Same Old Fun | Payday 2: Crimewave Edition Review

Payday is a popular series for a reason. The thrill of robbing banks is only matched by the satisfaction of a well thought out plan being executed perfectly. Few games can carry the suspense and tension whether in stealth or an endless firefight. There is little doubt that Payday 2: Crimewave Edition is a fun game, but does that mean it’s still worth getting?

For anyone who’s been locked in a vault all their life and doesn’t know what Payday is; now’s your chance to be enlightened. At its basic premise, it’s a four player shooter that relies heavily on a co-op aspect. Any game that relies on co-op is almost instant fun played with friends, extreme frustration played with randoms, and boring to play solo. That remains true for Payday 2, and no remastered, HD port, or whatever you call the “Edition” will be able to change.

Playing Payday 2 by yourself (offline) is next to impossible. The A.I. is some of the worst I’ve seen in gaming. They stand by you, can’t do any stealth, and they can’t even carry the money! The only thing they can do is shoot. That’s definitely helpful when SWAT starts rolling through those doors, but when I’ve emptied the safe and grabbed the money. I have to walk away leaving half the safe full with money I can’t carry. That means a second trip, which could easily be my life.

Therefore, always play Payday online. There are some frustrating moments as there will always be playing online with random people, but it’s far better than offline. Playing online also gives a lot more thrills with the human error aspect. I was on top of a museum roof with my partner about to open a skylight and drop down stealthily. Next thing I know, the entire museum is on alert and locked down. Someone else on my team, on another part of the map, messed up. There’s no reason to chew him or her out. We throw on our masks and drop through the skylight to take the guards by surprise.

I can say with absolute certainty that Payday 2 is a lot of fun. The thrills Payday has always offered you are still there. It’s the elements of the game that aren’t talked about or considered the prime gameplay that make it so fun. The decision to escape as early as possible or wait another three minutes to open a second safe – which could have more money – is nerve-wracking. Do you go back for a second trip, or call it a day? These decision – of which there are many throughout a match – really make Payday feel alive.

I never thought I was a greedy person until I refused to leave without taking every last valuable from a bank’s safety deposit boxes. Every minute more police came to stop me with heavier and heavier gear, but I always needed to know what was in that next box. I wasn’t alone either, as two other teammates where throwing bags of money in the middle of the room readying for our escape. Naturally, we left the enforcer to cover the doorway.

The other greatest part of Payday 2 are the individual skill trees. For every job you complete you earn experience and money—a lot of money if you did it right. As you level up you get skill points to spend on new skills and new weapons to purchase. It’s why making that second trip is so tempting. You want as much money as possible to deck your character out with the best loadout.

The skill trees become pretty varied and the best teams have well diversified players. It’s fun learning about the next job, and fine tuning your loadout for that specific task. Breaking into a museum? You want someone specialized in stealth. Protecting a car down the street through waves of police? Stealth isn’t going to do much good, better suit up to be a killing machine. The ability to have different skills and abilities makes replaying Payday levels fun since you get to try a new strategy.

Everything I’ve said is nothing new to the series. Payday 2: Crimewave edition is the PS4 and Xbox version of the Payday 2. It comes with all the DLC released so far, and the developers promise to support it with more DLC for over the next year. While some things have been tweaked, there isn’t anything groundbreaking in this version that makes it a must-have.

The graphics and animations are laughable at times. It felt like I was playing a PS2 games in some instances. One of the first things you do is answer a phone and that involves looking at it. It looks like a block with blurry numbers. The outside world has some nice detail and color scheme, but inside any building is boring. This isn’t the end of the world, since clearly Payday goes with the campaign of “gameplay over visuals.” Still, you can’t help but feel Crimewave looks very dated when compared to other current gen games.

The enemy A.I. isn’t very bright, even if they can detect you super easily. It was fairly easy to fight off waves of enemies when the police walked right by the door you were standing in. They take on a mob mentality and hope brute force will overcome you. It’s rarely anything other than a mass of blue that leads to your demise.

On the other hand, the sound design is brilliant. Firing the weapons is music to my ears. They’re loud, intense, and makes you feel right in the action. Picking a door’s lock and then suddenly hear a popping sounds jacks your heartrate up.

Frankly, there really isn’t anything (yet) that makes this a worthwhile purchase if you already own Payday 2. There isn’t enough of an update to warrant the purchase. The gameplay hasn’t changed and that’s the best feature of the Payday series after all. If you don’t own Payday 2 and have always wanted to play it, then Crimewave edition is something to look at. It doesn’t really add anything new, but it’s still that same cops and robbers fun.

This review is based on a review code of the Playstation 4 version of Payday 2: Crimewave edition developed by Overkill Software (Starbreeze Studios) and published by 505 Games