Game Review - Payday 2

 

Hey there everybody, actually back this time--gonna take this in a bit of a different direction this week with a short review of one of my favorite games, Payday 2.

Payday 2 is a co-operative first person shooter game, in which 4 players work together as career criminals. They must perform a multitude of jobs, from robbing banks to transporting shipments of drugs, all the while fighting off relentless waves of computer-controlled police. Players must build their characters with a huge arsenal of weapons (which can be customized even further with attachments), as well as with a rich system of skills and perks, to complete their missions without getting gunned down and arrested. There is a massive roster of missions to choose from, and this with the mileage of experimenting with different character builds makes for an extremely replayable experience.

Players casing a scene before making their move.

First off, I'm a sucker for 4-player co-op shooters, and they've sapped a shamefully huge amount of hours of my life as I've enjoyed them. Payday 2 is a shining example of this, owing to that aforementioned replayability factor; the level of this it has achieved is genuinely ludicrous. Hundreds of weapon combinations, perk selections, and skill tree paths are possible, and that makes it hard to get tired of the game even after an immoderate amount of play time.

Another thing to consider in this vein of customization is the healthy community of mods that players have made for this game, which adds cosmetic changes and loads more weapons to choose from beyond what is already available. With all the variety sitting right there for players, it wouldn't be wrong to say that one could never run out of different ways to play the game. Combined, these are the essential reasons that I've spent...*sigh*... actual, no joke, real life hundreds of hours in this game. There, I said it. Can't say I'm not honest.

Of course, this all comes with its share of downsides. While the game's developers, Overkill, have delivered an all around excellent game, they can't win many points at all for how well they've programmed the game. The amount of software issues that the game in spite of years of continuous updates is downright notorious, and for good reason; crashes (ESPECIALLY when mods are in play), bugs that stagger the gameplay experience, and poor optimization means that the game can really test your patience with it. If you can't handle the occasional crash that halts your crime sprees or a bugged soft-lock from time to time, it'll be a problem if you're really trying your best to enjoy the game.

Besides that, a noteworthy amount of build variety is locked as paid DLC, which means that access to the majority of the weapons in the game (which are almost always better than the base game's selection) are not accessible until the player pays for them. I was fortunate enough to take advantage of an insane Steam deal years back which got me all DLC for a low sale price, but the problem still stands. 

Well... guess that covers most of what I've got to say about Payday 2; for 10 bucks, what you get is the base of an extremely fun (and charmingly rough) experience. As long as you're patient enough to work with the game on its own shaky but manageable terms, you will be rewarded with intense, dynamic gameplay that will last you for far longer than you think it will. 

Probably (all but certainly in fact) not my last game review on this blog, but stay tuned for whatever comes next. Thanks for reading, and get your hustle on!