Payday: The Heist

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Payday: The Heist review
Kiran Sury

Review

The American Dream done differently

Silent Alarms


Payday: The Heist looks good for a downloadable game, coming close to disc-based First Person Shooters, if not quite reaching their level. The character animations, on the other hand, leave something to be desired. The cops roll and slide behind cover realistically, but stand stiffly when facing you directly. Their corpses collapse to the ground with no fanfare, as though the game forgets about them the moment their state switches from alive to dead. Most enemies die in a few shots, so you’ll see the jarring transition quite often.

Sound is minimal, which is a pity. There’s an adrenaline-pumping track that plays as you start up the game, but I can’t even remember if there was music during the levels, which is a testament to its ‘forgetability’. The voice actors do a good job sounding like hardened criminals, but there’s no real plot, so all you’ll hear are a few phrases repeated over and over.

My biggest problem with the game, however, was the stability. Attentive readers may notice how late this review is. I received my copy of the game in advance, but I spent a week trying to get into a multiplayer game without any luck. Only one or two games appeared on the server list, and I always got an “Error: Room Filled” message no matter how many players were actually there. Team Overkill finally fixed the problem and I was able to connect, but there are still only a few games listed at a time and it can take upwards of ten minutes to finally get into a game. Once you do, you can play multiple missions with the same group but a multiplayer game should have a faster set-up.

Another issue is the control scheme. As one of the most important aspects of a First Person Shooter, it is a shame that Payday’s controls are too finicky. The default sensitivity makes headshots difficult to line up. Raising the sensitivity makes the reticule far too erratic while lowering it slows it down too much. Was the PC the lead platform in developing Payday: The Heist? Squeezing off headshots would be much easier with a mouse and keyboard and a more helpful aim-assist would have facilitated the gameplay positively on consoles. That being said, the controls are not impossible and once you learn how to get around the rough edges, you’ll slaughter the po-po with ease. Other controls like those used to tie up hostages and interact with the environment work well.

Get It For Co-op


Payday: The Heist deserves praise for working with a unique concept, but loses some points for less-than-perfect delivery. While the gunplay is your standard shooter fare, Payday’s saving grace is that four-player coop is tremendous fun and when you have a good team, together you can transcend the repetitive objectives. The promised DLC should increase the variety if Overkill can come up with completely new scenarios, but for now Payday is as good as the people you play it with.

7.5

fun score

Pros

One of the better co-op games on the PSN.

Cons

Sometimes difficult to find a multiplayer game, feels like a co-op game with a heist skin, rather than a heist game.