’s set to be a solid and notable entry in an increasingly crowded genre.

The demo level on Xbox 360 we played was fairly short but quite intense - taking place in some kind of installation, Rios and Salem fight their way through across a concrete walkway, through a huge Metro-like tunnel and to a downed chopper, before taking on a heavily armoured boss. The Aggro element still works well - ensuring enemies will focus their efforts on the more aggressive player, allowing the other to flank and counter-attack. It may not be especially realistic, but Aggro is one of the game’s most enjoyable features, and it still feels effective and organic. After fighting our way to the chopper, we were accosted by a boss wearing impenetrable armour who conveniently had explosive packages around his belt - he marked the end of our play-through, but it was an exciting and well paced level which had just the right difficulty balance.

Combat is smooth and slick, although taking cover behind certain walls did seem a little fussy. Enemies go down with pleasing rag-doll physics and Rios or Salem will drop them with a bone-crunching melee attack if they get too close. The level design was solid with a proliferation of cover, although since many actions are allocated to the A button (presumably the X button on PS3) once we accidentally leapt over the wrong wall, fell down a gully and injured both Salem’s legs, meaning we could only crawl and had to wait for our partner to come to the rescue.

Visually it’s pretty strong; again making subtle improvements on its predecessor. Character detail is fairly high and the frame rate seems a solid 30 frames-per-second. The art style remains a bit ugly and it’s not the most adventurous use of Unreal Engine 3, nor anything that will seem particularly impressive to those familiar with the first game, or, for instance, the Gears of War instalments, but the visuals are nice, detail relatively high and frame rate solid. We couldn’t really get a feel for the sound or dialogue at the show, but it’s clear that Rios and Salem will still banter amongst themselves, as whilst waiting for a door to open we were able to play Rock, Paper, Scissors, which was a nice touch.

Army of Two: The 40th Day is unlikely to win over anyone not already a fan of the cover-based third person shooter sub-genre. It’s a slick game with nice presentation and solid mechanics, although you sometimes get the feeling that it’s not really doing enough to separate itself from the crowd. With a number of co-operative and competitive game modes, expansion on the first game’s reliable mechanics and hopefully an increased presence in the gaming calender, The 40th Day could and should prove to be a very satisfying entry to the genre.