Madness and Money, Payday 2 Part 2

BANG! BANG!

That's not the sound of gunfire, it's the sound of me slamming my head into the wall.

This isn't due to the difficulty or repetitiveness of Payday 2. My self inflicted concussions are because of the derpiness of the PS3 Payday 2 community. Now not all of the players I meet go full retard but it has happened enough that I am afraid it's becoming an epidemic.

My full purpose behind this article was not meant to be a rage filled review. The more I played online the angrier I became. Mission after mission I had to give up on the higher amounts of money due to people charging the front door, ignoring all guards, civilians and going straight for the mission.

Now before I hear people say "What's wrong with that? It's what they're supposed to do."Understand that setting off alarms can make missions harder, longer (that's what she said) and give a bigger chance of failure.

One of the first missions in Payday 2 is a simple bank heist. The players only have to find a way around four guards, cameras and then have to control the handful of civilians in the bank. The players are given a chance to scope out the bank before starting the mission to see where the guards and cameras might be. This is a great time to do any planning. At least that's what I thought until playing with others online.

In my first few matches I played with actual people they just ran in the front door every time like madmen. They would ignore all cameras and guards going straight for the safe, getting the police called on us immediately.

Although really the NPC AI isn't much better. "No, guys, I need to finish my smoke break. Y'all can wait 'til I'm done."

Certainly these other player's veteran level didn't reflect the "madness" that has overcome them. As my level grew so did my distaste for the others that joined me. Time and time again I saw the "madness" creep into their ever so slightly sane head as they start shooting every living creature informing everyone in the city to our position and actions. What was happening to these people?

Why was this happening? Was there something wrong with the community or was there something else possibly following me around causing these people to lose all touch with their sanity?

Check out part three, when a madness of my own arises.

-Aaron

The Do's and Don'ts of makin' Moneeeeeeeeeeey

While we (not so) patiently wait for Aaron to (finally) come up with his Payday 2 Part 2 post, He and I have come up with a miniseries of sorts. 

As you'll (eventually) see in his next post, there are right ways to play and wrong ways, at least to his fussy eyes, something we'll be documenting in the Do's and Don'ts of Payday 2

Enjoy!

Aaron's Payday: Part 1

The weekend is a time for barbecues, road trips and relaxing. My weekends consist of cooking meth, robbing banks and killing off cartels. I'm not living in an episode of Breaking Bad, I am just playing Payday 2.

I gotta pay for this bitchin' get-up somehow

Now that I am probably on most government watch lists and this blog and my home is probably under surveillance, let me explain Payday 2. Payday 2 is a 4 player cooperative first person shooter. The player controls one of the four men as they perform crimes all over Washington DC. Players are able to choose from several different jobs including uncovering a corrupt senator, killing off high members of a cartel, robbing a bank and stealing experimental technology. The number of jobs and heists grows with each update that is released.

Payday 2 can be played both as a single player game and an online multiplayer game. While there is no centralized plot to the game other than you are a career criminal, there is a story to each heist you partake in. Each heist wraps up it's story by the end. As I mentioned before there is a job where the person hiring you wishes to uncover a corrupt senator. The job of the player is to then break into an art museum and steal several paintings. The paintings then have cameras installed into them and are sold to the senator's people. Once the paintings are hung in the senator's condo, the player uses the cameras to sneak in, steal personal electronics that have proof and details of illegal arms trading, plant cocaine in the senator's personal vault and steal the senator's illicit gold fund.

Each successful, and sometimes unsuccessful, mission yields money and experience for the player. Experience is used to level up which gives skill points to be used in certain class skills as well as unlocks other weapons and body armor. The money is then used by the player to purchase the new weapons and modifications for them. The money seems to have little use other than allowing the player to respec their skills, purchase items to make jobs easier and purchasing certain jobs to make more money. That's right, the player has to purchase a job from the contractor if they wish to perform a certain heist at a certain difficulty. Otherwise the player sits at the mission screen until they see a job they want to do.

The exciting world of organized crime!

The game does try it's best to disapprove of needless violence. If a player is to injure any civilians they are penalized with a large monetary fine and the game raises the difficulty level. The game does emphasize that no civilians should be harmed which is a feature that most first person shooters either touch lightly on or ignore completely.

Payday 2 is available now on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC.

Be sure to watch for part two of my look at Payday 2 where we look at my experiences behind the mask.