Having missed the first Army of Two title I come into the 40th Day with a fresh and unbiased approach. The downside of this is that I don’t have any ready-made comparisons to draw upon. This game is a mixture of good, bad, and frustratingly mediocre.

One thing I really like is earning cash for successfully completing missions regardless of how important they are to the overall objective. A good example is when you’re asked to save civilians. Whether they live or die isn’t really important in the grand scheme of things but the extra income makes it worth the effort. Using your earnings to purchase new weapons and customize them with upgrades is the sole reason for earning this cash. You can access the Weapon Customization screen any time you’re not in combat. Weapons have a certain number of points over four categories: aggro, handling, precision, and damage. Upgrades such as types of barrel, stock, and scope, will raise or lower each of these categories. This gives you a lot of control over what type of weapons you carry with you which will affect the way you play the game.

Another aspect I liked is that at the end of each section you’re asked to make a choice which usually involves killing someone or letting them go. These choices aren’t game-changers but each decision is followed by comic-book visuals which show you the consequences of your actions and this is a nice touch. Unfortunately, just as things are warming up this is where the good stuff ends.

There isn’t much to say about the graphics and sound other than they do their job sufficiently. One thing I noticed in the very first level is that certain items are repeated quite often. There was a near identical Moped, part from having different colours, at almost every corner. It possibly wasn’t as bad as this but the fact it stuck in my mind at all tells you a lot about some of the lazy design decisions.

Much like Gears of War the A button controls much of your actions: sprinting, rolling, climbing over obstacles, and taking cover. I appreciate the attempt at simplicity and it’s fine when it works well but there’s a huge downside when you try to sprint and slide into cover but end up vaulting the very thing between you and the enemy’s bullets.

I have an issue with the length of each cut-scene when a boss is introduced. I suppose my issue is more to do with the fact you’re unable to skip past these cut-scenes. In actuality they aren’t very long at all but it’s really frustrating if you die, go back to the previous checkpoint, and have to start it all over again. The problem is you don’t even have to die yourself for this to happen.

You live in hope that your partner avoids doing something dumb like run out in front of a mini-gun when there’s perfectly good cover right beside him. The team-mate AI is one of the weakest elements in this game. I had one cunning plan which involved having my partner stay in cover while I ran forward, got the attention of the enemies, and ran back into cover thus setting a trap. This would have worked if it weren’t for those pesky AI issues. The plan was of course ruined because my partner decided it’d be a good idea to ignore my instructions and follow me anyway. Nice one.

There are a lot of failed attempts at humour. The game is filled with throwaway comments from both characters. This would be fine if the dialogue was well written and it was actually funny but that’s not the case. These moments feel clunky and appear tacked on in the hope it can add something interesting to what is ultimately an average 3rd person shooter.

I am tired of people using “it’s much better in co-op” as an excuse for a mediocre single player experience. The truth is that most games benefit greatly from adding a social element and if the opposite were true, and this game didn’t benefit from co-op, I would see that as a huge problem. It’s a shame that the game’s few interesting aspects are ruined by poor AI, some control issues, and badly written dialogue. Army of Two: The 40th Day is worth a look if you’re eager for a new co-op game but even then I’d recommend waiting until it drops in price.

6/10

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