A Life of Crime

So last night I was cooking up some meth with some friends when I realized that trying to have a shootout with SWAT while maintaining a functional drug lab is a lot harder than it sounds.

Well, now that the NSA has added me to I'm sure several of their lists, I should probably say that I'm talking about Payday 2, which is currently in a beta stage, set to be release later this month. Here's a fun little trailer for you:

I didn't get to play a ton of the first Payday, mainly because not many of my friends actually owned it and the AI is so infuriatingly stupid that you'll want to shoot them in the head before taking out the police that are trying to stop your robbery. While the original game was basically built on the Left 4 Dead engine, this one has added several noticeable gameplay changes, which now include allowing for you to avoid getting into huge gunfights with the police and instead providing a stealth-like approach.

In addition, the gunplay and teamwork aspects of the game seem much tighter, offering plenty for each person to do. The new skill trees also allow everyone to customize their loadouts and characters to best suit specific tasks. I've been a big fan of the lumbering oaf that lugs bags of contraband around and carries a shotgun at all times, but I've seen everything from master lockpickers to guys who can engage in very effective fisticuffs.

The missions in the first game were pretty lackluster and felt like they lacked a lot of big heists, which seems odd considering the game was called PAYDAY: The Heist. This game, at least in the beta, offers a nice mixture of mission objectives ranging from hitting up a jewelry store and grabbing some nice watches all the way to cooking meth and trading it for intel on the location of a bunch of people trying to make off with someone else's money. Missions now can have several parts to them, and you need to complete all of them to get the big reward money.

Progression also feels much better, as you can spend money on upgrades to skills and weapons, which forces you to prioritize what will best help the build of your character. Gun attachments are unlocked randomly after successfully completing missions, which gives you incentive to keep playing even if you've hit the level cap. Also, the top level skills can completely change the way you approach missions, such as allowing you to take a portable saw which can break into saftey deposit boxes faster than lockpicking them, or even opening ATMs, which normally are inaccessable.

My beta experiences have been isolated to playing with 3 other humans that I actually know and interact with, so your mileage may vary if you play with randoms or with the AI, but I would definitely recommend checking the game out if you are a fan of co-operative gameplay, first person shooters, and/or illegal activity.  If you buy the special edition on Steam you'll get 2 beta keys with it. Otherwise it comes out on August 27, 2013.