War, what is it good for? If you were to ask Salem and Rios, known in some circles as the Army of Two, they would say money, money, and more money. After all, war is a business, and someone has got to do the dirty work, which is why the deadly duo are donning their signature skull masks and golden weapons for another tour of duty in Army of Two: The 40th Day.
When we sat down with Electronic Arts to demo the game at the PlayStation Holiday Preview event, the two protagonists were in the process of exploring a derelict building. Using some of the signature co-operative maneuvers from the original Army of Two, the pair made their way from floor to floor in search of an unknown objective. The graphics looks marginally improved, with both Salem and Rios benefiting from improved polygon counts and sharper textures, as well as a few new animations. The environment wasn’t exactly gorgeous, but you can only do so much with bare concrete, rebar, and rubble. In the very least, it looked somewhat realistic, if not a little drab.
After some additional exploring, Salem and Rios stumbled across a hostage situation in which three civilians were held captive by four unknown assailants. One of the captors looked noticeably different than the other three, wearing a red outfit instead of a generic brown one, foolishly singling himself out as their leader. The EA representative pointed out that enemy soldiers will often lose morale if their leader is either killed or taken captive, and set out to demonstrate it.
With the leader and his men conveniently looking the other way, Salem quietly approached the captors, using cover to his advantage. When positioned behind the leader, and not a moment too soon, Salem reached up, wrapped an arm around the leader’s neck, and placed a gun to the side of his head. Not wasting any time, Rios immediately burst into the room shouting at the leader’s subordinates to drop their weapons and raise their hands. Once they complied, Salem asked Rios to tie the captors up while he maintained control over their leader, and it was all accomplished via a simple AI order.
Freeing the hostages earned our heroes some extra cash, but that may not have been the case if the situation was handled differently. Furthermore, upon freeing the hostages, Salem and Rios were awarded with morality points, which gave them both a positive morality rating overall. We were told that the morality rating of the characters will determine how certain aspects of the campaign will unfold, and provide players, good and bad, with access to different weapon and equipment caches throughout the game. Sounds like the greenback isn’t the only currency that our heroes need to concern themselves with anymore.
However, morality won’t buy you a gold-plated, precious gem-encrusted, FAMAS assault rifle with riot-shield and grenade launcher attachments, so to hell with morality. The EA representative informed us that Army of Two: The 40th Day will include over twenty-five weapons to purchase and customize, and that the components for each weapon (scopes, stocks, magazines) can be mixed and matched to create custom weapons of your own design. And in the tradition of the original Army of Two, players may decorate their custom weapons in the most gaudy way possible. However, we were unable to get word on whether or not there’d be customizable bling as well.
After cleaning up the hostage situation, Salem and Rios continued onward through a series of encounters in which we saw the return of the franchise’s Aggro system, rendering one of the two soldiers invisible while the other took all the heat. Other familiar gameplay mechanics were demonstrated, such as the tandem sniping, back-to-back, and the dragging of prone players. In an interesting twist, we were informed that the enemy AI now has many of the game’s signature moves in their repertoire as well. Enemies will lift each other to higher ground, drag each other to safety when injured, and will even use tactics similar to Aggro, drawing all attention to one enemy unit while others attempt to flank. This is a welcome change, and should make receiving those hard-earned dollars all the more gratifying.
Our demo concluded with a mini-boss battle against a Heavy, the heavily-armoured enemy soldiers that gave players nightmares in Army of Two. However, unlike the Heavies found in the last game, this big bully had a weak spot that wasn’t located on his back: his helmet. Furthermore, he was assaulting our two heroes with an automatic shotgun, which was new for a Heavy. EA Montreal decided to make each encounter with a Heavy a unique one in Army of Two: The 40th Day, giving each a different Achilles’ Heel and choice of weaponry. Ultimately, they’ll all still be just Heavies, which is a little stale as far as boss battles go, but at least they won’t be the same Heavy over and over again this time around.
Army of Two was a sleeper hit, and was part of EA’s dedication to producing new IPs back in 2008 that saw the production of other titles such as Dead Space and Mirror’s Edge. As with the latter releases, Army of Two showed a lot of promise and offered something new, but fell just short of becoming a truly great game. With a larger budget and a bigger development team, Electronic Arts hopes to build on that foundation with Army of Two: The 40th Day. With more intelligent AI, tighter controls, morality choices, and a larger selection of weaponry, Army of Two: The 40th Day has a chance to stand beside some of the best action games of this generation.
Richard Mitchell is a video game addict living in Toronto. He has been gaming for more than two decades, and despite multiple interventions, continues to game today. He has an Xbox 360, a PS3, a Wii, a Nintendo DS, a gaming PC, and a life, and does his best to juggle them all.
That tying up thing was really neat, though not impactfully different. There are a whole bunch of stealth shooters coming out so I’m really wondering which one can differentiate itself.
Well, Army of Two sets itself apart because it was built for co-operative play, and is a great co-op experience for that reason. Unfortunately, it’s rather dull playing with the AI, but it seems like they’ve improved the game in that regard.