I understand that the game has been out for awhile now but bear with me. i've also decided to quickly review the game in what little free time i have now at the moment. let's get started.
The Gist of it
the game fundamentally plays somewhat similarly to L4D in that your team mates are highlighted in green and it is technically an objective based survival shooter. assuming that you have decided to throw out a little rule book called 'realism' out the window, then this game is for you! you will be faced with quite possibly hundreds of police who will come in all shapes and sizes who will attempt to either cuff you, taser you or put so many holes in you, you'd win a swiss cheese contest. This is a rather refreshing game for those who have played too many military or zombie shooters because you basically now get the best of both worlds, a tonne of cops who shoot at you while being ridiculously easy to kill and they keep coming at you.
The good stuff
Now, for the game mechanics. most people would notice that mainstream games typically employ the E button on the keyboard to allow your player to operate machinery or interact with just about anything. This game changes it to F as E is now a pistol-whipping melee button which happens to be rather well placed. the F button is a very important tool, not just because it allows you to interact with objects in the game, but it enables you to very quickly call a team mate who will be helpfully highlighted in radiation green. It is also terribly important in that it allows you to yell at hapless and rather brainless civilians or normal people, making them lie down on the ground as a firefight rages over their brainless heads. Press F again on a civilian lying down on the ground and you will tie up his or her hands with a cable tie, turning them into a hostage; useful as a bargaining chip if ever you find one of your robber colleagues taken down town by the police.
Now, like an actual game of cops and robbers, the cops CAN tag out a robber in several ways: shooting him into oblivion, neutralizing him with a roundhouse kick or taser or simply waiting for the robber to screw up and then cuff him. for most of the part, the police are all too willing to shoot you into hell....or the police station in this case. should a robber find themselves taken into custody by the authorities, his colleagues if they are cunning or caring enough, may choose to take a hostage and swap the hostage for their friend back. a ridiculous proposition you say, but then again, you threw out realism already in any case.
there is actually a more fun method of taking hostages; forcing a lawman to cuff himself, the ultimate thrill and humiliation to the police. simply damage a cop enough when they aren't attacking you and then yell at him as much as possibly till he wees himself and cuffs himself. bear in mind however, the standard cops have bigger brothers who won't piss themselves at all but will make you shit bricks instead. but we'll get to that later.
As mentioned earlier the F button is of great importance, you need it get about anything done in the game. you need it to yell at thankfully invulnerable VIPs to get them into specific vehicles or places; you will need it to grab thermite, place drills, reactivate drills, set up C4 and very importantly yell at your buddies for help.
Now there are a number of heists to play, in fact almost as many as L4D has, if not more. the best part is the massive variety in how each heist plays out. Each heist is first and foremost, different. however, what does ensure each heist is different is a system built into the game that makes certain things behave randomly. there is a mission which was shipped in their free update called No Mercy of L4D fame that enables players to actually interact with Bill for a short moment in the very same hospital that L4D's own No Mercy is set in... obviously your heist here has something to do with it. This interaction with Bill is completely random in nature as is where the civilians are stationed. Another heist which takes place on a bridge you will blow up has an armoured prisoner truck which may slide perilously close to the hole you blew into the bridge.
The enemies themselves spawn about as randomly as the civilians who are placed in the maps initially. The enemies range from the simple men in blue, to normal SWATS, to bigger SWATS and then mercenaries based on the now defunct Blackwater security company (actually now called Academi). like L4D there are also 4 special SWATS to literally give the robbers headaches in some cases, they may also share some resemblance in certain areas.
The Taser functions almost exactly like the Smoker from L4D in that he can stun-trocute a robber with a taser built into his M4 (AMCAR-15 in game), get electrocuted for 10 full seconds and you're down and out. Tasers are visible from their yellow-striped or wasp jackets and their very audible charging of their tasers. The Cloaker looks like a Splinter Cell rip-off but is actually a very clever implementation on the designers' part. Like Sam Fisher, if he manages to get close to you, he can KO and cuff you in a single kick as opposed to getting an elbow to the head from the back. Cloakers are easily noticeable thanks to their very visible green NVG, which for some reason, they also wear in the day time. Cloakers in a way function similarly to Hunters from L4D in that they can easily take down the lonesome robber quickly and suddenly if they are allowed to creep up on you or drop in suddenly.
Now for the non-L4D special SWATS. any good metropolitan police department has a riot control section, so it is natural that riot shields would be deployed in a pinch. enter the Shield, quite literally. among all the special SWATs, their weapon does the least damage because it is in essence a full-auto beretta. However, Shields do as their name implies, soak up damage. the riot shield is made from metal and therefore in game terms, indestructible. nothing short of a grenade courtesy of the new update can kill a shield from the front. Shields take special maneuvering around to kill, usually the best idea is to team up with a team mate where someone acts as the lure and the other circles around. otherwise, it is still possible to kill a Shield by out turning him, or my personal favorite, running towards him, jumping onto and then over his shield behind him and blast away. Shields aren't a very serious threat until they are supported by other police who will then hide behind the Shield and take pot shots at you. there is a slight advantage to this though, kill the Shield and his riot shield will most of the time remain standing up straight and its still bullet proof; an ideal makeshift barrier, at least till it de-spawns.
the final and most aptly named special SWAT is called the Bulldozer. In some way, the Bulldozer functions like L4D's Tank, being nigh difficult to take down and dishing out massive damage at close range. however, unlike the Tank which requires immense firepower to kill, robbers can choose to either do it like that or aim for his faceplate. Shattering the Bulldozer's faceplate renders his head vulnerable to headshots and his otherwise steady movements allow one just enough time to do serious damage or even kill the Bulldozer before being taken down by the Bulldozer's shotgun. a Bulldozer is easily one of the most recognizable special SWATs next to the Shield thanks to his bomb-disposal looking suit and large helmet...which houses his head with a white balaclava...making him look like a skeleton in a suit of modern armor. a scary opponent to face at any rate.
the not-so good stuff
Now, there has yet to be a game that is completely faultless and bug-free and Payday definitely isn't it. Payday does have a single player mode in which your co-robbers are AI controlled sods who are incredibly accurate but incredibly dumb. they follow you around dutifully enough and surprisingly stay still until needed in the Diamond Heist mission which is a big bonus mind you (play the game to find out why). enemy or police AI is reasonably good in that they will actively seek you out or liberate civilians and hostages whenever possible. the only issue would be their unusually low health but that can be fixed in the harder difficulties where they can and will overrun you. The issue here then is not the enemy AI but the display that you get when you do get shot. unlike CS or TF2 where a portion of the screen glows red and stays that way for a bit when you are shot from a certain direction, Payday flips out an orangey semi-circular strip that blinks once whenever you get hit from a certain direction, this simply enough time to respond adequately or determine where the shot originated from.
Unlike L4D which kindly scatters weapons about the map, Payday allows you to customize your loadout prior to starting a heist. One might think, oh this isn't an issue, if a cop is carrying a nicer weapon than me, i can just swipe that. no, you can't. once you select a weapon set, you're stuck with it throughout and must rely on your team mates should you be carrying power weapons with little accuracy and long reload times. This isn't the true issue however. the main issue here is the unlock system. If anyone is familiar with a skill tree then they can understand how this works in Payday. in order to unlock new weapons, you would need to level up 1 of 3 perk categories: sharpshooter, assault, support and more recently added the technician. each of these perks grant specific passive effects and more kit for you to use in game. for instance, leveling the assault perk, makes all your weapons dish out more damage, gives you extra cable ties for hostage work and even gives you an ammo bag to replenish the ammo of yourself and your fellows. The issue then is the fact that it takes a long time to level up the perks and that there is a level or reputation limit which means you have to plan your leveling or look for specific weapons you want to unlock at the risk of potentially not being able to field the weapons or your skills to their full potential. this probably forces you to play games with other players with different specialties but then again, why make the technician perk a must-buy DLC? the technician perk should in fact have been free from the get go seeing as how it unlocks a class that can aid the team. make extra weapons for each class and put that in a DLC but don't lock a class and force people to pay for it.
as with most multiplayer oriented games, team work is a very important factor, moreso when you are 4 bank robbers against hundreds of cops. unlike other games that allow you to use a set of in-game voice commands to yell at your team mates to get into specific positions or follow you around, you are left with the F button which if you hover your cursor over a team and press, makes your character yell at them to follow you....and that's all. voice commands would be good in that you can tell your team to keep an eye on hostages and civilians, tell them to engage the police, yell at them to run away and even yell at them to deploy a medical or ammo bag. a guaranteed fix to this is to get yourself a decent mic and yell at the human players yourself, but realistically only so many people can afford decent mics that don't shatter themselves in 3 months. voice commands, necessary but unavailable.
as with any other multiplayer game community is also important. so far, payday's community is looking rather good in that they can be helpful....most of the time. i'm more likely to blame the free weekend for attracting so many unintelligent morons with no inkling of what to do at all despite instructions being spat out to them from both players and the game itself. this seems to persist to a degree like any other game. fortunately, unlike TF2, payday is a paid to play game, so the likelihood of a continuously large influx of inbreds is low. therefore, the community is still good and polite, friendly even as this is a PvE styled game... although the occasional fool who doesn't seem to understand english and doesn't know what they are doing will appear, then again, i live in asia and we're not exactly big on english or learning english. like i said, earlier, a small pinprick to be expected in all gaming communities.
at the moment there are 4 robbers players can choose: british Hoxton (personal fav), american Chains, swedish Wolf and american Dallas. each of them have their own masks and there are multiple sets of masks to put on your robber of choice. this one isn't a large issue as the characters are all very well fleshed out with superb voice acting and each having a rather infectious personality of their own. this is minor pin-prick in that i would much rather like to see a bigger range of masks to choose from considering that this is a $14.99 game.
verdict?
my final thoughts and verdict.... payday is definitely a good game to get. it has much potential to become much more than what it is currently, which is fine because unlike CoD and battlefield which suck at your wallets for each game released, Overkill does actually update their game and they do bring in some good things, much like Tripwire and their 'Killing Floor' game. however, payday is somewhat buggy according to long time players, though i mercifully have not yet experienced anything major other than long loading times. for its price however, i feel that the game should have included much more things to do. the initial 5 map will get boring after you play them for the 20th time although the randomness system....whatever its called does keep it somewhat interesting some of the time, staving the inevitable boredom and repetitivity somewhat. the heists themselves are quite entertaining although difficult to pull off without the right help as each mission has a bit of a story as well as a very interesting scheme. the game is filled with little references from movies and other games as well (i'll leave you to find those yourself), which is somewhat nice. However, the team mate AI is rather unbecoming in that they are slow to locate you and resurrect you. never mind that their aim is infallible, their inability to get to you sooner is an issue in itself. also mentioned earlier is the lack of ability to communicate quickly and effectively without a mic. the most you can do is point out if a special SWAT is coming in. on the plus side though, as a game, payday is like a refreshing fart in the middle of an overly overwhelming garden of tulips and strong smelling flowers. its new, its genuinely fun and it is an actual multiplayer game that works. i would recommend it though i would advise people to wait for a sale first because as the game is, it feels incomplete despite the superb voice acting and decent music score.
6/10, worth it in every sense of the word, but wait for a sale, it isn't worth its full price yet.
pros:
- good voice acting
- characters with personality!
- refreshing take on zombie and FPS shooter games in general, good concept
- interesting and fun heists to play
- relatively cheap in comparison to big studio games like CoD
cons:
- very limited arsenal of kit and weapons
- poor team mate AI that can apparently get lost in some maps (diamond heist)
- very limited number of maps to play on
- NO voice command system or quick message ability to communicate better (get a mic, but sometimes voice commands would work better, do you really want to listen to a 12 year old or a nasally nerd who thinks his e-peen is bigger than yours?)
- repetitive gameplay despite a system to keep it random (that only works for so long before you really do start getting bored)
- limited number of masks to choose (minor thing, but the small things do count sometimes)
- technician perk needs to be bought! (i understand the need for a gimmick here, but when you offer a new perk to be used in game, shouldn't it be free as an update? it's like asking a new born if he wants to learn how to walk)
