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| Source // PlayStation |
Here's what I know of Army of TWO: The 40th Day before playing it: two masked mercenary dudes bro their way through whatever warzone they find themselves in, and they wear customized riot masks.
Here's what I didn't know of Army of TWO: The 40th Day before playing it: it's the second of three Army of TWO games. How did this concept get three whole games out of it? What are video games even doing in the 2010s?
I don't know where I first heard of Army of TWO but I can safely say I wasn't too bothered about whether I played it or not, and so I didn't. Should I have not missed an opportunity to buddy up and take on the world while donning a weird mask?
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| Source // PlayStation |
Fun Times
I'm playing the PlayStation 3 version of The 40th Day, which means you get to see a lot of bullshots and I get to play the game of guessing whether or not my controller will charge. My PS3's been giving me some mixed messages about the status of the USB recently, so we'll see how far we get.
Trans World Operations consists of Tyson Rios and Elliot Salem, one of whom you will recognise as Nolan North. At least he's grown his hair out and sleeved his arm with tattoos for this outing.
They're in Shanghai for... reasons, and are soon equipped with mercenary gear and setting some kind of charges on something or other - look, I can't remember the details right now, suffice it to say mercenaries were doing mercenary things, and then Shanghai blows up.
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| Source // PlayStation |
Army of TWO focuses on the teamwork side of things. When your buddy needs a boost up and over a wall, you're there for him, that much is obvious, but that's not how The 40th Day wants to express the nature of your co-operation.
Going into a firefight, a meter at the top of the screen shows you how much aggro you are causing your opponents. The more aggro you, personally, have, the more attention they pay towards you and not your buddy, who can be instructed to flank around and get the upper hand, should he not be controlled by an actual human either beside you or online.
So you duck behind cover, eventually, fiddle with the camera as you try to get it over the right shoulder for the situation, and you shoot like a maniac until your half of the aggro bar fills up, and then you tell your buddy to get on with it.
In a neat touch, if neat is the right word, the type of weapon you're using and what absurd paint job or attachments you've put on it will impact how aggressively you come across to your opponents as well. A subtle setup won't attract as much ire as a flashy, in your face one. Interesting.
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| Source // PlayStation |
If it all goes wrong, though - and for me, it did - your buddy can drag you out of harm's way for you to recover, and you can pull out a weapon and keep shooting while he does so. Sometimes the route doesn't quite make sense, but if you were stupid enough to walk in front of a ruddy big machine gun, don't complain about the AI being too stupid to drag you into safety directly.
Generally speaking, the AI is pretty good and you don't have to worry about them. I told my buddy to keep pushing, rather than follow me because he seemed more competent anyway.
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| Source // PlayStation |
From time to time, you'll find yourselves with a decision to make, and this is where the morality system comes into play. Are you going to try to be good, or are you going to be a dick?
Interestingly, the game points out that because you work as a team, your choices are reflected upon your buddy, and he'll have to live with the consequences as much as you do. I'm not sure how well that comes across in-game, though. What I do know is that, weirdly perhaps, the consequences for your decisions are shown via a comic-book looking cutscene, and when it's done, you're right back into a Shanghai that's falling apart all around you.
Some of these decisions will come in cutscenes relating to the unfolding story, but others are sort of side-missions, like saving civilians from being executed. If you're quick, you can grab an enemy from behind, take them as a human shield, or tie them up and leave them for someone else to deal with, and all these actions will push you this way or that along the morality slider
Unfortunately, I found the buttons to grab an enemy a little fiddly to get right. As well as telling your buddy what to do with the D-pad, some of the shoulder buttons will get them to perform a given action as well. I would be sneaking behind a guard to grab him with L2, but if I pressed it too early, I'd instead instruct my buddy to grab a guard instead, often resulting in the target turning around and aiming their weapon at my face.
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| Source // PlayStation |
Frustrations
These control issues weren't nice, but I think for the most part they are my fault. Army of TWO feels both heavy and spritely, and yet somehow never when you want it to feel one or the other. I was never confident in how I moved or what I would do when I got there.
Your masks, though, as well as being customizable, are equipped with fancy sci-fi augmented reality tech allowing you to identify targets, mark them for your buddy to see, as well as guide you towards your objective and the like.
Again, it's not the easiest of things to use, and I wouldn't get very far if I kept it on all the time thanks to how much it clogs up the screen sometimes, but it's there to give you a bit of a heads up so that you can plan an approach into the targets ahead, rather than storm in, panic, fake a surrender and get wiped out.
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| Source // PlayStation |
I played Army of TWO until I was walking through an office building that conveniently tore in half right above our heads, all ridiculously cinematic-like.
It's not very far into the game at all, but it was the point at which my controller desperately needed charging, and I can't keep playing with a loose charging cable dangling out of my controller, continually interrupting the gameplay to remind me that it's not charging any more.
Final Word
So based on what might as well have been a demo of Army of TWO: The 40th Day, what do I think about it now that I've finally gotten around to playing it? That I was right to not worry about not playing it.
I don't say that to sound disrespectful or necessarily harsh, it's just that there's a reason that Army of TWO isn't around these days: cheap action that doesn't last. Yeah, ok, it got three games of action, but I'm told The 40th Day can be completed in a long afternoon, so you can hopefully see my point.
The 1001 write up likens it to an action movie that nobody questions but everyone enjoys. It says that there aren't too many action movies around these days and that when you're next in the market for one, maybe you should try this instead.
I can see the argument. If it's an action-packed afternoon you want, Army of TWO seems up to the task, especially if you can play it with a friend and kit yourselves out to be the weirdest looking mercenaries on the block.
I'm not going to be playing it like that, though. I might give it another go knowing that it's on the short side, but this taster hasn't gone and convinced me that I was ever really wrong to ignore it the first time around.
Give it a shot by all means. You can attach a bayonet to a shotgun if that helps you to make up your mind.
FILLING YOU IN
So I spent a long afternoon watching a playthrough of The 40th Day, and I stand by my thoughts. It was so simple that I even got bored and ended up breaking the levels up with a spot of painting. The plot, if there is one, is about a guy destroying the concept of laws in Shanghai to see if the people could survive without them. Or something. It was Biblical in nature. Barely.
It was basically a series of levels in which two people have the opportunity to work together to make the hundreds and hundreds of incoming enemies easier to deal with, punctuated with a 'morality system' that leads to different endings. The air quotes are merely my scepticism that it is a system at all - choices are mostly binary and there's no real nuance about them, as much as the writing wants there to be.
I could have played this over a long afternoon, but if it couldn't hold my attention when I was doing nothing but watching it, I doubt I'd have stuck with it when I had control - especially as a solo gamer.
If you've got a buddy and nothing else to do, though, sure, you could fire up Army of TWO and have a blast. It's more of a skirmish than a war, though.
Fun Facts
I had to read up on what the 40th Day was a reference to, because it was too explosive and action-packed to learn in-game, I guess. The 40th Day Initiative are the guys out to kill you.
Army of TWO: The 40th Day, developed by EA Montreal, Red Dawn Studios, first released in 2010.
Version played: PlayStation 3, 2010.
Version watched: Xbox 360, 2010 (Ramza411)