First rumoured last week Army of Two: The 40th Day has now been confirmed, along with a screenshot and details about the game. The game is under development by EA Montreal and will be released for the Playstation 3, PSP and Xbox 360.

The protagonists from the first game, Rios and Salem, return to find themselves in the middle of ‘mysterious catastrophes’ occurring in Shanghai. Their task is to uncover the ‘mysterious forces’ that are causing these catastrophes and uncover the ’secrets of the 40th Day’. Well, that’s what the press release says anyway.

As usual co-op will play a big part in the game, or it wouldn’t be called Army of Two would it?

With ARMY OF TWO: THE 40th DAY, we’re pushing the tactical two-man military team into new battlegrounds offering a completely organic and rich co-op experience to deliver an action-packed co-op shooter this winter,” says Reid Schneider, Executive Producer, EA Montreal. “As chaos blankets Shanghai, China, you must rely on your partner to survive as you weave through a broken city left devastated in a mysterious wake.”

Let’s not concentrate on the totally generic story though, as these kinds of games don’t need a story worthy of Dickens. I’m always up for a new co-op game though, so I’m actually looking forward to this. I thought the first Army of Two was a pretty good game. Sure, it was nothing special but it was a decent co-op experience.

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For fans of zombie killing who only own a Wii there’s not currently many recent games available that allow you to flex your zombie killing skills. Sure, Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop - a sub-par port of the Xbox 360’s Dead Rising - recently came out but there’s nothing new for fans of the most successful zombie videogame franchise ever created; Resident Evil.

The last time we saw Resident Evil on the Wii was the light gun game, Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, released way back in 2007. Before that came a port of Resident Evil 4, which, although good, means it’s time for a breath of fresh air. Unfortunately Capcom won’t be bringing the latest game in the franchise, Resident Evil 5, to the Wii. Instead Capcom have something else up their sleeve for disappointed Wii owners.

“It was made for the Xbox 360 and PS3″ says Capcom’s Associate Producter Marketing Manager Matt Dahlgren of Resident Evil 5, when questioned by Joystiq at a recent Capcom event in Toronto. “That being said, Nintendo Wii fans will be very happy very soon.”(Source)

So what would make Wii owners so happy? Matt also responded to a comment from Game Focus about a possible Code Veronica remake.

Game Focus: One of the staff here loves Code Veronica (Fale) and was wondering if we would see a XBLA or PSN release of this game.

Matt Dahlgren: Nothing is planned for the game regarding a remake on PSN/XBLA, but what I can say is if you are a fan of Code Veronica you should pay attention in the next couple of weeks there is some news you should be very pleased with. Tell him to pay attention on the 12th (March).(Source)

It’s worth noting that 12th March is the day before Resident Evil 5 is released, so whatever is announced may shift Wii owner’s attention away from not getting Resident Evil 5, although I’m sure Capcom wouldn’t mind Wii owner’s buying a PS3 or Xbox 360 in order to play their game.

Whether it’s Code Veronica, another remake or Umbrella Chronicles 2 we’ll find out for sure next week.

Wii’s Resident Evil fans will be ‘very happy very soon,’ Capcom says - Joystiq
Resident Evil 5 Exclusive Interview - Game Focus

Ubisoft revealed new details today on Techland’s upcoming Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood. Alongside these new details came a trailer (see below) and a bunch of new screenshots.

The game will follow the story of the McCall brothers across a variety of settings from “”a ravaged Civil War-era Georgia to the Aztec ruins of Mexico.” They will be able to take advantage of new weapons such as canons and machine guns, and try these out in shooting modes that are unlocked by gaining a high accuracy percentage during shoot-outs.

Co-op play will be a new feature in Bound in Blood, with players taking on the role of either one of the brothers. Depending on who you pick there will be specific abilities and weapons that only that character can use. For example, one character may be good in a long range fight while the other loves a good close range scrap. Or one will use a lasso while the other deploys dynamite. There will also be the ability to use horses, canoes and wagons.

Multiplayer wise there will be numerous modes and maps to play around in. Along with the obligatory deathmatch modes there will also be team-based objective modes, plus a new bounty system that increases a player’s bounty as their kill count rises.

The game is due out this summer, for the PC, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360. If you fancy trying out the original it’s currently a steal at £11.91.

I first mentioned that Metal Gear Solid would be making the jump to the iPhone back in December, but now we have a trailer and some further information to go along with that.

Metal Gear Solid Touch is basically a retelling of the story from Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, but from a different perspective.  From the looks of it though it’s a little more than an on-rails shooting gallery, as you’ll play the game from over Solid Snake’s shoulder and use your fingers to do all the work. You can move the reticule by sliding your finger across the screen, tap to shoot and zoom in and out by pinching the screen; which should be familiar to all iPhone owners.

Advancing through the game will also, wait for it, unlock wallpapers for use on your iPhone!!! Sounds exciting, huh? Whatever, it will still sell by the truckload…wait…truckload? The game is download only so maybe that’s the wrong word to use here, but screw it.

There’s no release date or pricing structure yet, but we should know that pretty soon.

After teasing us with the promise of an announcement of a new game over Xbox Live Capcom have finally officially announced Lost Planet 2. Lost Planet 2 is the second sequel Capcom has announced in the last few weeks, the first being Dead Rising 2.

The game will take place ten years after the first game, with some levels departing from the frosty conditions of the first game and heading into the jungle. It will also feature co-operative play and will join in on the current trend at the moment to have a Gears of War style cover system (co-op and Gears cover system? That’s all bases covered then!).

Also, Resident Evil 5 producer Jun Takeuchi is producing the sequel.

There’s no date for the game as of yet, but a trailer was released on Xbox Live only. If you don’t have access to Xbox Live at the moment Kotaku have the video for your viewing pleasure.

I only ever played the demo of the first game, and from what I played I found it pretty average. Of course, I can’t base the entire game off a demo so I might pick it up in the Xbox Classics range instead; which means that the game is available for a relatively cheap price.

UPDATE: Kotaku has a scan from Japanese weekely game mag Famitsu that hints that Lost Planet 2 may only be for Xbox 360. It also reveals that the game will have online play and the co-op will be for up to four players.

UPDATE 2: It’s true, as for now Lost Planet 2 is only being developed for the Xbox 360.

UPDATE 3: Ok, scratch that last update. A Capcom spokesperson had this to say:

“All we can say at this time is that we’ve announced Lost Planet 2 for the 360. That’s all I can say” - Kotaku

So maybe it isn’t an Xbox 360 exclusive after all, and let’s not forget that Capcom said that all its major console titles would be developed as multi-platform games in the future (source).

Image courtesy of Gamersyde.

There’s no doubting that Gears of War 2 is an excellent game, but this excellence has been marred by persistent bugs, exploits and connection problems in the online multiplayer. There’s no point in owning one of the best games of 2008 if you can’t have any lasting fun with it. Thankfully a fix is now on the way.

Epic Games Vice President Mark Rein has posted on the Gears of War forums with information about the next patch, which we can expect sometime this month.

“We don’t have an exact date for it but all indicators are it will go live within January,” Rein said.

Top of the list are fixes for a bunch of online exploits; including the ability to wield an invisible shield, melee through walls and gain infinite Lancer ammo. Exploits like these are primarily the kind of things that have been ruining the game for players, as there’s always someone who will advantage of these exploits and, basically, cheat to win the game.

There will also be a few changes to the ruleset, including increased penalties for quitting matches early (I personally hate it when people do this).

Finally, achievement whores will be glad to know that some new achievements will be added for December’s downloadable content.

You can check out the rest of the changes here, plus Mark promises that a more detailed list will be posted soon.

If you don’t have Gears of War 2 yet then check out PriceGrabber for the cheapest prices.  Go on, treat yourself!

Fracture is Lucas Arts attempt to create a popular franchise other than the Star Wars games that they’ve continually churned out. It’s also not just another futuristic third-person shooter as its big pull is in its unique terrain deformation weapons, some of which you get to play with in the demo. The demo itself opens with some futuristic airplanes flying over the Golden Gate Bridge, which is now over hilly land instead of a stretch of water. This gives you some idea of the story, but the basic gist of it is that two factions (Atlantic Alliance and Republic of Pacifica) are fighting against each other due to conflicting ideologies in a world completely transformed by the effects of global warming and the damage done attempting to combat it. Both sides have access to terrain deformation weapons, so you have to wonder why they don’t just create their own land or sink the enemy into the sea like this Penny Arcade comic points out.

Anyway, forget the wider story for now as it’s not really that important in the context of this demo. After being dropped off on the ground (just outside the famous Alcatraz Island prison) the Colonel explains how your Entrencher tool works. With this weapon you can raise and lower terrain, as long as you’re aiming at dirt of course, and will most likely be your must used tool in the game. Firing it at the ground either pops up a great mound of dirt or sinks it into the ground, both of which can be used in puzzles and as a means of cover as I will explain later. I know this first part of the demo is intended to be a tutorial but it still has some pretty idiotic moments. For example, after Jet Brody (the awful name of the character you play in Fracture) has been taught how to use the Entrencher you come across a tunnel blocked by a pile of dirt. While it’s pretty obvious what you’re supposed to do Jet goes ahead and states the obvious anyway; ‘the path is blocked’ and then a short while later ‘Colonel, the wall is to high to jump over’. Well, duh, you have a tool in your hand that will remove the blockage or create a hill to hop over the wall, what the hell do you think you have to do?

After these basic ‘puzzles’ you’ll come across the freighter crash you’re supposed to investigate and you’re first weapon (apart from the machine gun you carry). In the weapons cache that the colonel helpfully pointed to you’ll find subsonic grenades, which the colonel cheerfully recommends you waste by throwing at two piles of crates (thankfully there’s an infinite amount of the things in the cache anyway). These subsonic grenades are actually pretty cool, as they’ll blast a big crater in the ground that flings rocks and objects (in this case, the crates) up in the air. Next you have to toss one of the grenades through a window, which blows out the wall and allows you to use the Entrencher to create a ramp of dirt up to the newly created hole in the wall. Up here is your next weapon.

The Bangalore is effectively a rocket launcher that packs a pretty hefty punch. To test it out you’re tasked with firing it at a small shed, which gleefully explodes in a shower of metal. Unsurprisingly Jet is unimpressed by this display so the colonel suggests he tries firing it at a nearby water tower. As the supports buckle and the water tower collapses to the ground there’s a nice little attention to detail as the ground deforms as it realistically would when a heavy object hits it.

The next weapon you’ll find it the Black Widow - which is a sticky bomb launcher.  You can fire up to six at a time and then detonate them by hitting the ‘x’ button (I was playing the 360 version, by the way). The colonel tells you to test them out by destroying the column supports holding up another freighter on a landing pod. With this done another cache drops down and you now have access to the spike grenades. Spike grenades create a column of molten rock that launches up from the ground, which can create an instant platform for you if you throw one underneath you. This time, however, you have to throw one under a piece of metal to create a ramp up to  a window. Up there is the sniper rifle, but that doesn’t really need to be explained to you as it’s your standard video game issue. If you want you can stay in this area before moving on to the next (such as messing around with an infinite ammo supply of each weapon you’ve found).

Annoyingly you’ll be reverted to the standard issue Entrencher and machine gun when you enter the next area. General Sheridan revolts and quickly kills off most of the troops surrounding you and the colonel. What follows is a chase through the prison, but all you’ll be able to pick up for the meantime is the subsonic grenades. Eventually you’ll come across a gun emplacement where you have to employ the use of your Entrencher to create cover for allied troops pinned down by the emplacement. Once you go through a nearby door your faced with nothing but an open stretch of dirt between you and the gun emplacement, so it’s pretty obvious what to do. This is your run-and-gun style play, running along creating cover for yourself while you advance towards the emplacement. Then you can either get behind the emplacement to take out the enemy soldier controlling it or simply do what I did and raise the terrain, stand on top of the new mound and toss a subsonic grenade at the emplacement. It’s worth nothing that the emplacements bullets are powerful enough to lower the terrain you raised to use as cover.

Upon climbing up to the roof you’ll come across some explosive barrels, a staple of pretty much any video game that involves a gun or two. Shooting them will create a huge hole in the roof, which you can then drop through on to the battle below. You’re troops are pinned down behind the columns of a nearby building and, unfortunately, the only thing between you, your allies and a new weapon are a number of enemy troops. Thankfully you can hit ‘Y’ to sprint across Gears of War style to the other side of the battlefield. Unfortunately General Sheridan manages to escape, no doubt setting up the rest of the games story but who cares when you now have access to the torpedo launcher?

“Torpedo? But we aren’t on water Tom!!!’

Ah, but we are playing a game that has everything to do with the terrain below your feet. At this point of the demo you have to hold out while waiting for extraction, and you’re holding out against a constant flood of enemy troops. Thankfully all you have to do is fire your infinite supply of torpedo launcher ammo at the oncoming enemy. The torpedo will go underground and zoom towards your enemy (you can see the ripple on moving across the ground, kind of like the film Tremors) and detonate when you hit ‘X’,. It’s incredibly satisfying to see enemy troops go flying into the air, their last thoughts being ‘Where the hell did that come from?’. It’s kind of both disappointing and gratifying to have an infinite supply of the ammo right next to you, hopefully the full game won’t be so easy. After your extraction arrives you hop into it and so ends the demo.

Fracture has some pretty nice elements, but it all depends on whether or not they extend the terrain deformation elements beyond what we can see in the demo. Of course, for a developer to put everything in a demo would be incredibly stupid but the simple terrain lowering and raising puzzles, plus the original but eventually tiresome cover system doesn’t exactly impress me past the first ten minutes of play. It’s a demo in the end, and it’s a fun 15 minutes regardless of whether or not the full game will turn out to be far more complicated. Right now the freedom that’s supposed to be granted by the terrain deformation feels terribly linear but I suppose there’s always the multiplayer (which does look incredibly fun) if the singleplayer game doesn’t live up to expectations.

You can check the demo out now on Xbox Live and the Playstation Network. The full game will hit our shores on October 10th.