Army of Two: The 40th Day Extended Hands-On

You've got a lot of tricks at your disposal in Army of Two: The 40th Day, a co-op shooter that's heavily focused on teamwork. From a simple game of rock-paper-scissors when the action is in a lull, to a mock surrender mechanic that lets you get a jump on enemies who let their guards down, this is a game with a lot more for you to learn than just the best way to point your gun at the thing you want to die. We've seen the game a number of times before, and the sheer variety of tools in your proverbial belt has occasionally proved a challenge when playing a level taken from somewhere in the middle of the game. Recently, though, we were able to sit down with EA and play for a couple of hours starting at the very beginning of the game. No surprises here, but getting the chance to ease ourselves into the experience with a gradually unfolding series of early tutorials helped us appreciate this shooter quite a lot more.

The game kicks off with a movie showing Shanghai being torn apart by a series of explosions and collapsing buildings. A mysterious mercenary taskforce adds insult to injury by running around and taking as hostages any remaining civilians who haven't yet fled the city. As protagonists Rios (the big one) and Salem (the one with the same voice as Nathan Drake), it's your job to fight through these armored goons and figure out why Shanghai suddenly feels like Berlin circa 1945.

The game eases you into a number of its different mechanics one by one. There's the weapon customization system that allows you to take cash found in the game and build your own custom gun using everything from high-powered barrels to screwdriver bayonets. There's an emoting system that lets you either congratulate your teammate or grief him with a smack upside the head when you're not in a heated fight. You can help your buddy vault over a high wall, drag him to safety when he's fallen in combat, and snap into cover behind him if he has picked up an enemy's riot shield.

Then there are the morality moments when you can choose to be either a bad guy or a good guy and watch as the results play out with a comic-book-style vignette revealing the future outcome of your decision. Early on in the game, you'll escort a third non-playable character (a fellow mercenary) around with you and use his knowledge of the city to get you into locations you couldn't otherwise get into. Then a moment comes when he's punching in something on his laptop as the lady in your earpiece tells you this third wheel is no longer necessary and needs to be taken out. It's your choice to execute him or let him flee. These moments often play around with your concept of good and bad, because what appears to be the right decision doesn't always turn out that way (especially in this guy's case). These decisions need to be made in the heat of the moment, so the choice comes down to the first player to press the corresponding button--no voting system here.

Of all the various tricks in the game, the aforementioned mock surrender mechanic is probably our favorite. There are two ways to do it. You can have one player mock surrender in front of a group of enemies and have the other player sneak around the side and take them out from behind just as they're giving that first player the shakedown. But more fun than that is the dual surrender. To do this, you have both players walk up to a group of enemies and surrender. You walk to them with hands in the air and then kneel down. Before they walk up to you, though, you can pull the left trigger and take aim (even without a gun in your hand). When both players have settled on a target, they can pull the right trigger and do an Old West-style quick draw: both players grab for their sidearms and blast away at these unsuspecting enemies in slow motion. These dual surrenders are some of the more fun and rewarding moments in the game.

There are also some big set pieces that require one-of-a-kind teamwork not found elsewhere in the game. At one point in our demo, Salem and Rios had to jump onto a small platform dangling from a massive crane as another character lowered them down to the bottom of a construction site. On the way down, they're flanked by enemies on every side--some with guns, some with rocket launchers. The solution? Salem and Rios have to stand back-to-back to make sure their weak sides aren't exposed to stray gunfire. Both players then have to coordinate movement as they rotate around as one body and take out enemies covering a full 360 degrees around them. We really enjoyed this section and thought the vulnerability made for a nice break from the usual, cover-heavy combat in the rest of the game.

We had a good time with Army of Two: The 40th Day. The teamwork elements can be pretty fun if used appropriately, while the controls feel nice and fluid--especially the autocover that doesn't require you to press a single button to lock into place behind an object. The level design can get awfully confusing at times, almost forcing you to pull open your special GPS vision and look for the green arrows on the ground leading you forward. But this issue--and a few other niggling concerns--weren't enough to keep us from having fun. Altogether, The 40th Day looks worth keeping an eye on come its January 12 release date.