If Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich ever decided to sit down and make a video game, Electronic Art’s Army of Two: The 40th Day is probably what would result from their collaboration.

A roller coaster ride of non-stop explosions, high-octane gun fights, gruff one-liners, and environmental disasters, The 40th Day is pretty much an action junkie’s ultimate wet dream. If the game’s unrestrained propensity to have something blow up every few minutes doesn’t captivate your attention, the waves of evil mercenaries in need of murdering definitely will.

Consistently awesome protagonists Rios and Salem are trapped in Shanghai, China in the middle of a crazy man-made disaster that has buildings sporadically erupting into flames, planes falling out of the sky and zoo animals rampaging. Also, there are a ton of enemy mercenaries in the area. Coincidentally enough, they’re looking to kill you.

There’s an underlying plot buried beneath the gallons of blood and gore you’ll spill throughout the game. But to be honest, the thin plot is not worth your attention. It’s more or less irrelevant compared to what The 40th Day clearly cares about: Namely, shooting things.

Despite the game’s inflexible insistence that bullets be fired every few seconds, The 40th Day doesn’t trade strategy for mindless gameplay. You’ll have to coordinate with your partner (preferably a human, but your AI partner is surprisingly competent) to take on larger forces of enemies.

For example, one player will have to approach the enemy and draw their fire (also known as Aggro). Once the the bad guys are sufficiently distracted, the other player will flank them and kill them from behind. Of course, not all scenarios unfold quite as ideally and players will often have to think a little outside the box to avoid being riddled by lead.

There’s also a number of new gameplay mechanics that emphasize the co-op aspect of the game. For instance, you can now perform mock surrenders to lure the enemy into a false sense of security before your partner rushes up from behind with a can full of untimely death. Additionally, you can also grab enemies and use them as human shields, or initiate tandem sniping from afar to take out patrols undetected.

In the unlikely event that you can actually manage to curb your itchy trigger finger to avoid shooting everything that moves, The 40th Day has a morality system built in that rewards you for not executing captives or being a complete jackass.

Some of your actions do have ramifications later on in the game, but, for the most part, these morality moments usually boil down to whether or not you find it funny to shoot defenseless bad guys in the face. For the record, it totally is. Being a good guy is frankly too much hard work. Save the higher ground for the second play through.

As fitting a game where you need to riddle everything with bullets, developers EA equip players with the hardware they’ll need to shoot up the city with reckless abandon.

Not only are you given a slew of weapons, ranging from pistols to shotguns to assault rifles, but they can also be modified for optimal lethality. Scopes, extended magazines, shields, grips and launchers can be attached to most of these weapons, and even the weapon’s paint jobs can be altered.

So if you want to run around Shanghai with a golden, pimped out AK-47, that’s entirely up to you. The degree of customization is nice; it allows you to give each weapon a personalized touch.

Also worth checking out is The 40th Day’s substantially upgraded multiplayer.

In the first Army of Two, the multiplayer was lackluster and felt more like an afterthought. In The 40th Day, not only has more modes been added, but the player cap has been expanded as well.

The action still demands cooperation, and, as a result, the experience is definitely more enjoyable if you play with a teammate with whom you can coordinate Still, even if you do end up teaming up with an anonymous person online, the gameplay is still fast paced, exciting and engaging enough to bring you coming back for more.

I’d be remiss not to comment on The 40th Day’s stunning visuals. Just like a typical Michael Bay flick, The 40th Day is a master at making humongous explosions look like a work of beauty. Walls are blown open, airplanes crash, buildings collapse, and bombs go off with a regularity that scarcely belies belief. But what’s truly noteworthy is that the game manages to take all the violence and chaos and weave it into a medium that is both aesthetically attractive and incredibly entertaining to watch.

The voice acting and writing also shows noticeable improvement from the previous installments. While there’s still a fair share of groanworthy dialogue, Salem and Rios are more endearing this time around, thanks largely to the fact that they don’t always behave like frat boys at a kegger. The two private military contractors may not be the deepest, most profound characters to ever grace a video game, but they’re manageable this time around and will elicit at least a few chuckles with their witty exchanges and dry, morbid sense of humor.

Final Verdict

The original Army of Two stuck out from the rest of the generic, third-person shooters saturating the market at the time with its unique emphasis on cooperation. However, there were just too many flaws with it that kept the game from achieving the kind of critical acclaim that its innovative premise seemed to warrant. Army of Two: The 40th Day not only fixes most of the problems that it predecessor had, but it expands on virtually every gameplay mechanic as well. The teamwork is more smooth and natural, the AI is more intelligent, guns are more customizable, and the adrenaline pumping shootouts are just as wild and fierce as ever.

The 40th Day is damn fun provided that you have a buddy to play with and you’re willing to zone out while letting the cacophony of chaotic gunfights and sporadic explosions beat your brain into blissful oblivion. If Army of Two: The 40th Day is any indication of how the rest of the year will turn out, 2010 is going to be one hell of a year.

Grade: A-

Army of Two: The 40th Day is developed and published by Electronic Arts. It is available now for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PSP.