Straight off the bat, the thing we noticed about the opening moments of the second Army of Two game was that its environments, previously grey, disappointing and static worlds whose tedium almost drove us to suicide first time around, were livelier. Packed with people, cars and thick detail on the architecture, its digital version of Shanghai in The 40th Day is noticeably vibrant. This is just one change that EA brought to our attention when we played the game: the publisher is clearly wary of critical reception to the sequel of 2008’s divisive and confused third-person shooter, after the first was savaged by scores that ranged between a mental 4/10 to an equally baffling 9/10.

This criticism also stemmed from the first game’s poor storyline, which was dragged down by its intentionally-stupid-but-totally-not-ironic dialogue and overall reliance on words like ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’. Hey, we’re not saying those aren’t worth saying in a war zone: we’d probably say way worse were we drafted in, but it was kind of predictable, and expletives hardly lend the level of nuance a third-person shooter needs to stand out from the Gears of War archetypes. The 40th Day is heavy on quipping, with effort invested in making the characters, Salem and Rios, more lovable assholes than actual assholes. When Shanghai is invaded by a mysterious military force, they don’t give a shit about saving lives – they want to survive and get the hell out of there. Hence, quipping. All of this is aided by the fact that the original voice appears to have been replaced, most notably in the case of Salem, now voiced by industry-dominating voice-acting heavyweight, Nolan North (see ‘look north’).

EA Montreal has also responded to criticisms of the original’s generic look by creating the most ludicrous, visually offbeat environments seen in a third-person shooter. The results are admirable. In the Zoo level we played, there were dead hippos that could be used as cover, tourist rides that linked one area to another and other realistic touches, like fire exits, that recreated the feel of a real-world environment. Lord knows where they’ll take us next, but if it’s a library, post office or a supermarket, we wouldn’t be remotely surprised. Army of Two: The 40th Day is set in a Shanghai that oddly feels somewhere between an empty, I Am Legend-esque abandoned urban space and a post-apocalyptic city environment. Though neither are new to videogames, combined they feel pleasingly distinctive, due to the fact they’re multicoloured rather than reliant on browns and greys.

The combat feels in-line with the previous title, but that’s actually fine – the sticky cover system works as expected and blindfire has been taken down a notch in terms of effectiveness, all in the name of balance. The zoo level was pretty expansive, too, offering quite a few cover areas within the hippo pen, where our first major firefight took place. Several of those cover spots were, remarkably, hippos, though it’s essential to point out that they were dead (we made a gag about live hippos being used as moving cover, which garnered laughs for an epic five seconds).

… continued