Thread: Payday: The Heist review

Payday is a four player co-op shooter by Overkill Software designed around bank heist gameplay and overall criminal shoot-em-up goodness that has mechanics very similar to Left 4 Dead. You and three other clown mask wearing robbers pull off a bank heist in the first mission and complete other objectives in related missions.
If you enjoy the L4D series you’re likely to enjoy this as well since a normal difficulty mission in Payday provides about the same level of challenge as playing a L4D map on expert. It may be an extremely limited game in comparison, especially with only six maps, but you’ll get your moneys worth.

Payday is certainly built for consoles primarily to say the least. There are almost no options to edit the graphical quality. You’re limited to only a fullscreen toggle and a resolution selection). Other options like sound and controls aren’t too various either. I couldn’t find any files with any settings I could edit to manually change the graphics either. While this may not be the biggest deal, it is definitely disappointing to anyone looking to get some extra performance, extra graphical quality or extra replay value from user created content.

The gunplay is ripped straight out of CoD essentially. The weapons have a good amount of recoil to them so they don’t exactly feel like CoD’s recoil-less laser guns but they also feel rather clunky and the less than subtle SFX don’t help much. (It sounds more like you’re firing a jackhammer than an assault rifle.) The gunplay may not be original in any way but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad. It just gets the job done with no real drawbacks.



Despite the similarities and lack of originality, the gameplay manages to be more interesting and involved than any L4D match I’ve ever played. (You would think with the hordes of zombies and screaming 12 year olds, I wouldn’t feel like I was riding the yawnsville express.) You must utilize cover to avoid gunfire which, unlike most CoD type shooters, isn’t just a friendly optional suggestion this time around. There are objectives located around the map you must carry out preventing you from camping in one spot while picking off the waves of police one by one. Some objectives are straight forward and some are optional. During the first mission you lay down some thermite to break through the ceiling of the vault. You have the option though of grabbing two cans of it so the process will take less time but you can only carry one at a time. This along with other various elements of gameplay encourage teamwork and whether you choose to spread out or stick together, you won’t necessarily have a disadvantage either way.

There were some optional objectives I couldn’t quite figure out the purpose of in-game. You’re encouraged to destroy the security cameras scattered around the map to make sure the cops have less info on your movements, but it isn’t apparent what exactly destroying all of them does. After looking it up on the wiki it turns out destroying them simply makes it more difficult for police to know your location and this causes them to be more spread out. This is a minor advantage as the levels are often too straightforward for them to have much trouble finding you. There are also some not-so-realistic features like releasing a teammate from custody by trading them for a hostage. Then again it’s an arcade style game more than anything, but combined with the semi-serious nature of the games premise it’s an odd mixture.

Lastly, this game is hard. The developers added an ‘easy’ difficulty by players requests and even on easy I found this to be pretty challenging. I played with a friend and two AI partners (which were competent enough to actually be useful rather than a hindrance) and we actually reached a point on some levels where we both gave up for a while because time and time again we would defy some seemingly impossible odds to reach the end of the mission only to be swarmed by units at the very end and not have enough health remaining to survive. This kind of unpredictable turnout and level of challenge definitely adds to the appeal of the game as it’s very satisfying when you actually beat the level. I imagine with a full four player team and more weapons/items unlocked the game will become a bit easier but on the hardest difficulty I can see these missions being near impossible. It doesn’t help that the NPCs might as well be using aimbots as their accuracy is ridiculous.

Pros:

Good action and intense firefights despite being a relatively simple CoD style shooter
Very challenging
Heavily oriented around teamwork without forcing it down your throat
Decent AI
Good selection of weapons
Good heist gameplay with no practicality issues

Cons:

No detailed storyline or backstory to the events of the campaign
Little explanation of some game mechanics
Clunky gunplay
Low amount of maps
No mod or mapping support
Easy mode is only available for the first mission
Payday: The Heist is available on Steam and other digital distributors for 20 dollars.



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Wow, I'm surprised this game isn't more popular, since 'bad guy' games typically have great receptions. I tend to prefer more open games, not being forced along. Still, looks fun and its an interesting idea.

I just got it on my steam for free. Looks great.