The game is absolutely beautiful this time around. Helped by the fact
that we were watching it almost life-size on a projector screen,
there’s just a phenomenal amount of detail on both the characters and
the world. They know everyone’s complaints about the clean and
almost sterile environment in the first game, so this time it feels
appropriately lived-in… and destroyed. There are tons of items around
the world scattered around the world with their own physics, but it’s not cluttered just for the sake of being cluttered. Matt took us through a kitchen that had been recently
abandoned that had pots cooking over onto the stove, pots and pans that
you could knock into, and cockroaches crawling all over the place. The
nifty fabric effects and dust and papers swirling in the air only add
to the experience.
There’s also an obvious attempt to humanize Rios and Salem this time.
Instead of being faceless, masked killers they now put their masks up
on their heads when not in battle in order to show you that there’s a
person back there. It may be silly (and let’s face it, who the hell
would expose themselves in a combat zone?) but it actually has
a practical use… they’ll pop them back up when all the threats in an
area are eliminated. They also look more dark and realistic, much like
the rest of the game. There are a couple of new tattoos on the guys and
they look a lot more rugged. All in all, the visuals are bounds above
the original.
The sound is no exception. The guys did a new gun recording over four
days in a ghost town in CA, and they all sound pretty fantastic and powerful.
Speaking at dinner that night Matt told me how awesome it was to handle
the guns, and how ridiculous some of them were. For instance, the 50
cal that’s so popular in videogames apparently sets off a minor sonic
boom that hits you in the chest with every shot. Nice.
But of course the controls are key- no matter how good it looks or
sounds, if it doesn’t play well who will care? A couple of changes
should make people happy- there’s now a
sprint button, with the requisite “roadie run” cam, and grenades now
have their own button. They can be blind thrown with a tap of the
button, or you can hold it to see their trajectory.
The characters are now ambidextrous and can pop out of cover to the
left or right just the same. To make it easier to tell that you’re in
cover formation, your character will throw their shoulder into the wall
to let you know.
In the first game, when you got shot you fell to the ground and had to
have your buddy come and heal you and put you back on your feet. You
were stuck there although you could shoot any nearby enemies while
waiting… and hoping that the dumb partner AI wouldn’t simply drag you
into the middle of the line of fire to heal you. Now you can drag
yourself to cover without having to wait for him, leaving a blood trail
on the ground. The AI has supposedly been improved, but we didn’t get a
chance to see it in motion.
There’s lot of other little dorky details you’ll notice in the game- how the grenades
bounce around on their belt, how each of your character’s feet have AI and will
actually stand on separate stairs when you stop on them.
Basically, it looks like everything you could want in a sequel. We also
were shown the first trailer to the game, but if I tell you
anything about it I will be set upon by the EA bloodhounds and torn to
pieces. I can say that it’s fairly awesome and effective, with a nice
reveal. You can see it for yourself when it premieres on Spike TV’s
GameTrailers TV on April 30th, or right afterwards when it spreads to
the internets.
Our demo ended with a huge reveal, as Salem and Rios ended up coming
across a zoo, watching in shock as a mountain lion growled and crawled
off. That’s definitely a way to change up the locations! Yes, you can
expect to fight among animals, and even at one point apparently take
cover behind a hippo. So. Cool.
One other new tidbit that they told us was that you’re going to want to hold onto your Army of Two saves. Why they wouldn’t say, but expect there to be something in place for those who have played through the first game.
This is the earliest they’ve ever done one of these Community Days for
any game, and this will apparently be a trend. They promised us that as
the core group of community teams we’ll be heading back to check out
the development of the game, and I can’t wait. To be honest, they
couldn’t talk about some of the things we were most interested in- like
how the multiplayer was going to work or where the story was going. The first game is a fantastic
experience, and I’ve played through it multiple times with friends. If
they can do everything they’re attempting with this one and do it well,
it could be the co-op game to beat.
Head on over to the official site to stay on top of info!
Salem has just walked onto the rooftop of a skyscraper following a firefight when an explosion is heard, and then another, and then another rocks the building in front of him. The entire structure shakes and starts to fall apart from one side, completely disintegrating before him and dropping down to the streets far, far below. When the dust starts to settle we see out onto the city of Shanghai, and further beyond it, the battleships that are pounding the city with missiles. Fighter jets streak right above his head and fly further into the city as buildings fall apart all over, smashing into each other and onto the street below. Chaos, smoke and explosions are everywhere. A missile hits a plane that was dropping bombs and it burst into flames, heading right towards his building and smashing not twenty feet from him, sending chunks of the roof flying all over the place.
And then a group of heavily armed mercenaries bust through the doors behind him, and it’s back to work. Your buddy Rios has been seperated by the explosion so they both dive behind cover to engage the threat while a war take place in the background.
This is Army of Two: The 40th Day, and it’s insane what EA Montreal is doing with the setting this time. You control the same masked duo as before, except this time your assignment takes place entirely in one location. The first game felt a bit disjointed, with you traveling from Africa to the Middle East and even back to Miami, but this time it’s set completely in Shanghai. You’ll spend five days in the city trying to get out of this horrific situation as the entire city is seiged.
EA Montreal invited Chud.com and a group of other select sites to a community day to get a look at
the game in progress, a very early look. We weren’t even allowed a chance to
get our hands on it, which was more than a letdown for us, but they
only had a brief section to show off. They’re not spilling the beans on the story just yet but the obvious thing is that the mercenaries are in China to do a job, and while they’re working a completely unrelated assault on the city takes place by the so-called 40th Day Initiative. They’re keeping mum on just who these people are and what they want, but it’s safe to assume that they’re a group of religious crazies of some sort if they’re using that name.
The scene I mentioned at the beginning is the first indication of an attack. You aren’t there to combat an invasion- Rios and Salem aren’t heroes and don’t want to fight a war. They want to do their job and get the hell out of there. They don’t know what’s going on and they don’t care, they just want to survive to fight another day.
Producer Matt Turner took us through a few different sections of the game and showed off just how improved the sequel looks. It’s immediately obvious that this isn’t a quick cash-in, as they’ve taken a lot of complaints about the first game and worked on the ones they though needed working on, all while completely overhauling the graphics and sound.
The first Army of Two gained attention because it was a game conceived completely as a co-op experience. But there were a few issues with the partner AI, issues that have been worked on to make it feel like he’s in there on the battle with you instead of just a sidekick. There also were also very few sections were you got to work with your partner and plan out an attack. Not so in this game! No longer will you be limited to just a moment or two where you can both coordinate sniper attacks and such, now there are a ton of places where you can choose how best to handle the situation. We were shown two different options during one section.
In it, Rios and Salem come to a room (with a door! A first for the series) and see through the open window that there are three enemy mercs about to kill a group of civilians. Choosing to play it as an insane shooter, Matt kicked open the door and started gunning down the mercs, leading to the hostages behind shot down as well. Sad, but it got the job done.
The second time through he popped up the brand new GPS system. Completely revamped, the GPS now allows you to tag enemies and friendlies for your partner. When playing with the computer you can hold your cursor over an enemy and bring up a list of commands, telling him for example to snipe or take the enemy hostage. Matt slowly opened the door this time, sneaking up on a merc who had his back turned. He grabbed him and with a button yelled at the merc’s friends to drop their weapons. After a tense second they complied, and Matt instructed his partner via the GPS to tie each of them up. The guy he was holding would struggle every once in a while, but a pistol butt to the side of head kept him in line. After the other two were tied up Matt knocked the guy he was holding out and went to free the prisoners… only to shoot them in the backs as they ran off, and then shoot the helpless enemies on the floor. Gotta love it.
That’s just some of the new features in the game. As you can tell, rather than have specific co-op events in spots you have many more opportunities to work as a group. Although the usual step-jumps, shield, and back to back moments will still be there, you’ll need to rely on your partner much more this time, especially since you can now be split up.
The core gameplay has been kept the same, but improved. There’s just so many more options available to you this time. We were also shown a section where a group of mercs came running up on you guys, screaming to know who you are. You can choose to just engage them, or you can throw your hands up and mock-surrender, while instructing your partner to shoot at one of them. You can aim and quick-draw on one guy while your buddy takes on another, and then dive to cover to take on the rest.
Another co-op move is shown at another hostage situation, one where you’re seperated yet again. If one guy doesn’t have a line of sight, the other player can tag the enemies and civilians via the GPS and let his friend help engage them. Oh yeah, and now you can shoot through materials like wood.
Expect the usual assortment of weapons and at least the same upgrade capabilities from the first game. They’re not talking about how the upgrades work, just yet… but the missions are different as well. Now during a break in the mission you may be contacted by someone with a job offer, and you can set a price for the job. It’s a neat touch to make you feel like an active participant (instead of just being handed assignments) but if you set it too high they’ll balk at it. Matt demonstrated this by putting the price to kill a target at 20 grand- the guy balked at it so he lowered the price to nothing! The client mentioned something about you being a bunch of sick bastards and thanked you for doing it. Doing a job for free would make for a funny achievement, if they so chose…
Head to Page 2 for more gameplay impressions, and a hint at things to come…
