The alarming vision of irresponsibly engaged PMCs serving as perfect purpose for a great movie-like action game.
In fact, buddying with either a human or AI partner is the central element of this third-person shooter in which private military contractors Eliott Salem and Tyson Rios, now self-employed via their own company Trans World Operations (TWO), continue to stop ill-minded spirits from realizing their evil plans. However, alike the last chapter of the first Army of Two game, and unlike the eponymous comic, Across the Border, it is not guerrilla or terrorist groups they are opposing now, but legions of rival mercenaries at the mercy of the leader of the apocalyptic 40th Day Initiative, Jonah Wade.
Flanked by effectively collapsing skyscrapers and hampered by continuous waves of enemy mercs, Salem and Rios are fighting their way through the streets of Shanghai where the ravages take place, always in touch with their contract filer still from SSC days, Alice Murray.
Yet upon meeting their first contact, JB, himself turning out a former SSC operative they can decide to execute or spare after complying with his mission permitting them to do theirs, planting locator beacons at certain strategic points, they receive a call informing them about Alice's being held hostage in the South African Consulate. Of course they both hurry to free her but then have to get themselves quickly out through the debris of toppled buildings behind each of which enemies are awaiting them. Their way leads them directly to the Shanghai Zoo covered all over with dead hippos and other animals, and from there guided again through Alice to a supposed communication tower: vain effort they find themselves 24 hours later in a hospital after loosing ground on a crashing balcony. A Dr. Wu asks for their help in exchange for rescuing them in order to evacuate patients and fight invading mercenaries, task in which they unexpectedly get the assistance of a small boy they can let more or less actively participate in the yet expected gunfire.
Exiting the hospital they proceed to the mall but now are captured in spite of their ultra-combative performance: in separate cells and without weapons they wake up in just the same building they were heading for and luckily are liberated through a merc named Breznev who helps them destroying the communication center on the floor.
However, the chopper whose pilot Alice had convinced to get them the hell out of Shanghai is destroyed with herself presumably within, and Rios and Salem angrily decide to kill the responsible for all this destructive chaos, Jonah Wade, to be found in the inner Sanctum of a Chinese temple. Citing the Holy Bible for his social experiment for "people are nothing but beasts", selfish and ignorant, whereas "suffering is an opportunity for growth", Wade requires them to "sacrifice the partner" –either Salem or Rios– "for the greater good" in exchange of what he will order his men to pull out and disarm the nuclear bomb whose tiny trigger he pretends holding in his big hand: ten seconds to decide whether to "kill your friend and all of this ends" or rather kill him instead while risking the lives of 7 million innocent people...
Either way, while the bomb turns out a hoax Shanghai continues being ravaged by loose mercenary forces with a final animated sequence showing a newspaper cover "The world waits" to then give a last panoramic view on reddish skies and smoking buildings together with the Bible verses referring to prophet Jonah's forty day ultimatum to the City of Nineveh: however, "People did not change and cities were not spared", says Wade, and "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord", leaving the story pretty open-ended.
The game's biblical conclusion seems yet inspired through two different references, the book of Jonah where said prophet is ministered to the once flourishing but sinful Assyrian capital to preach in order to make the population repent; on doing so God spares them while Jonah would have preferred seeing them perish, and the book of Nahum where the sudden and tragic destruction of the city introducing the fall of the whole Assyrian empire 150 years later was God's doing in consequence of the latter's indocible pride.
Rather pessimist The 40th Day seems to take up the alarming vision expressed at the end of the first Army of Two with PMCs irresponsibly engaged to take whole cities or even countries as hostage, serving however as perfect purpose for the great movie-like action game it is at any moment. However, if the developers intended to refine the cooperative gameplay features this is something succeeding only in part: while playing with a human partner is fun largely thanks to the different co-op modes provided –split screen, online private (invite) or public (random)–, choosing the CPU as companion is much less gratifying due to the AI's annoying inconsistency contrasting with the previous game.
A bettered mechanics makes the gameplay as such smooth and fluid without being ideal yet the controls don't really match up with their ambition. So the transparent GPS implemented in the TWO's masks facilitates orientation while permitting to tag the targets, useful in the many less visible areas and for blind-firing, but which being neither perfect nor exhaustive may cause the player to pass more time with continuously tagging than the actual objective. Switching the camera view left or right allows getting a slightly different perspective when hiding behind a cover but can make aiming inexact and seems completely inappropriate when using a sniper rifle since needing the same right stick to zoom. Whereas getting first aid from the partner when injured is far faster, only the pistol can now be used during the short reanimation period, but the partner might cover the vision anyway. And while the easy access to the weapon customization menu permits to change weapons at any moment during the game useful to shortly switch a sniper rifle for a RPG, masterly customized weapons are not saved before getting to the next checkpoint, so when dying before one might yet have to do it another time.
The enemy AI being remarkably weaker as compared to the first Army of Two, probably due to whose degree of difficulty –normal appears rather casual now–, with especially the heavy or special armored mercs behaving as mere programmed robot mechs, the coordination with one's partner central to the previous game appears far less necessary now, but mightn't be facilitated through the proper Aggro system formerly having been working so particularly well anyway.
So the AI partner, at one moment tough and autonomous shooting twice the number of enemies while curing the injured player, seems completely dependent at another or even getting incapacitated at scripted moments where the tactical commands are of little if any help. For at certain times the (automatic) assignment to Regroup, Hold position, Advance in either aggressive (red) or passive (blue) mode either cannot be changed, or changing it doesn't have any effect so that when playing as Salem, Rios stays in the upper plant or behind a closed door unable to open it or else advances on his own while told to stay close.
One might be reminded of Mindjack here where an inconsequent PAI too might have both positive and negative effects: so the partner can be both helpful when reanimating oneself and a handicap while exposing himself unnecessarily or getting injured in the most inopportune situations.
With the focus being on co-op play requiring to proceed in a close partnership at any moment, other cooperative choices are being made throughout the game: "Not everything is black and white and your partner is implicated in any decision you make. Who are you when there are no consequences?" In addition to back to back, co-op snipe, and step jump new co-op moves are available like co-op mock surrender or hostage grabbing expecting the AI partner to automatically follow while freely usable in all other co-op modes now. Scripted actions like step jump, opening doors, taking human or riot shields (surprise, surprise when the buddy suddenly drops the shield to avoid a grenade) now can alternately be assigned to the partner but may occasionally lead to some role confusion as described above when playing with the CPU.
The possibility of sneaking up to grab an enemy reveals also another interesting feature new to the game: with the entire city being held as hostage and civilians shanghaied, various NPCs are consecutively included in different situations –when escaping the collapsing buildings, in the streets, the Zoo, and the hospital of Shanghai– whom the player can try to rescue getting a both moral and material reward afterwards, whereas other moments require a yes-or-no decision moderately affecting the story itself. Intersected comic cutscenes (by Chris Bachalo, Jock, Jamie Mendoza) give an idea of what followed on one's respective positive or negative moral choice: the endangered white tiger spared and not executed in the Zoo (Rios: "shoot animals, no") escaping in the streets of the City and entering a parked car whose owner is the thief who is just violently robbing the store at the corner...; the small boy safely kept off as bystander in the hospital skirmish later shooting the badasses menacing his family, and others more, consequences which can be reviewed in the Extras/pause menu along with the ID cards of the saved civilians and the concept art for the different visual elements of the game.
In addition to money, lucky cats, ammunition, and weapons temporarily increasing to four the weapons the player can take with him, there are also 14 Radio Logs to be collected throughout the City and listened to via the pause menu allowing to stay up to date with what is happening in Shanghai, that is, mainly Chinese Radio transmissions and Jonah Wade's proper predications.
As in the previous game weapons as well as masks can be changed and furthermore customized; while the gunplay is generally satisfying and the noise nicely adapted to each weapon type –Shotgun, Assault rifle, SMG, Pistol, Sniper rifle, RPG–, there are other more fancy upgrades that can be acquired along with the usual barrel, stock, cartridge, scope ones, plus a 3rd/4th grenade slot and +10%/+20% extra primary ammo, namely diamond encrusted grenades or a soda can silencer and a screwdriver bayonet as suppressor and front mount, respectively, whilst the colorful skins in addition to camouflage and pimp permit to embellish one's loadout through bubbles, stars, flowers, skulls, jigsaw, Fleur de Lys, or animal patterns. Moreover, finishing the game once one obtains also new outfits –Default, Civil, Light, Medium, Mall, End, Old School– as well as two cheats providing infinite ammo or big heads, with which the seven chapters plus subchapters can individually be replayed.
The environment's extraordinary realism featuring Shanghai's imploding skyline, desolate streets, and the authentic-looking temple furthermore permits to destroy individual objects such as cars and barrels or wood and mortar walls during combat and even the funny tiger balloons in the Zoo.
Sound effects and voices (Nolan North/Salem, Jonathan Adams/Rios, N.N./Wade) are generally satisfying while the audio settings as such cannot be modified, and the music score (Tyler Bates) suits the game well in its cinematic cast; less monotonous than in the former game the AI partner does interpoint the combat scenes with an occasional "Nice shot!", "Well done!", "I am impressed", "Were you practicing?", affirmative feedback that can like the disapproval also be expressed actively during gameplay.
Multiplayer online while region-free permits now up to 10 players to publicly or privately play in teams of two in a Co-op Deathmatch, while in Control two mercenary factions are fighting to occupy and maintain the control points, and in Warzone random objectives –a rogue agent, VIPs, classified intel, designated targets– are to be captured, defended, or destroyed. Extraction and other downloadable contents are furthermore available as well as the Leaderboards and individual player statistics.
What makes Army of Two: The 40th Day above all worth being played though not really better than its predecessor is the dense, film-like action and graphics; "You know what you did? So you're ready for what is coming..." – "No" says an uneasy Salem to his buddy Rios after killing mad Jonah – provided one did choose to spare the former and did not fall for the bomb hoax leaving the likable TWO split up by death...