Aggro can also be controlled by customising your weapon. For example, a silenced weapon is less aggressive while a gold plated machine gun (please don’t laugh) will draw a lot of attention. Army of Two lets you customise any gun in the game, so you can add your own scope, silencer, barrel, stock, paint job etc to the weapon you choose. What that means is that you are no longer dependent on the game to provide you with a weapon you like and can instead customise the weapon to your playing style. Wanna stick back and pick off enemies one at a time? Put a silencer and a scope on the gun and take them apart one by one. If your play style is more Rambo, then you can increase the clip size and wade into the enemies.
This in turn makes up for some great co-op strategies. There are also some other co-op actions like mock surrender, where you can whip out your pistol and take out enemies in slow mo, or faking your own death if you get into an overly sticky situation, but they are never really necessary or even very effective, and you probably won’t try them after the first couple of times. Also scattered throughout the game are hostages, whom you can rescue for extra cash, which is used to purchase weapon upgrades.
[singlepic id=1771 w=450 float=center]
In fact, the co op is such a critical part of the game, that the single player campaign suffers from it. The biggest problem is that you can’t direct your AI-controlled squadmate’s movement precisely. The only commands you can give him are to move forward, stick with you or hold position (aggressively or passively). So if you tell him to go forward, he often ends up right in the middle of a firefight. If you tell him to stick with you, then the only thing he is good for is to revive you if you go down. Flanking and using multiple pathways can also be a pain. Thankfully the rather tame difficulty curve makes up for the flaws in the friendly AI.
I ran through the game on normal (in single player) in about 4 hours. But if you ramp up the difficulty, the game suffers from a horrible checkpoint system. This is especially annoying in the last quarter of the game, where you will often go through a small skirmish, a huge firefight and a battle against a heavy armoured character (who, surprise surprise, can only be killed by shooting him in the back) before the game will grant you a checkpoint. Even on co-op (which you have to play on the highest difficulty for any sort of a meaningful challenge), the poor checkpoint system can make for some very frustrating battles.
[singlepic id=1776 w=450 float=center]
But even on the higher difficulty (with poorly placed checkpoints), you will still run through the campaign in less than 5-6 hours with a friend. And since enemy placement and firefights are mostly scripted, there isn’t much replay value here either. The game does have some multi-player options, but they are largely forgettable. You can play deathmatches and the like, but truth be told, its very bland and uninspired, and with Modern Warfare 2 right now and Battlefield Bad Company 2 on its way in a month or so, the multi-player here wont find many takers.
There have also been reports of people getting disconnected from their friends when playing online. While this didn’t happen to me, it’s still worth mentioning nonetheless, because it does appear to be a problem affecting a lot of people. At best, and this is if you REALLY like the game or are playing for Achievements, you will get two playthroughs out of it and will probably give up on the multi-player within a few hours. To be brutally honest, there isn’t enough content here to justify a full price tag. And the problem isn’t just that the game is short on content; what little there is also gets repetitive very fast. The game tries to spice things up with some encounters where you can fake surrender and do a quick draw (or have your partner snipe the bad guys) or the odd hostage rescue for cash and a morality boost, but that really doesn’t add a lot of variety to the gameplay.
[singlepic id=1774 w=450 float=center]
Graphically, the game is fairly competent. The facial details and texture work are superb and it looks great in motion. It also plays out at a fairly stable framerate with barely any slowdown. Texture pop-in and loading are also kept to an almost negligible minimum. Artistically and aesthetically, most of the environments are vibrant, lush and colourful. Some of the explosions in the back ground seem a bit unimpressive and low res, but overall, the game is quite decent as a visual experience.
Conclusion
More than anything else, what irks me about this game isn’t what it gets wrong, but what it gets right. There are a lot of average games out there and when you play them, you know they were always going to be average. But Army of Two could have been better than that. The core of the gameplay is solid and enjoyable, but there are just too many bad ideas wrapped around it. If the story had been even a little bit better, if there had been more content in here with some variety, if the multiplayer had been worth playing and if the single player was a little more well thought out, it would have been a great game. But as it stands, war may be awesome; Army of Two: The 40th Day certainly isn’t.
(+) Co op is great fun
(+) Good graphics
(+) Great enemy AI and level design
(-) Single player feels lacking
(-) VERY short campaign with no real replay value
(-) Boring multi-player
(-) Horrible story telling
Title: Army of Two: The 40th Day
Developer/Publisher: EA Montreal/EA
Genre: Third-person shooter
Rating: 18
Platforms: Xbox 360 (Rs 1,999), PS3 (Rs 2,499), PSP (Rs 1,599)
Reviewed on: Xbox 360
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