The mode is called Extraction, and it's a mobile four-player survival mode, sort of Gear of War's Horde mode on the run. You and your fist-bumping buddies stake out a preordained spot in the level, face down waves of AI enemies, and then move on to the next spot to fight even more. Here's a trailer showing off some Extraction, uh, action.
OK, let's ratchet down the sensationalism a couple of notches. For one, no specific retailer has dominion over the Extraction mode; if you preorder 40th Day from anywhere, you'll get it on release day. Also, it's only preorder-exclusive for the first 30 days, after which it goes out free to all players. So this deal isn't as gross as it first sounds.
I also got to try out the game's co-op deathmatch mode, which sounds like an oxymoron. To steal a line from creative director Alex Hutchinson, this mode is two vs. two vs. two vs. two vs. two (vs. two)--six pairs of players all fighting it out with each other, in other words. It's an interesting spin on team deathmatch, because you have one friendly player you can count on to get your back and revive you before you bleed out, but everyone else you see is an enemy.
There will be a few scoring bonuses factored into the gameplay based on this army-of-two setup. A couple of times during the deathmatch I managed to take out both players in a pair and got a bonus for eliminating a whole team by myself. Often you'll spawn right next to your teammate, but other times you'll find yourselves across the map from each other. At least there's a floating icon indicating where your partner is, so you can meet back up quickly. Unless, of course, your teammate is Aaron Thomas. Who would want to rely on that guy for covering fire?
There are a couple of other modes that split the players into two teams (but still have the sub-pairs within those teams). One is a capture-and-hold mode I tried called Control, and the other is Warzone, which I didn't get to see but will reportedly include "Destruction, Assassination, VIP, and Infiltration missions" all in one.
Control-wise, this ought to be totally familiar to anyone who plays third-person games like Gears; the one interesting trick I saw here was the "visual playbook" heads-up overlay, taken from the campaign, that lets you see enemies through walls and paints them with big fat targets when they round a corner. The 40th Day's core shooting feels good--the aiming seems tight and precise, and the enemies give a ragdoll-based sense of weight when they go down--but the early build we were playing had some frame rate and visual quality issues that I hope get smoothed out before the January 13 release. We're on deck to get a preview version of the full single-player game in the office later this year, so we'll give you more detail on how it's turned out in a little bit here.
these pre-order bonuses are getting out of control.
even though its just 30 days, how long do you really think the online multiplayer for Army of Two 2 is going to last?
That can't compete with Game Crazy's:
Preorder Modern Warfare 3 and get an unlock code for access to weapons in single as well as multiplayer. That's right, you don't want to resort to fists!! Offer only available at Game Crazy.
Same here, a bit, even with all the protections against it. My problem with it is that after a month of not being available to everybody, people won't be interested enough in the game to make use of it. And even if you do pre-order, there's a limited audience with whom to play it.
This
also who the fuck cares its online will be dead a month after release
Their deal with Impulsedriven.com is US only, cause they don't want us europeans to get games for decent prices. I was planning on buying Dragon Age there, but now my money has to go to Direct2Drive (which I fucking hate) instead. Same price, sure, but why the FUCK can't I buy my games in dollars? Seriously.
These pre-order bonuses that effect the game in any way are just getting too ridiculous. When they take any content from a game and lock it off unless you do something outside of just purchasing the game then it is flat out wrong. Pre-order bonuses should be nothing more then soundtrack CD's, posters, books,little stickers or access to the game a few days ahead of every one else. I hope this trend ends soon, all it does is hurt the game and make people angry at the companies for doing this. When will EA learn that it is not ok to do stuff like this with their games? It seems like every major game they release they try doing some bullshit like this and it always ends badly for them and only hurts their game in the end.
On paper it feels and sounds like an excellent pre-order bonus. Being given something meaningful as a pre-order bonus like a game type over custom items or unique designs to weapons etc, like many games have, is great. But in reality it wouldn't feel like much of a pre-order bonus if in the 30 days it stays exclusive you're stuck with regularly having to wait long periods of time to find enough players to participate in the Extraction game type matches.
BAM! That's hitting the nail on the fucking head. Thank you, VGK, for saying it before I did.
I think it's great that these publishers are trying to get people interested in NEW copies of the game, as well as pre-orders, so that they can actually see the money rather than the used game stores. HOWEVER...if you are going to make it the pre-order bonus AN ENTIRE FUCKING GAME MODE...then it means that you are obviously fucking mental and need to be checked into the psychiatric ward. Why? It pretty much means you've gone batshit-crazy-drunk-with-power-and-stupidity.