The eccentric St. Petersburg composer Oleg Karavaychuk recently reminded himself with one very funny story. At some official event, he went on stage (the whole St. Petersburg gentry was sitting in the hall, including Valentina Matvienko) and before sitting on the piano, he said literally the following: “Dear friends! All that you heard here was terrible in **. For those who think that he rustled, I repeat: by-*-*. And now we will listen to music ".

If you apply this coordinate system to Army of Two: The 40th Day, then, unfortunately, it turns out that it is by no means in the category of “music”.

It was and became

Army of Two , The two years ago, there was from the breed of games that you skip not without pleasure, but the next day you forget what it was about there. By external signs, it could be mistaken for another clone GEARS of WAR. In reality, it was an independent game with a new, still unnecessary concept. For her sake it was possible to forgive a colorless picture, dull levels and not God the news of which plot is all fixable, for that there are sequels. And then the sequel came out ..

In cooperative action, the assignment for joint performance usually leaves a feeling. Even in GEARS of WAR, if you think, a partner is needed only to save you in case of injury. The tasks in the spirit of “click the button, and I run past the traps” could easily be omitted. But it is necessary to somehow justify the title of cooperative shooter!

In Army of Two, the cart was first put behind the horse. A partner is needed here, because this is how the plan requires, and not vice versa. As in any shooter with shelters, the barrage fire here is usually too dense to go to the frontal. Therefore, the tasks are distributed as follows: while one distracts the fire on himself, the other comes from the flank or from the rear and shoots overly carried away by opponents. Those transfer the fire to a new goal, and the roles are changing – now you are distracting them, and the partner shoots. This system is called Aggro, and, as it is easy to guess, it was reciped from the MMORPG genre.

Other techniques on Aggro are not tied, but also built on the interaction of the main characters. The two most common ones are “steam locomotive” and “shoulder to shoulder”. In the first case, one of the fighters is covered with a shield (surrogates will also fit – the door from the car or the distribution shield), the second is walking behind him and shooting him and shoots. Episodes “shoulder to shoulder” happen in strictly defined places and, by and large, are not interesting: the ammunition is endless, the enemies of the rod from all sides – know how to turn your head and have time to shoot back. In the event of a wound, a comrade will run up, he will drag it somewhere and insole the morphine. If you have managed to get a bullet in a well -shot place away from shelters, then write is gone: you need a small one for treatment, but time, but for now your partner will be bored, it will shoot it himself.

The presence of absence

The heroes of the game are called Tyson Rios (Bugay with scars) and Eliot Salem (the owner of the same cheerful voice as Nathan Drake from Uncharted ). They started as rangers, then went to the mercenaries, quarreled with their own employer, destroyed him and their entire company, after which they created their own office – TRANSWORLD Operations (Two). As many as three employees: with himself and the girl Alice on the phone. Quite a small business, also on "simplification", probably.

The second part begins with the fact that Rios and Salem arrive in Shanghai. Well, how: China, Emering Market – everything is like ordinary entrepreneurs. After the very first-rather routine-the mission around begins something strange: someone sangs along Shanghai rockets, crowds of mercenaries appear on the streets from somewhere. Rios and Salem are trying to make their feet, but they are interfered with their own Samaritanism (first they protect the hospital, then they help the Russian mercenary Brezhnev, who released them from captivity), then minor troubles (they knock them down right above their heads). In the end, Salem freaks down and offers to kill the reptile because of which they missed the plane home. Rios agrees. The reptile is killed. All. This is the whole plot.

You somehow even take a bit of such a catch. The first part at least followed decency. It was a third -rate thriller, but with a whole, in a detailed history. There is no even this in 40th Day. There is no structured story: between two events – an attack on Shanghai and the destruction of the Glavzlodeus – not a single plot event occurs, Salem and Rios only move from one point to another and shoot everyone in their path. There is no motivation: what kind of forty day is it? what the hell she needs? In the final, the villain mutters something about the highest goals, but all this is so unconvincing that I don’t even want to retell. There is no logic: Shanghai is equal to the ground, and China did not even scratch his army by alarm.

Instead of the plot, moral “dilemmas” from the category “kill or spare” is slipped every now and then ”. They are not of great interest, because they only affect which they show the video after that and whether they will give a new ammunition (they will not give it – well, it is not necessary, it can be bought). The only interesting choice will be only in the final itself, but it does not change anything.

* * *

For what to fight is important, but even more important – how to fight. Alas, 40th Day in this regard not only did not advance, but also degraded. Firstly, the value of the AGGRO system has decreased. In the first part, the fire was almost always so dense that until you come from the flank or from the rear, it was possible to exchange bursts before infinity. In the sequel, the difficulty reduced so much that sometimes you can shoot entire crowds into the frontal. Even the last level is easy to pass at the WG Casino maximum level of complexity on the first attempt.

Secondly, it became worse with the balance of weapons. In 99 cases out of 100 there is enough default machine. And since the game is short (this is already third), one and a half to two times shorter than the original, there is no reason to invest in upgrades.

Army of Two happened the same story as with the series True Crime. The developer came up with an interesting concept, but could not develop it to the desired condition, and in continuation also made it worse than it was. Maybe at least the third part will trust the other team?

Game Formula: 50% GEARS OF WAR + 25% mmorpg + 25% of the foam filler

Gameplay: 8

Graphics: 6

Sound and music: 7

Control: 8

Plot: 2

Stability: 8

Originality: 6

Grade: 6.5

[[Break]] spectacular and effective

Four ways to deal with enemies not only quickly, but also beautiful

Synchronous shooting

In certain places of sentries, you can shoot synchronously with a partner. Due to this, firstly, an extra shootout can be avoided, and secondly, the sentries will not have time to call for help, as they will die at the same time.

Fictive surrender

If you have already hit the field of view of enemies, but you have not yet managed to open fire on you, you can simulate surrender. Your character will kneel, opponents will relax … And then you will grab a gun and shoot them in Rapid.

Fictive death

If you feel that Karachun is about to come, and to take off, you can pretend to be dead. They will cease to pay attention to you, and then the work of technology.

Taking hostage

If you get to the opponents from the back, you can take the hostages of their commander, and then there is a chance that the whole group will surrender without a fight. After that they can be tied or shot.

What's new?

Despite the fact that in general The 40th Day is a step back compared to the first part, the game has also changes for the better. Firstly, new techniques (fictitious surrender, taking commanders hostage), and secondly ..

– Heroes acquired new voices – they are much better than before. Salem is voiced by Nolan North (Drake from Uncharted , Desmond Miles from Assassin’s Creed ), Rios – powerful Jonathan Adams (serial actor).

– Roadie Run appeared – this is when, by pressing the button, the character goes to fast running, like in GEARS of WAR.

– AI has become less aggressive, even on the maximum complexity. In the first part, the enemies more often climbed into the rang: if you stopped shooting in the hope of restoring health, there were definitely desperate heads that tried to run to your shelter. Now this happens much less often.

-the choice of angle (due to the right shoulder or due to the left) in The 40th Day is manually made, while earlier it happened automatically. It has become more convenient.

– Grenades "Hang" on a separate button. In the first part, they had to switch to them, as in old -regime shooters.

– During the wound, the character fell and sat motionlessly, waiting for his partner to come running and heal him. Now you can not wait, but crawl to the side on your own. On the other hand, the wounded person could shoot from the machine gun, and now – only from the pistol.

– Detailing and the range of drawing (enemies at long -distance distances has grown better). This can be called a plus, but with two reservations. Firstly, against the backdrop of other modern shooters The 40th Day, it looks still poor. Secondly, the peculiarity of UNREAL Engine 3 technology makes itself felt: metal objects look good, but everything else ..