Gaming Army of Two: The 40th Day Interview

http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/xbox-360/2009/10/18/army-of-two-the-40th-day-interview/1

We sit down with EA's Matt Turner to talk about Army of Two: The 40th Day, which sees players once more cast as mercenaries Elliot Salem and Tyson Riggs as they try to escape from Shanghai. We talk about the morality of wartime fist-bumping, playtesting and, um, whisky.

 

Why is there no PC release?

 

Frankly, I don't see Army of Two as the kind of game that really appeals to PC gamers in the first place. Maybe I've still got a bad taste in my mouth after the first, but there's a certain juvenility to it all. I also don't think that the "standard buddy shooter" is really what most PC players are looking for, in terms of actual game mechanics. I know that I certainly want more depth, more interesting stories and characters, and an experience that I can really mould. It sounds like they're trying to give a token sort of attempt at that, but picking between "some dude I don't care about dies" and "rocket launcher" does not sound like a very compelling decision, nor one that I feel I'm going to have to live with.

As a recent example, in Fallout 2, I was contracted by a mob boss to kill a cattle rancher, an old guy with heart problems. I decided to assassinate him by giving him a heart attack, and felt a little bad about it. However, later on I found that he was a guy solely responsible for keeping the Enclave, the game's main villains, out of his community, and I desperately tried going back by loading other save files, but it was too late. The level of distress I felt over what was such a stupid decision is the type of thing that brings me into the game, and the chance of Army of Two extracting even a little bit of a similar emotion from me, is tiny. I think the PC crowd knows and loves those sorts of feelings, and those just aren't things you get from a Gears of War clone with frat boys and a gun-building gimmick.

 

Great interview Bit. My favourite part was the latter half of page 2. I really enjoy reading about (from a developers point of view) the disconnects between developer and player. It's so easy to find thousands of gamers ready to complain about even the most highly regarded games, but getting a developer or producer to talk freely about their own frustrations is so rare.

Slightly disapointed about the 'no comment' reply to Unreal Engine weaknesses. Makes you wonder how tightly wrapped up the licensee contracts are.

Economics. Same reason so many other high budget, single player focused games are either not seeing light of day on PC or delayed long after their console counterparts release.

 

Hmm... that's a shame. I'd buy it on PC. Don't think I know a single person who would get it on PSP.

 

Interesting, especially the 5120*2280 screenshots !!! I wonder on what they display such things...My guess is renders.

 

Army of Two is a teen-tweenties bloke game to shoot **** on the sofa together or over XBL.

That's as deep as it goes.

Actually Hiren and I had great fun with the first one doing co-op. It's a great game to get home after a long day at work, switch off your brain and shoot things for an hour. Just like Kane and Lynch. It doesn't make the game good, just the concept playable.

 

I think the first game was highly enjoyable, I've had great fun with the brain-numbing action and violence in co-op

 

Dude, I just blew that guy's head off. Fist pound!

:/

 

Me and my friends spent an insane amount of time playing the first game instead of studying for exams.

Completed the game multiple times, upgraded all the weapons etc. and even did some stupid things like complete it on Professional with just pistols.

Noticed a few mistakes in the article though:

Pretty sure it's Tyson Rios, not Riggs... maybe someone's been watching too much Lethal Weapon?

Also,

I'm pretty sure that the company was called "Trans World Operations" seeing that they had a big "TWO" stamped on their armor in the last cutscene (and it makes sense from a acronym point of view).

Pretty bad for a producer to forget the name of their main character's company .