Hey everyone, we've posted the first of many developer diaries at the Army of Two website. In this dev diary Danny Belanger covers location & setting, describing why Shanghai was chosen and how making this choice affects the game: http://www.armyoftwo.com/us/blog/dev-diary-location-2009-09-17

These diaries are being written specifically for fans of Army of Two in order to provide some in-depth insight into the design of The 40th Day, so I hope you enjoy them!

If you have any feedback please let me know!  

In part 2, Danny Belanger explains how choosing Shanghai as the location for Army of Two: The 40 Day has impacted storytelling.Enjoy!

I can't believe nobody has had any comments about these yet.
 
I think Shanghai is going to be an interesting location for the game.  Although the blog states that this helps address trouble following the story and characters that occurred in the first game, the story and settings of the first game were of little to no interest to me anyways.  That's not what I enjoyed about Army of Two.  I got much more out of the weapon customization and firefights.  I think the new settings will be more of a draw to me this time around though because they are much more specific and polished.  I especially like what I've seen of the zoo.  The first AoT had very vague settings, like generic village number 2.  I doubt I'll be any more interested in the story, but hopefully I'll be pleasantly surprised by better writing and some more memorable characters.
 
Much of what I'm anticipating for The 40th Day is what I enjoyed from the first game.  The little bit I've seen of the new weapon customization is very exciting.  I noticed at least one new stat meter for the weapons, which is something I wanted.  Overall more parts and a better interface.  Hopefully the menus load faster this time around.  I didn't care for many of the mask designs in the first game, so hopefully there are more or just better ones now.  I also wonder if the armor upgrade system was scrapped because it was quite shallow and pointless.

I want this game!!!

Sweet- almost let this slip under the radar- for all it's faults i had a blast with the original army of two, mainly on co-op with my buddy! it did a lot of things better than many later 'co-op action' central games!  

"... you will be able to design your own mask online through the Ao2 website and then import it to the game (we'll have more details on this later, but it will launch before TFD is released)! "