Payday 2 is the highly anticipated sequel to a gaming formula that really made gamers work together as a team in order to make it out of a heist not only with a bunch of loot; but make it out alive. Overkill is going all in with Payday 2, and it offers much more content. A deeper leveling system, greater customization, and a ton of new heists. Dallas, Chains, Hoxton, and Wolf are reunited for a second string of amoral moneymaking, propelled by a variety of missions involving breaking and entering, classic bank robbery, and even simple property damage across a range of maps that, while often recycled, feature randomized elements to keep things interesting. Yet again, success hinges on teamwork as four players strategize, watch backs, and hold off waves of progressively deadly police forces. You access missions via the Crime.net service. A virtual map that locates and displays all active online missions. There is an offline mode too, but the A.I. is so unaware as to render it an endeavor without meaning. If you want to enjoy this game the best thing to do is to go online if you've any hope of making out like a bandit. Missions appear in real-time as they become available, and range from simple jobs to longer heists that include story-based crimes that take place over several days and are broken up into anywhere from two to seven stages. The harder the difficulty, the greater the enemy resistance, and the more likely an appearance of special enemies, such as the Shield or terrifying Heavy. Each mission is far more varied than last time. In one stage, you'll be tasked with entering a mall and doing $50,000 worth of damage for a protection racketeer. Another involves robbing three stores at once and making out with the goods. A good number of missions can be played either stealthily or noisily. If you go in, all guns blazing, take hostages and decide to smash-and-grab, you'll end up defending your location against timed police assaults before fighting your way out with your earnings. A quiet approach involves sneaking past cameras, knocking out opponents, pretending to be guards over a pager system, and hoping to Hermes you don't get anybody too suspicious. It's going to take some skills mastering in order to take down these missions unnoticed. Players level up and earn spending money after each successful job, which can in turn be used to gain new skills, unlock guns, and customize masks. There are four skill trees to choose from which include Mastermind,Engineer, Enforcer and Ghost, the handy stealth class that can sneak in and evade detection. PAYDAY 2 offers an amazing co-op experience that will make you want to keep coming back for more. Despite the obvious AI flaws this game is well worth the $30 price point they're asking for. Plenty of DLC is planned so there's no reason why any gamer should want to pass on this awesome Heist!
