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Army of Two: The 40th Day seems to have a crazy, completely nonsensical story involving a lot less fistbumping and a lot more dead civilians than the first. Although I’ve seen the game a couple of times now, I cannot for my life figure out just what is going on, besides that our mercenaries are in Shanghai and there’s a bunch of psychos in red wandering around shooting stuff. But I guess that’s part of the intrigue. But what else is there besides the obtuse story? The multiplayer, naturally.
I had a chance to play through the various modes that’ll be available in the game when it hits January 13th, as well as a mode that’s only available to preorderers at launch. I also got a cursory glance at the PSP version of the game, as well as talk briefly with the lead designer of the game’s multiplayer, Eric Chartrand. Read about the event after the jump.
I’ll let Mr. Chartrand explain the specifics of the modes below in the transcript of my interview with him, but there are three basic types of multiplayer; deathmatch, control, and warzone. The main emphasis is on cooperative play; you’re always on somebody’s team, even in deathmatch. You’re always aware of where your partner is at all times and how they’re doing, as well as being able to revive them if they take too many hits. Staying near your partner also gives you access to a partner reload, which provides you with a reload of your valuable grenade. Why exactly you can only get your extra munitions from your partner’s backpack, and vice versa, is a sticky subject, but it’s an interesting concept.
You have eight different kits available to you, meaning you always have the load-out you want when you’re straight off the bat, whether as an assault, close combat, or sniper. Being able to start with a sniper kit is really convenient, as it has the only gun that can kill someone outright, but the other choices really depend on your playstyle, and you can always steal a corpse’s gun if you feel like it. The maps themselves are fairly small and easy to navigate, and the HUD tells you exactly where to find the objectives, so it’s hard to get lost.
The half-dead feature of the game really kinda swings the game in odd directions. On the one hand, you’re completely useless while you’re “down,” and you end up wasting up to ten seconds waiting for the respawn counter, so it’s kind of to your opponent’s advantage to keep you crawling around. On the other hand, if you’ve good team support, you’ll be up and running shortly after falling thanks to the recovery option. It’s a weird dynamic.
The other mode, Extraction, is a four person survival mode against teams of AI controlled minions. It’s a typical swarm mode, and with proper teamwork, it’s fairly doable, as you tend to have lots of ammo and plenty of support. However, the system makes it’s easy to fall down, especially since there is no safe ground; the minions can come from anywhere around you, and if you’re not covering your fronts, it’s easy to get flanked. Could be interesting, but unless you preorder, it’ll be February before it’s available.
I also got a look at the PSP version, which is nothing like the console version, obviously. It’s a top down street-wandering shooter, with you walking through the city and shooting more guys in red. Again I have no idea what’s going on, and the controls make it more difficult to understand. The Circle-Square-Triangle-Square buttons fire your gun in a different direction, which just feels weird, and the game is kind of unforgiving, as your AI partner is pretty useless in this version. Still, it’s a silly and visceral arcade experience, which could grow on you once you figure out how to get it to work.
Overall, a fairly positive experience, a simple and interesting multiplayer, especially fun if you’re able to play the game in the same room as others. Communication is vital for Army of Two, so the online community might have some trouble embracing this multiplayer, but if you’re willing to actually garner some teamwork, keep your eye on this one.
Below is the transcript with Eric Chartrand (check name), Lead Designer, Multiplayer for Army of Two: The 40th Day.
TAG: Quickly give us an overview of what the multiplayer features are.
EC: We have four modes. Basically, in the first game, we had only one mode and we wanted to push things further, so we developed three more modes to go with the multiplayer. So we have the Warzone, which is the same thing or similar to what was in the first game. It’s a series of objectives, people compete on the defense side or the offense side, and round after round you score points, and the best team to get five point will win the match. It’s very similar to the first one, it’s as intense and fun as it was in the first one.
Then we wanted to have more of a deathmatch experience, but since we’re a co-op game, where two players are playing together, we need to develop a different type of deathmatch, not the team-based where it’s 4 vs. 4 or the 1 vs. all, but what we found that worked best for us was to have two players versus all other teams of two players. So that’s why we call it the co-op deathmatch. You need to work together. This is the best mode for the players of Army of Two to learn the tricks of the trade, to learn to play with your partner, and all of this, it’s a great mode. It’s intense, but you’re not alone out there, you work with somebody else for success, he’s always right behind you.
Then we have a control mode. Control mode is similar to other modes in other games like Annex or King of the Hill but what we wanted to have different in this is we wanted to have more of an approach like a sports match, you need to score points, but it’s a control point per control point basis. So there is only one control point active at a time, and teams need to fight for it and score one point out of it, and then move to another control point. Again, it is also very offense/defense, but it depends on who controls the control point, it’s not set by an objective at the beginning of the round. Again, there is lot of movement, very intense.
The third extra mode is extraction. This bonus mode is what we are giving to fans of the series who preordered. It’s a four-player survival co-op game against enemy AI rushing at you. What’s different with this is that we wanted some kind of narrative, Army of Two is a game about narrative, so in Extraction, your TWO ops have been sent in and now need to be extracted, but things go wrong and you need to find another way out of this mess that is Shanghai. So, it’s a series of rounds taking place in an arena, an enclosed space of maps, and you move from arena to arena until you reach the extraction point. There are four maps divided into four arenas, so there are 16 rounds that you need to survive. It gets very difficult the more you go, that’s on purpose, we took inspiration from the old arcade game, where the more you go, the tough it gets, but the more coin you into the machine, that’s the idea. We want people to play it, learn it, learn the pattern, and then try to succeed and beat it.
TAG: You say that Extraction mode is only for pre-order customers, can those who purchase the game after launch get this mode?
EC: Yes, they will be able to get the full content of Extraction mode 30 days after release. It’ll be free. There was a bit of controversy around this, but this is a mode that came as a surprise for us. We were trying stuff to expand the co-op experience to four players, and we discovered that this was a nice way to play and was fun, but we didn’t have the time or resource to make it a full-scope experience, so what we decided to do with it was package it differently and make it a bonus experience. When I say we didn’t have time, I don’t mean this is a half-baked mode, it is a really fun, total mode. We used this opportunity to give this to a fan of the series. If you’re a fan, you’re going to pre-order anyway, so here’s our gift to you. If not, you’re going to get it for free after thirty days.
TAG: Any discussion about the matching system for multiplayer?
EC: This is something in multiplayer that’s very tricky, we try to match you against players of the same skills. We do have a ranking system in our game, but the matchmaking doesn’t work exactly like this. We try to evaluate your player skill and try to put you in the best match for the type of player you are.
TAG: Any other comments?
EC: I think it’s a great experience, it’s very intense. This time around, we wanted to nail the second-to-second gameplay. It’s the moment you’re in, the movement of the character, the shooting of the character, dying, respawning, rushing to the objective, we focused on that, polished that. I think if people have fun just playing the game, the we’ve succeeded, then we can focus on bringing other goodies later on But if you don’t nail that, then I think you’ve served the people right, because they need to have fun every second you play. I hope that we’ve succeeded.
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