Payday: The Heist Review – The Best PSN Game of 2011?

Posted by: Don Mitchell Posted date: November 01, 2011 In: Reviews | comment : 1

Publisher: Sony Online Entertainment

Genre: First Person Shooter

Release Date: October 4, 2011

Platform: PS3/PC

With the quality games that have come to the PSN, Payday: The Heist stands out from the rest and in my opinion gets PSN GOTY.

The game offers so much for so little and where full retail games falter, PTH succeeds. Payday: The Heist is the online four player co-op shooter that surprised many at E3 2011 and continues to impress people who weren’t aware of the game.

Available on PSN and PC, you play as one of four players; Dallas, Wolf, Hoxton, and Chains, in a crew coordinating together to do a series of heists. There are six maps/heists: First World Bank which is your bank heist, Heat Street which is based on the crime thriller Heat as your crew is double crossed by your partner, Panic Room where you try to steal a panic room full of drug money, the Green Bridge where you need to escort a convict to safety, Diamond Heist which requires stealth inside a skyscraper, and Slaughter House where you try an overtake an armored truck carrying gold.

Payday: The Heist is often compared to the Xbox title Left 4 Dead that released in 2008 because of its co-op style, but the similarities between L4D and PTH are few and far between.

The similarities are they are both 4 player online co-op games and you won’t survive unless you work as a team because communication is key. Other than the graphics, both games are very different.

L4D had a much more arcady feel to its gameplay, where PTH gameplay is set in more realism. You won’t be reloading your shotgun at crackhead speeds like L4D. The ammo capacity of your weapons are more realistic, so your shotgun won’t carry a hundred rounds plus.

Note* There are some minor differences in this photo to the PS3 version as this is a PC screenshot.

There are only two ways of replenishing your health in PTH. You or a teammate can lay down a doctor bag which can be used by other members of your team, or you can receive full health and ammo once you level up by gaining reputation during a heist.

There won’t be ammo tables scattered throughout the level either as in L4D. In order to fill up your ammo, you can collect ammo from dead officers or a teammate can lay out an Ammo Bag which replenishes your ammo the same way as a Doctor Bag. Ammo and health is scarce so you need to manage and strategize where you place ammo and health bags.

Payday: The Heist works off a skill tree with three classes; Assault, Sharp Shooter, and Support. Within each class you can upgrade/progress, obtain new weapons, and pick crew bonuses.

How you equip your character along with how you select your Crew Bonus adds to the success of your team completing the Heist. The Crew Bonus is a team based perk that once achieved and equipped aid the other members of the crew.

There are 6 Crew Bonus perks to unlock which aids the crew.

The “Aggressor” crew bonus which adds a damage multiplier.
The “Protector” which provides a health multiplier.
“Mr. Nice Guy” which adds a 20% multiplier to all the cash achieved throughout the heist, and at the end of the heist.
The “Sharp Shooter” perk adds more accuracy for the crew,
“Blood in Blood out” perk which adds more time to members of the crew when you are downed and go into “bleed out” ala last stand.
“Speed Reloaders” which allows the crew to reload their perspective weapon faster than usual.

The gun play for PTH has been described by some journalists as stiff, but I’m not sure how much time they have had in playing the game because the gun play is smooth and works well in the skill tree. All the weapons in the game increase in damage, recoil dampening, fire rate, iron sight speed, and magazine size. Keep in mind you can also equip a faster reload crew bonus which increases the gun play of the game. The game however doesn’t completely revolve around its gun play.

The co-op aspect has been taken to another level in PTH because of its objectives that must be completed through the heist. From setting drills, saws, obtaining key cards, planting C4, escorting traitors, convicts, and hostages. Furthermore you can exchange hostages for teammates in custody to bring them back in the game. If you don’t have three friends to pull a caper off with you can still play with A.I. partners. They do a very good job of reviving you when you are down, but can be sometimes lacking when the heat comes bearing down on you.

You can also identify, and call out special attack units which stand in the way of your dreams of obtaining your score: “Shields” swat members with shields, “Tazers” heavy swat members who electrify you to where your character is uncontrollable, “Bulldozers” think of the movie the Hurt Locker with speed and a shotgun, and “Cloakers” very powerful spec ops enemies who look like Sam Fisher in Splinter Cell who will beat you worse than Rodney King.

As good as this game is there are some aspects of PTH that need to be addressed. While playing online it is difficult to join a random game, inviting friends to your room is very un-user friendly, and while playing online it doesn’t sync with other PSN ID’s under the players met section.

There aren’t any issues of any significance with the game I can think of. The things I have mentioned and need to be addressed either are there and are not user friendly, or are absent but do not hurt the gameplay. Many have found some aspects of the game confusing because the game doesn’t hold your hand every little step of the way, so I will fill in the blanks a little.

In order to choose a class you must press and hold the select button and then the corresponding button for that class. This can also be done while in-game.

You can view your upgrades, completed challenges, active challenges etc. by pressing the start button. This comes into play by being able to switch a class in-game because you will often upgrade, complete, and level-up during a heist and being able to switch classes on the fly can develop a more well-rounded character.

Other than that the game is self explanatory and everything else is up for discovery and teamwork. Overkill software is aware of those issues I spoke about earlier and will be correcting them with an upcoming patch.