Army of Two The 40th Day review

I guess the sequel to Army of Two isn’t called Army of Two 2 for good reason. It sounds silly. So, The 40th Day it is then and this second of the co-op heavy games sees Salem and Rios fronting their own private army in the buildings and streets of Shanghai. Right from the start it’s all going a bit Pete Tong when what seem to be terrorist attacks are making the skyscrapers around you fall like dominoes. You also happen to be on top of one of them and so your story begins trying to make it to safety and helping civilians along the way - if you like.

This game now lets you make choices whether to gun down the bad guys and not save the hostages or to save them for morality points. Being good means you’ll get better upgrades for your guns and if you like to pimp up your gun, everything about it can be customised to make it more accurate, powerful or generate more aggro.

This feature is back again and basically it means you can draw fire from enemies to let your friend run round the back and shoot them in the back. You’ll need to work together in co-op mode but you can also effectively tell your team mate what to do using the d-pad if playing on your own.

The AI of your companion is much improved this time around and they will pretty much follow everything you ask them and have the sense to duck for cover if being fired upon. The enemy AI, though, can sometimes just stand around whilst they wait for you to shoot them in the face. It doesn’t break the game but it does appear to be a rather odd bug which should have been ironed out.

Environments are detailed and varied as you play through the game and Salem and Rios have some great banter as they help each other and bicker like little kids at times. It all makes for a very entertaining game which of course is much better if you play with a friend or even a stranger online. It’s not as epic as, say, Uncharted 2 but it does provide some gun-toting fun which improves on the last game. Army of Two: The 40th Day gets a very good 7 out of 10.

Related: Army of Two review, Mercenaries 2 review, Army of Two The 40th Day review on Youtube