Payday: The Heist – It Could’ve Been A Better Pay Off

Imagine your favorite moments in bank heist plotted movies like Pointbreak, the beginning of The Dark Knight, or Reservoir Dogs. Then add the multiplayer goodness of Left 4 Dead and add a dice of mayhem and violence of Grand Theft Auto. This is how the formula of Payday: The Heist should pan out and become one of the better downloadable games.

There is no storyline. There is no eight hour single player campaign. Just a six heist locations with three computer controlled players that are supposed to help you. And I cannot stress the word ‘SUPPOSED’ in that last sentence. They just stand there and fire at incoming cops, but you as the player do all of the work. You have to get the tools, get the money and somehow not killed doing so because the computer does not help you one bit. It does one thing sort of useful; the computer does heal you when you get shot up to hell. But it does backfire if you run up a few floors and get slaughtered by random re-spawning cops. Because you can call for help, but the computer drags its feet up the stairs to rescue you. This can end your heist rather quickly, especially on the harder difficulties.

 It is meant to be a multiplayer experience. And if you don’t have friends or a connection to online, you will not enjoy the full experience you were meant to have. I have had much difficulty accessing rooms created by users. It would say either it’s full or connection timed out. When I do manage to connect to a room, I am with people who are level 100+ (more on leveling soon.) But I am a mere level 9 and get kicked out! Or I am in a room with just one person and wait for awhile to start the game.

While these flaws do occur, the four amoral criminals you can play are very interesting. They are extremely loyal to each other and focused on the job at hand. You start off with a basic silenced pistol, assault rifle and some cable ties. As the heist progresses, you can scare people and tie them up as your hostage. They will be key when the cops arrive. You have a list of objects that arrive on the fly through the criminal banter and chatter amongst each other. There are icons to point where your objective is and see green silhouettes of your crew is located. You have the health bar of your crew and location of where they are in the building. There is no radar to guide you, just pay attention of the mission progression. When the cops arrive, that is where the game begins.

Picture horde mode from Gears of War, instead of beasts… replace them with cops. They come in waves, shoot at you and attempt to free your hostages. When you are done with a wave, there is a bit of breathing time before the next wave arrive. The weirdest part is that they spawn on different levels; SWAT comes through open windows or shafts, they can shoot from the adjacent building or post snipers to pick you off. Some cops have tazers, blast shields or wear full body armor (also known as Bulldozers, think of juggernauts from Call of Duty) There are different strategies and vantage points the cops come out, also objective locations may vary so no game is the same.

There are three different ways to level up in Payday. You can level all the way to 145. Yes… you read that: 145 levels. As the heist continues, you can level up with assist items like ammo bags, medic kits, mine traps or more cable ties. Your weapon magazines can get more ammo and upgrades in weapon types (Shotgun, rifles or pistols) You can also get more body armor to take more hits from police assaults. The more hostages you take, the better your accuracy and the more you aid your team; the quicker you can level up. You can check your level and challenges progression in the option section of the main menu.

The graphics are not top notch compared to AAA titles like Call of Duty, Battlefield or Crysis. It does remind me more of a rushed version Left 4 Dead meets Grand Theft Auto. I suspect if there was a bigger budget and a little more time in development, the graphics could have been much better. The locations varies from a bank, downtown city streets, ghetto meth labs, a bridge and a skyscraper. The game attempts to give a variety of acquiring the goods; chasing down a turncoat member, tossing thermate to blow a hole above the bank vault, using a helicopter with a magnetic crane to pull a safe out of the building or trying to get diamonds without tripping the alarm. Using teamwork is key to getting the goods and escaping.

The music also sets the tone very well. You have the typical fast-paced drum beats leading into the action which has pounding house/industrial sounds. Each musical tone arrives in the appropriate event or action. No matter how insane the action gets or how calming the tone is before the next event.

This is a case of a game that should’ve been awesome, but fell short in trying. Which is a shame because the premise of four dudes wearing suits, gloves and insane clown masks robbing stuff is pretty damn cool. It brings out the tactical and amoral criminal in you. This game really shines when you have three human players working with you to get the heist done. It should have been an easy 9 or 10. But sadly it is not.