I’ve wanted to write this preview for quite some time now. But, alas, complications arose when it turned out I could not play the new Army of Two without a second person backing me up. So I’ve had to wait almost three days before my co-op friend decided he’d get his ass on his Xbox and play with me. And here we are. The preview for Army of Two: The 40th Day.

Let me begin by saying I actually quite enjoyed the first game. Yeah, it wasn’t exactly a masterpiece, but it was good fun, and there was plenty of opportunity to screw around (and in my case, get punched in the balls a lot). So I dived into this expecting more of the same, and I must say, it has delivered. The basic jist of the story is that Rios and Salem, the titular “Army of TWO” (Trans-World Operations, I think), are stuck in Shanghai after completing a mission, and it’s in their best interests to get out, since it’s having the crap bombed out of it by an unknown group called the “40th Day Initiative”. Not that the story matters in any way, since we’re here for the killing.

For gameplay, picture Gears of War. You know, over the shoulder, third person perspective, pull left trigger to aim and right trigger to shoot. The way it should be. The aggro meter from the first game is back, so whoever’s shooting more on your team will get shot at more by the enemies, allowing the less active combatant to sneak around the back of the enemies and take a few out silently. You can also now grab enemies and use them as human shields, and if it makes you happy you can tie them up rather than kill them outright. You can also high five your teammate if you think they’ve done a good job, or (in the case of my friend to me) repeatedly punch them in the balls for absolutely no reason other than to slow down the game. Or refuse to do co-op tasks that are required to move on in the game. Or, after taking a sliver of damage, feign death and let the enemies turn on you while he cries out, “But I’m dead! Can’t you see that I’m dead?” Or shoot you in the back. You know, I forgot why I don’t play co-op games with him.

Graphically things are looking very nice indeed, with lots of shine and polish going on with the characters. The environments look very nice and interesting, rather than being bland concrete walls. Some of the building explosions look particularly bad, but it’s a very minor fault. The graphical level of violence has been upped, as my friend found out when he decapitated a man with his foot. And proceeded to stomp on the severed head for five minutes. Did I mention he’s a bad partner?

The voice actors haven’t changed since the last game, so that’s nice and consistent. And the guns sound like guns. But really the sound effects in the game are just there to fill the void, and they do their job admirably. The soundtrack is totally forgettable, but oh well. You’ll spend most of your time listening to your co-op partner that all the other sounds in the game start to fade out.

As a game, Army of Two: The 40th Day is a good, solid shooter. As a team-building exercise, it’s completely useless. If you had a good teammate by your side, it’d be a great fun game where two buddies kill a bunch of bad guys, make a ton of cash, and then create stupidly over the top weapons to kill more bad guys with. In my case, it’s a reminder of how poor my friendships really are.

Army of Two 2 comes out on January 12th next year. Hey, that’s not too far away!

Got a partner who doesn’t just beat you up all the time? Would sooner spit on this game than play it? Let us know in the comments!