Payday: The Heist

[miffy495]

Apologies if a thread already exists for this game. I searched, I swear.

So currently I'm staying with my parents the next province over for a week, and as my stepdad has no buddies his age who play video games, we always try to capitalize when I visit and get some serious co-op time in. Last night we beat half of Orcs Must Die 2 in a sitting, for example. When I visited at Christmas, it was Dead Island and Serious Sam 3. Today, we saw that Payday: The Heist was on sale on Steam for the mid-week thing, so we both picked it up and spent an hour and a half this afternoon giving it a spin. Hey guys, this game is pretty fun. I didn't really expect it to be. I thought it had an interesting premise but looked kinda shoddy and a bit too "Kane and Lynch"-y (despite the fact that I really did like the first K & L game) to really be a high quality product, but after trying out a few things and finally pulling off our first successful heist after about 5 totally failed attempts, I feel really good about dropping my $5 on it.

For those who don't know, it's sort of Left 4 Dead-ish, but instead of running from zombies, the four players are working together to pull off bank robberies and escape from the police, with each scenario heavily inspired by various action films. We tried the basic bank one a few times, getting blasted repeatedly towards the end of it. Then we tried the "escape through the streets" bit pulled from Heat and also got blown to shit. The success came when we dropped an apartment complex's panic room down three floors using C4, then airlifted it out by helicopter and escaped through the sewers. It was really damn fun.

Progression is level-based for your character, as pulling off certain things during play of the scenarios (as well as just completing them) results in cash that counts as experience and helps you level up by buying body armour or upgrading your guns, etc etc. The cap seems to be pretty damn high, and you choose which way your character progresses by selecting one of three upgrade tracks to put your cash into as you go, support, sharpshooter, and something else I forget the name of. I really like the way that it works, as it's not always just going to be "I hit level 5 so I get a shotgun", but it's also not randomized. It gives a bit of a sense of ownership over your character that I appreciate.

Long story short, I think I may really like this game. Are there any other thumbs who play this? Now that I've got a taste, I kind of want to see what else the game has to offer. I've only made it to level 7 of their persistent progression thing, so there's a long way for me to go yet.

[racingfreak92]

Main thing I dont like about Payday s that the AI cops behave very similarly to the zombies from L4D, but with less melting flesh. This game is a crazy, glorified, shooting gallery that is fun and pretty well done, but I always feel like im wasting time that I could be spending on something with more substance.

[JonCole]

I've played a bit of it and like it, but it's really pretty designed for multiplayer so I haven't played too much. I'm down for a game whenever.

Edit: Maybe I should throw this in - http://steamcommunity.com/id/jonac13

[bakka bakka bakka]

I played this with Korax and another cuddy of mine a few weeks past. It's a lot of fun even if it is really difficult. Haven't played it much since then, the utter lack of success partly driving that.