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Payday 2 Review
You’re a thief, a coke dealer and a meth cook, for one reason…. You want to get a big payday!
Similar to left 4 dead, the level layout varies from time to time in order to give you a new way of taking on each challenging scenario. Sometimes the safe will move and doors will be locked, and sometimes the boat will arrive at a different dock, you just don’t know. This works brilliantly! Payday 2 has a small selection of levels so the level randomisation helps you to feel less like you have purchased an arcade title that rinse and repeats the same thing over.
Payday 2 is a game that was made for co-op with friends. You can play the game alone, with AI or match up with people that you don’t know, but you can’t really appreciate how great the game is unless you have at least 3 of you playing together. Trying to complete a mission in stealth is very hard and very frustrating when you’re just about to check out a bank only to see that a team mate has put on their mask and started shouting at everyone to get down whilst shooting a guard.
Character progression is very important in Payday 2 and there are four classes to choose from; Enforcer is very strong and can give and take a lot of damage, Ghost is a stealth master, Mastermind is the crowd controller and the Technician is a drill expert that can also lay mines and turrets. All have their speciality skill set, but overall you can mix and match your attribute points to suite your play style.
At the end of a mission you are rewarded with money that you can spend on levelling up your characters skills (if you have the attribute points available to spend) and customise your gear, ie guns, masks and equipment. The only real gripe for me is how you get weapon mods and new masks. At the end of mission you are given 3 cards to choose from. Behind each card is a random weapon mod, mask, mask colour, mask skin, money etc…. This could be a cool addition if it didn’t affect the way you wanted to play so much. It wasn’t until I hit level 51 that I finally unlocked a new mask and a silencer for the actual weapon I enjoyed using the most.
So, the gameplay… You log into crimenet which is a social network for criminals. Jobs will flash up on a map and vary in difficulty, pay and amount of days it takes to complete. You choose your job, get your loadout ready and you’re in the game. You case the area, possibly go and pick up a drill and get into the building without being seen by guards, security cameras and the public. Once you’re in you need to get the drill up and running and deal with anything and anyone that could lead to the police being called. Your drill is a slow and noisy peripheral (can be improved with attribute points) and the likely hood is that you’re going to get seen or heard. Tell everyone to get down and wait for the cops to turn up and now you’re in trouble and need your team. Waves of enemies will arrive varying from your basic bobby to a COD inspired juggernaut all trying to stop you in your tracks. Kill the police tie up civilians and getting in that safe is all that is on your mind. Once you’re in the safe, grab the cash, gold or jewellery and get to the escape vehicle with as much as you can. If you go down, your team mates can get you up and If you get placed into custody your team mates can choose to release a hostage in exchange for you and the show continues…. This is pretty much how every mission goes, but every time feels different in some way no matter how you play it.
Graphically, Payday 2 will not win any rewards. The graphics work and are smooth enough, but it is far from Assassins Creed and Bioshock.
Controls are your typical FPS controls with the addition of RB being your interaction key for everything; yelling at civilians and unlocking doors etc. Everything works as it should and will not feel out of place after a couple of games.
I have played Payday 2 A LOT!!!! And I am far from bored of it. I will grab all DLC that is released and will continue to try and stealth every mission thrown at me because this game does that to you. If you’ve played any of the Trials games you will know exactly what it feels like to constantly want to try and try again until you feel you cannot better yourself.
Payday 2 has a few troubles but they’re easily forgiven because of the solid gameplay. At times you will get frustrated and at times you will feel under extreme pressure but overall you will feel like an absolute badass.
Payday 2 is a must for anyone that enjoys co-op games and a huge challenge.
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8/10
Review By Wicket2961
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