Army of Muffins: The 40th Day

So I just finished playing through Army of Two: The 40th Day, and despite it being an incredibly short game, it was very enjoyable. It isn't a game that you would play for the plot, seeing as how it's almost nonexistant, but rather for the co-op play. That's right, this game is only really good for co-op, as the single player AI partner is dumber than a candy necklace.

In retrospect, there's a lot of things that could have been done differently throughout the game. There are points along the story where you have to decide between two options, usually between killing someone or letting them live. These choices do little to alter how the game turns out, it mainly just affects your "morality" meter, which only really changed one thing. If your morality is high enough, you can access the weapons locker on the one level. Woohoo. Big deal. You won't really be using weapons other than the ones you already have access to buy anyway.

You get to customize your weapons, and you have slots for three different types. You have your main weapon, normally a machine gun but it can be switched to a shotgun, then you have your pistol, not used very often unless you're forced to, and the sniper rifle, also exchangeable for a shotgun. You get to put silencers, new barrels, bayonets, and other such accessories on each weapon to make it more suitable for what you want it to do. The one thing that is really noticeable is the noise level, called aggro in this game. They tie it in to the partner system quite wonderfully. If your partner is using a gun with high aggro, the attention of the enemy will be drawn mostly to them, leaving you free to sneak up closer or snipe without worry of getting killed.

This brings me to team strategy, something that Army of Two actually does really well. There are parts everywhere that you wouldn't be able to get past if it were just you - walls you have to help your partner over, doors that need to be opened from the other side, etc. - and they play elegantly into the game. Another aspect of the team strategy is when you get hurt. If you fall, your partner can come over and more or less revive you, after dragging you around like a piece of unlovedd luggage. This makes you able to drag your buddy behind cover before healing him, so you don't get dropped just like he did.

The enemies in the game leave something to be desired, despite the changing character classes throughout the pointless story. The shotgun carrier, the heavy minigun wielder, the grenadier, and the flamethrower dude. Each has a different weakn- oh wait, no they don't. The shotgun carrier is the only one who has a different weakness. The others you just have to shoot at the various packs they have on their backs to blow them up. Creative? No. Difficult? At times.

So in conclusion, this was an incredibly short game, and it fell short of my expectations in that regard. The controls were pretty easy and functional enough to keep gameplay smooth, though certain parts were difficult to figure out. The story is useless, despite the NPC's being quite interesting. Not a bad play, with some replay value as well. Don't get shot by the RPG's.

>Ryft

Sacred Muffins

"Here, wander around a bit...the game." Sums up Sacred 2: Fallen Angel, or at least the first few hours. We feel it's difficult to review a game we've only played for a smidge, but really, if it takes that long to get enjoyment out of something, you may as well spend your time brewing and aging your own wine; only instead of letting it sit in a cellar for a few years, you watch it. You sit there, and you watch it instead of going out and enjoying life; which is tantamount to playing Sacred 2.

The main issue we faced was simple: We didn't know what in the Bowser's trousers was going on, or what we were supposed to be accomplishing. The only semblance of a story we came across was a bad 90's era action scene, and a brief parting moment with our "teacher", who had us shank a fellow student. This was followed by nothing...and we mean NOTHING...but faffing about. Sure, we ran into several other creatures...and killed most of them while our characters made remarks about their need to pick up lotion in the next town, or how they hoped the criminal scum we were decapitating "didn't smell.". But this wouldn't have been so bad had we had a destination, or a reason to be killing the poor foul beasts; but no, the game world is simply so aggressive that no child would ever be capable of walking outside the family milk farm without being mugged by five passing turtle monsters. Now, we weren't completely without a sense of direction. There was a nice little blue arrow on our compass. He taunted us. He led us into a myriad of waist-high trolls and giant rats. Interestingly enough, all the efforts of these trolls, rats, and angry turtles was all for naught; as we were playing co-op...which in the universe of Sacred 2, apparently means dying is a mere inconvenience on the same level as running out of milk. Except even this game could make running out of milk more difficult than getting Tom Cruise to appear his actual height. The inventory and leveling systems are needlessly complex; the management systems were so unintuitive they could only have been designed more poorly by someone from the 1960's who had never seen what a computer menu should look like. Also, on the topic of visuals... the game was shiny, if you can tolerate 5-10 FPS shiny. In fact, the only thing we enjoyed were the rag-doll corpses.

While there are SEVERAL other things we could gripe about (controls, combat system, the HUD, the camera, the portrayal of woman as seen through the eyes of a pubescent D&D player), we simply have to thank GameStop that they will buy the used game back. We were looking for a worthy successor to the amazing co-op console awesomeness that was Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance...and this game failed us spectacularly. Perhaps if our attention spans were days long, and we didn't demand instant gratification, it may have been tolerable...but they're not, and we do...so therefore it deserves to be taken back to whence it came...that lonely, lonely shelf on the GameStop wall where we hope it stays until the end of time...or until the oil spill reaches it.

>PopeVader
>EpicError