One of the developers for Army of Two: The 40th Day had just shown the media an intense firefight against a heavily-armored, flamethrower-wielding, heavy. He never would have beaten this bad-guy if not for the help of his co-op buddy. The two took turns distracting their foe with gunfire to his welding mask, while the other shot him in the back. It was an intense battle, but the duo were victorious thanks to flawless teamwork

Cooperation and teamwork -- this is what the Army of Two games are all about.

EA got a bunch of rival journalists together this week to let us experience these concepts for ourselves in the upcoming Army of Two: The 40th Day. The results weren’t always pretty, and it wasn’t the game’s fault.

Oh, things started off well enough. My partner, Jason, seemed intent to take care of business in co-op deathmatch. He was sitting right next to me, so communication wasn’t a problem (even after one of us died). We rolled through the city streets, capping any fools who dared cross our paths. Well, maybe not all of the fools, but some of them.

My propensity for changing weapon load outs after I died was great for checking out all of the cool guns, but it wasn’t so great for the times when I ran up to a dude thinking I had a shotgun... only to remember I had swapped it out for a sniper rifle just seconds before. I blame post-traumatic stress disorder, or something.

Little did I know that our fourth place finish would be my best performance of the night. In the next round I was paired with someone across the room. We didn’t have microphones, the TV’s were super-loud, and my new co-op buddy couldn’t have cared less about my existence. He would run off on his own, get himself all sorts of dead, respawn, and then do it all over again. Those are my excuses for our last-place finish, and I’m sticking with them.

Then Brad Shoemaker of Giant Bomb fame sat down next to me. Brad has an exaggerated reputation for being bad at games when the heat is on and the cameras are rolling. We used to tease him endlessly at GameSpot for his many spectacular failures demoing games on our live show. Can you see where this is heading?

I gave Brad some detailed instructions: “Just shoot stuff, dude.” and we went on our merry way. The game mode had switched from deathmatch, to control, which is a king-of-the-hill-style mode. We fought our way to the highlighted location, and amazingly, our team captured the point first. Things looked good for team Aaron and Brad.

Then reality set in.

Brad and I got ambushed, and I went down. I frantically hit the X button and yelled out to Brad to come revive me. He didn’t. When I asked him why he let an old friend die, he mumbled something about dudes shooting at him. I wasn’t pleased.

Our team held its own through the next few rounds, and it all came down to what squad took the final location. Brad and I continued to die, but somehow we were always able to get to the highlighted location to cause a bit of carnage before one, or both of us, died.

With one final push, our team took the area. We needed to hold it just a few seconds for victory. As we valiantly fought off hordes of opposing journalists, I saw Brad hit the ground. I couldn’t let my former co-worker go out like that, so I turned my back on the enemy and went to save my buddy. Just before I reached him, I too, went down.

As our two on-screen characters lay bleeding, our team reached the time goal, and we won the game. We gave our virtual lives for the common good, and we accomplished our mission.

Brad looked over to me and said, “It was a pleasure dying with you.” I nodded and offered to go scavenge the buffet table for some delicious meat-on-sticks for the two of us.

That’s what co-op is all about.