PAYDAY: The Heist

PAYDAY: The Heist is mainly focused on online cooperative mode, however, can be perfectly played offline; a First Person Shooter (FPS) where you will play in a criminal group that will try to make different types of robberies, always playing on the other side of the law and always aiming to make big money. It’s a nice Kane & Lynch-like shooter that’s fairly enjoyable and offers something a little different than the popular ones out in the market right now.

The game has six heists in total: First World Bank, Street Heat, Panic Room, Green Bridge, Diamond Heist and Slaughterhouse. You can play them in any order, and the title has four levels of difficulty: Easy, Normal, Hard and Overkill. In some heists, it is not possible to choose the difficulty level, as the game wants you to play it with specific settings.

Players will handle some interesting situations. In the First World Bank, you need to find the manager, get their key, place a kind of drill in front of a special door and then plant Termite immediately above the vault, where you’ll literally melt the ground and get access to the goodies inside. Ransoms by helicopter are also part of the gameplay, and one particular mission will have you interrupt another criminal group, who is in the middle of a negotiation. A rescue mission is also included in PAYDAY: The Heist and it is worth remembering that the individual to be ‘rescued’ is in a car for prisoner transport. To make things easier, a large explosion occurs by “accident” and the transit stops on a bridge. The only problem is that there are 4 cars for transporting prisoners...

In the First World Bank mission, you don’t immediately start the robbery. You can actually walk around the building and prepare your attack plan that way. You can also give orders very aggressively for civilians to remain in the ground, and it is even possible to take hostages. In fact, hostages are very important. At times, your team members may take their own. In these cases, the hostages work as exchange currency.

Events that occur in PAYDAY: The Heist are very interesting and sometimes even hilarious. Attacks on a party whose host has 20 million worth of diamonds are also part of the missions. It is a very cool title, and where you can play both online and offline smoothly. You can choose any of the four characters available: Dallas, Hoxton, Wolf and Chains. Each character uses their own weapons, and the friendly artificial intelligence is respectable. They really are a great help in times of great difficulty. They even save your skin, and even provide some invaluable help. If you're knocked down by the police or other criminals, you will be in a ‘down but not out’ position, and you can only use your pistol. The other characters often come to your aid quickly via resuscitation. Ally AI can also perform some surprising actions, such as taking down a SWAT member from behind.

It’s worth recalling that PAYDAY: The Heist offers different challenges in each mission every time you replay a mission. On certain occasions the challenge will be extremely large. In other missions, some phases that were previously easy become more difficult, and vice versa. This ends up increasing the replay factor of the game, and playing it online co-op can increase the fun even further.

Enemies come in waves, and the number in each mission is quite large. The police are extremely persistent, and to make things worse, there are SWAT teams that come into play as the heist goes on longer, helping promote those truly frantic firefights. In some stages the player will face a mix of police and other criminals.

Killing civilians is also not a good idea in PAYDAY: The Heist. This will result in you receiving less money at the end of the mission, and the respawn time increases. Speaking of money, depending on the challenges during gameplay, team members can get a cash multiplier. There is a character that stays out of action, passing the coordinates and objectives via radio. Each "heist" has several actions that must be performed: planting C4 charges, activation drills (which always get stuck and must be restarted), help fallen comrades, clear the area for a helicopter to rescue someone, among others.

The possibility to play in cooperative mode is also something that pleased us greatly, mainly due to the quality of the performance of other bandits controlled by the AI. The ferocity of the police is also a point to be taken into account, though in an extremely positive way. The soundtrack of the game is really fantastic, and can actually pass an underground climate and extreme action.

One of the problems encountered in PAYDAY: The Heist, however, is connected to the textures. The game features beautiful and well polished graphics, but at times, the textures are low quality, which in some ways represent a contrast to other locations featured in the title. There are, however, some redeeming aspects in the visual quality. Various animations like rain, thunder, puddles on the floor, as well as the lighting deserve some praise.

Developer OVERKILL also promises to deliver more missions via downloadable content. The game has great potential to be active in the market with a large community of players for period of time. I also hope that these future expansion packs come with some hefty and worthwhile content, and especially worth paying for.

PAYDAY: The Heist is a pretty sensational and different shooter in which, playing against the law, you will have the opportunity to participate in fun and challenging missions with others that will have many challenges and fierce enemies to fight. The game is truly addictive, and its flaws are forgettable when you learn the basics. For first-person shooter fans, this is an alternative to other big releases and should be played for those who seek something different.

Marco Cecilio, NoobFeed