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I never saw much about this game on the forums here, but last weekend I finished it with a friend of mine and I had some thoughts that are just burning to come out.
Here's a disclaimer: potential spoilers ahead, and I have very little positive to say about the game.
TL;DR version - I think the game is dogshit. Unforgiveable dogshit
First off: Plot - Essentially non-existent. I'd have preferred the frat boy douchebaggery from the first game, varied locales, and an outrageous but well defined story. Instead of what I was offered here in the sequel, which was amazingly weak, lame, and dumb dumb dumb.
I understand there is a story, what I don't understand is why the developers offered absolutely none of it while the game was being played.
You are required to find radios scattered throughout the levels to be let in on what is going on in Shanghai. Like ODST, but waaaay less interesting. If you were to not find them, or simply not feel like pausing your game to let an in-menu audio file play, then you would not be given an inkling of the plot. You could conceivably play through the entire game, up to the last boss, and after his bullshit biblical babbling diatribe, still not have known his reasons for invading shanghai, where the attackers were from, or why they were doing what they were doing.
The one plot reveal is the end boss's speech. Short of his cliche ridden rant about the world and it's sorry state of affairs, that's it. Then you're given two shitty morality choices, and to my experience, one ambiguous, highly stupid, and disappointing ending.
Second: Gameplay - not in all my gaming years, have I fought the controls to try to eke what enjoyment there was to have out of a game, like I had to for this one. Press A to sprint, roll, dash to cover, vault over cover, and grab your partner. I can not count to you the number of times my friend or I died trying to pull one or the other to cover to heal.
- Or trying to heal while in cover only to have your character stand straight up and catch a headshot
- Or sprinting to cover only to jump over it and into the line of fire
- Or getting caught on a piece of scenery and getting killed
- Or trying to crawl to your teammate and having the character bounce between animations so that aiming is impossible.
It goes on. Coincidentally, I also recently played Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard. Funnily enough, the control complaints in the 40th day are essentially the same as in Matt Hazard. That game is currently $6 used at GoHastings.com. This amuses me.
Third: Miscellaneous bitching - Numerous times in the game, you are supposed to receive guidance or directives via an in-game characters voice over. They are impossible to hear. The zoo keeper who guides you speaks in a thick chinese accent while you are participating in a small scale WWIII, and you can't understand him for shit. Go to the menu and adjust the audio mix you say?
The audio menu is one slider; no seperation for music, sound effects, or in-game voices. Awesome.
The weapon upgrade system in this game, is a mix of fantasy bullshit that makes no sense. In the first AO2, it was ridiculous, yes. In this one, it makes no fucking sense whatsoever. A sampling:
"Would you like to upgrade your M4 Carbine?" sure.
"How would you like to slap a better stock and a drum magazine on there?" great.
"How about using a steak knife as a bayonet?" sounds awesome.
"Now, bolt this AK47 barrel on the receiver of your M4 and go kick some ass!" Cool, wait. what?
Their idea of weapons customizations is a mix of neat ideas mixed without absolute physical impossibilities. The 'bonus' weapons from a design contest EA held look like something you'd draw in 4th grade that a Gundam would hold.
I could go on but it just gets dumber from there.
In summation, they took the varied locales, interesting story, douchebag dialogue, and clunky yet manageable controls from the first one and swapped them with an uninteresting environment, a poorly telegraphed story, brooding characters, and even worse controls. They essentially gutted everything I liked about the first one and replaced it with fat, brown, steaming turds.
If this is the way the series is going I won't buy a third one until it comes free with a burger king value meal.
That's all I got.
Here's a disclaimer: potential spoilers ahead, and I have very little positive to say about the game.
TL;DR version - I think the game is dogshit. Unforgiveable dogshit
First off: Plot - Essentially non-existent. I'd have preferred the frat boy douchebaggery from the first game, varied locales, and an outrageous but well defined story. Instead of what I was offered here in the sequel, which was amazingly weak, lame, and dumb dumb dumb.
I understand there is a story, what I don't understand is why the developers offered absolutely none of it while the game was being played.
You are required to find radios scattered throughout the levels to be let in on what is going on in Shanghai. Like ODST, but waaaay less interesting. If you were to not find them, or simply not feel like pausing your game to let an in-menu audio file play, then you would not be given an inkling of the plot. You could conceivably play through the entire game, up to the last boss, and after his bullshit biblical babbling diatribe, still not have known his reasons for invading shanghai, where the attackers were from, or why they were doing what they were doing.
The one plot reveal is the end boss's speech. Short of his cliche ridden rant about the world and it's sorry state of affairs, that's it. Then you're given two shitty morality choices, and to my experience, one ambiguous, highly stupid, and disappointing ending.
Second: Gameplay - not in all my gaming years, have I fought the controls to try to eke what enjoyment there was to have out of a game, like I had to for this one. Press A to sprint, roll, dash to cover, vault over cover, and grab your partner. I can not count to you the number of times my friend or I died trying to pull one or the other to cover to heal.
- Or trying to heal while in cover only to have your character stand straight up and catch a headshot
- Or sprinting to cover only to jump over it and into the line of fire
- Or getting caught on a piece of scenery and getting killed
- Or trying to crawl to your teammate and having the character bounce between animations so that aiming is impossible.
It goes on. Coincidentally, I also recently played Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard. Funnily enough, the control complaints in the 40th day are essentially the same as in Matt Hazard. That game is currently $6 used at GoHastings.com. This amuses me.
Third: Miscellaneous bitching - Numerous times in the game, you are supposed to receive guidance or directives via an in-game characters voice over. They are impossible to hear. The zoo keeper who guides you speaks in a thick chinese accent while you are participating in a small scale WWIII, and you can't understand him for shit. Go to the menu and adjust the audio mix you say?
The audio menu is one slider; no seperation for music, sound effects, or in-game voices. Awesome.
The weapon upgrade system in this game, is a mix of fantasy bullshit that makes no sense. In the first AO2, it was ridiculous, yes. In this one, it makes no fucking sense whatsoever. A sampling:
"Would you like to upgrade your M4 Carbine?" sure.
"How would you like to slap a better stock and a drum magazine on there?" great.
"How about using a steak knife as a bayonet?" sounds awesome.
"Now, bolt this AK47 barrel on the receiver of your M4 and go kick some ass!" Cool, wait. what?
Their idea of weapons customizations is a mix of neat ideas mixed without absolute physical impossibilities. The 'bonus' weapons from a design contest EA held look like something you'd draw in 4th grade that a Gundam would hold.
I could go on but it just gets dumber from there.
In summation, they took the varied locales, interesting story, douchebag dialogue, and clunky yet manageable controls from the first one and swapped them with an uninteresting environment, a poorly telegraphed story, brooding characters, and even worse controls. They essentially gutted everything I liked about the first one and replaced it with fat, brown, steaming turds.
If this is the way the series is going I won't buy a third one until it comes free with a burger king value meal.
That's all I got.
.