Army of Two: The 40th Day Demo Impressions

The other day I got to watch my husband and one of his friends play the Army of Two: The 40th Day demo. Have you ever seen two guys trying to play a cooperative shooting game together? Let’s just say there’s a lot of cursing involved.

And the sequel to Army of Two is definitely cooperative. The game, like the original, follows Salem and Rios. It begins in Shanghai, where you complete an introductory mission, and then the world blows up. Well, ok, just Shanghai. But it’s still epic.

Anyway, a number of new features make The 40th Day even more teamwork-centered than the first Army of Two. One of these is the new decision-making feature. At certain points during the game, the two players are presented with a choice. In the demo this is to kill or spare a man who you find out is not to be trusted. Whichever player presses a button linked to a choice first makes the decision for both players. This means that there will either be a lot more cursing involved or a quick conference between the players. Amazingly, my husband and his friend actually did not fail to cooperate. They chose to spare the man (wusses!), which led to a short animation showing the outcome of their decision.

Another new feature are morality and camaraderie points. The 40th Day is not a game where you just run in shooting anything that moves. There is strategy involved, and sometimes it is possible to get around hostile situations simply by disarming the leader of a group. The less people you kill, the more morality points you get. These points will influence the way people treat you and react to you over the course of the game, and possibly the entire game in general. Working together is also rewarded with camaraderie points… and punching your partner, as my husband learned, deducts points.

The demo makes one thing very clear: to get through this game, you will need to work together. Unfortunately, there is still no skip option, which means you are doomed to forever keep repeating that epic boss battle because you just keep failing (I must have heard the scene for the final boss in Army of Two 100 times). And of course, the demo leaves off right after it shows a huge tank of a man who you will undoubtedly have to fight. The guys were both disappointed they wouldn’t get to do the boss fight in the demo (why they love getting their asses kicked so much is beyond me), but they don’t have to wait long - Army of Two: The 40th Day is coming out January 12th.