Army of Two: The 40th Day (The Two-ening)
 

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Army of Two Two, The Sequel, Part Deux. If you never played the first, it was awful excellent awxcellent. It had great action and great co-op opportunities for your buddy of choice to join up with you, but the computer partner AI was dismal and the story and characterizations were tone-deaf. It was kinda like

...yeah, pretty much.

But this new game is pretty damn good! Everything that was good about the first game is preserved, and then they cut out the creepy shit and kicked the co-op factor up to 11. How, you ask?

• Mock Surrenders
• GPS and tagging targets
• Capturing officers as hostages and nonlethal takedowns
• The inevitable morality choices

Of course it goes without saying that each of these can go one way or the other based on the whims of you or your co-op partner.

I can't recommend it enough if you have someone you like to play shooter games with. If I had one complaint, it would be that the shooting itself feels somewhat loose, as there is no autoaim that I can tell. But this helps to make cover a necessity rather than an option, and tends to make firefights more interesting, in my opinion.

There is also a variety of multiplayer, but the deathmatch and warzone modes largely defeat the purpose of the game, which is to say your partner rarely if ever gives a fuck about you and respawning is fast enough that it doesn't matter much anyway, making the whole thing somewhat laughable. The Extraction mode, however, is Ao2's answer to the latest multiplayer craze going around, the Horde mode. You fight against increasing difficulty enemies and hold out until rescue comes. Or you die. I haven't had a chance to try this one yet, but at least in theory it seems better than the alternative.

Here is where I shut my mouth fingers and give you images for your eyeballs!

Still don't know if I should get this. The demo was a 50-50 for me.

Probably, just probably. For the co-op and the weapon bling.

I've been playing it, but of course no one else I know on the 360 is. I'd say it's a lot better than the original, but for most people, that's not enough to hear.

the first army of 2 definitely gets a thumbs up from me even with its flaws. heres hoping the game makers can fix some of the problems in the sequel.

anyone know the expected release date?

(It came out earlier this week pedo dude)

I'd buy it if I liked it enough and really only if I had somebody else to co-op the game with. Then again I didn't play the first, so what do I know.

I remember having fun with the first game; between the demo and what's been set loose on YouTube in terms of end-user gameplay, this iterations is looking interesting.
Now if there's one thing I can readily think that could have been done differently, it's the handling of the various decision points' 'flash-forwards'... if the devs wanted to drive home the point that you'd have no idea exactly how your choices would play out, they should have taken a page from Marvel: Ultimate Alliance and saved the flash-forwards for a montage which would be woven into the ending cinematic.
As for content, I was amused and surprised to hear that folks playing the PSP version (which plays more like an old-school arcade title, a fact which works for the platform) can unlock Issac Clarke and Dante as playable characters; the Dead Space protagonist is the reward for making all the 'principled' choices; ruthless players would get the star of the 'Divine Comedy' and its upcoming game treatment.

I may rent it.

Providing that they fixed the region-locked multiplayer from before to everyone-can-join regardless of where they are.

EDIT: Oh hey they fixed it. Awesome.

Yeah, I tried the Extraction mode last night, and although it doesn't feel near as tight as Gears of War's Horde mode, it's still fairly fun. I think it's partly due to the shooting issues I mentioned earlier, (as well as the way cover works in this game) but most of the time I spent playing people were running around without much direction, and melee kills were the most effective thing to use against enemies, which is pretty lame.

The fact that heavy enemies can one shot you and take an astronomical amount of bullets seems kinda silly as well. I would have preferred it if they used a system similar to the first game, where heavies took more damage on their model where there was no armor, meaning shooting them in the back or in the head once their helmet was off, was the best way to take them down. Now, they're just bullet sponges, and there's no particular challenge to killing them, except you have to survive long enough to pour 18 clips into them.

I'm sure I'll stick with it, though, just because I prefer the team oriented stuff over the run and gun of Warzone or Deathmatch.