Get down on the ground! Stick ‘em up! All the money in the bag, now! Payday The Heist is a first-person cooperative game released in 2011 where you and up to three other players play as the Payday gang who do criminal jobs to fill their greedy wallets. You have the options to rob banks, rob armored transports, break out prisoners, steal counterfeit prints, steal IRS bank codes, steal literal panic rooms, liberate infected blood in a Left four Dead reference heist, and take jewels from a vault in a high rise.

Payday The Heist is very simple at its core. You enter a level and have to complete the objectives while fending off waves of police. Usually, you are always stealing something from others and almost always in a loud manner. Payday the heist takes a lot of inspiration from old crime films such as Heat, Reservoir Dogs, and The Dark Knight.

Missions in Payday The Heist can be incredibly difficult and rightly so. You need a carefully coordinated team to be able to pull off some of these capers. There is no running and gunning, there is no tanking damage, you will have to juggle special enemies like shields, tasers, cloakers, and dozers and this can be a major turn-off to most players.

However, a game like Payday The Heist isn’t without its flaws. Heists are difficult and sometimes tedious such as the “Panic Room” heist where you must defend four saws for four minutes, all of which are prone to jamming which you must hold the F button (Square or B button) to restart. This can prove very difficult for something who is not used to Payday The Heist’s unique brand of gameplay

Unfortunately despite this game’s many many upsides, there is one major flaw that stops this game from being truly amazing, and that’s the fact that its sequel Payday 2 has every single mission Payday The Heist has. Every. Single. One.

There is no point in playing Payday The Heist unless you’re a payday fan and you want to experience Payday’s roots. All of the missions in Payday 2 that are from Payday the heist are remastered and some actually have the ability to be beaten stealthily such as Diamond Heist, and First World Bank.

If you enjoy Payday 2 and want a fresh Payday experience buy Payday The Heist if you want something that’s more fast-paced then buy Payday 2 because Payday 2 is probably cheaper than The Heist.