Video Game Vintage Title: Army Of Two: The 40th Day

Army Of Two: The 40th Day

Army of Two: The 40th Day is a third-person shooter video game that is developed by EA Montreal and published by Electronic Arts for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PlayStation Portable. It is the sequel to Army of Two. Army of Two: The 40th Day was released on January 12, 2010 in North America and January 15, 2010 in Europe.

The 40th Day focuses on two-player cooperative play and employs a cover system. It features Tyson Rios and Elliot Salem, the two protagonists from the original game, as combatant partners who, with the assistance of their handler Alice Murray, must fight to survive and prevail over invading forces that have engulfed Shanghai, China in a devastating terrorist attack. A demo of the game was released on Xbox Live and PlayStation Network.

A sequel to The 40th Day, entitled Army of Two: The Devil's Cartel, has been developed by EA Montreal and Visceral Games and was released on March 26, 2013.

The story finds Tyson Rios and Elliot Salem as self-employed private contractors, who, along with Alice Murray run Trans World Operations (TWO), hence the game's title. Their second mission as the newly formed company takes them to Shanghai where they are tasked with meeting a contact named JB. Upon meeting him it is revealed that he was once an SSC Operative who also worked for Dalton. JB leads them to a back alley where their gear and weapons have been stashed in a dumpster. They then proceed with the second part of their mission in the form of planting locator beacons throughout strategic locations in Shanghai. After planting the last of the beacons and an encounter with overzealous security guards, they regroup on a rooftop of a building.

When Alice radios in, telling them they will get extra cash for terminating JB, a Morality Moment comes for the first time, and the players can decide to either kill him or spare him by lying and telling Alice that he escaped. Following the sequence in which JB's fate is decided, a cut scene triggers showing the city of Shanghai under attack as buildings are bombarded and chaos reigns down below. Rios and Salem barely escape the rooftop and ascend the building, encountering groups of mercenaries that have specifically targeted them. They manage to contact Alice who informs them that she is alive, but is trapped in the South African Consulate. They set course for the consulate, dispatching waves of mercenaries through toppled and burning buildings as well as encountering civilian hostages, which the players can choose to leave to die or rescue. Rios and Salem discover Alice being held hostage in an office. After freeing her, the three fight their way to the main hall of the consulate where a cutscene triggers a helicopter crashing through the building and subsequently creating a hole on the floor for them to escape.

Salem and Rios use the underground tunnels and a highway, rescuing hostages and shooting through the hostile mercenaries. They make their way to the entrance of the Shanghai Zoo where they encounter a zoo employee who guides them via television monitors and speakers.

Rios and Salem rescue a trapped zoo worker who leads them to an exit. After departing the zoo, Rios and Salem are contacted by Alice, who has found safe haven, and informs them to locate a communications tower to hopefully signal for help. Rios and Salem march forward, traversing rooftops as they eliminate enemy waves. They finally reach the communication tower only to discover an empty room. They decide to continue forward and jump to an adjacent balcony. The balcony suddenly gives way and Salem plummets down to the ground and is knocked unconscious. Salem awakens 24 hours later in a hospital. They are met by Dr. Wu who asks for their help in evacuating the patients. Salem and Rios defend the hospital from the mercenaries, before heading to a nearby mall.

At the mall, the pair are held captive until freed by a mercenary named Breznev. Breznev informs Salem and Rios of three strategically placed bombs that will destroy the communications center. Rios and Salem successfully plant the bombs, and go their separate ways from Breznev. After exiting the mall, Alice contacts Salem and Rios that she has a helicopter attempting to extract the pair. Despite their efforts in destroying the defending anti-aircraft guns, the extraction chopper is shot down and destroyed, with Alice presumed dead at this point.

Rios and Salem bunker down to rest, and, realizing that there is no escape, decide to exact revenge on the man responsible for this nightmare; They decide to kill the leader of the 40th Day Initiative, Jonah Wade. They track him to a Chinese temple that is heavily fortified. If the player saved all of the civilian hostages, they will appear armed and ready to back up Rios and Salem. If the player fail to save all the civilians, then Rios and Salem must take on the enemies alone. The pair infiltrate the temple and eliminate waves of mercenaries until they reach the inner sanctum. Rios and Salem blast their way through a large door, and finally come face to face with Jonah. Jonah delivers a monologue justifying his actions as a violent social experiment to force the world to turn back from the moral decay that is destroying it. Jonah is holding a device which he claims is the trigger for a nuclear bomb located in the heart of the city.

He offers Rios and Salem a choice to make an "Act of Sacrifice" by having one of them shoot the other, or choose to kill him and his invading force, which will detonate the bomb, killing 7 million people. Regardless of the choice taken, Jonah reveals that the bomb was a hoax. Killing one's partner ends the game with an epilogue where the surviving partner laments for taking the life of his friend. However, the United Nations regain control over the city, starting a rebuilding process. Killing Jonah ends the game with an epilogue where Jonah quotes the Holy Bible as his inspiration for his actions in Shanghai.