Recent reviews by K-Boom

No more micro-transactions

Game is being reworked by the original devs, seems promising.

I recommend this game, specially if you have friends to play with, it's way more enjoyable. I got a bit salty after some of Overkill's actions and they have redeemed themselves for the most part, they still updated the game during 2018 with free heists and returning heists from PDTH. It's a fun, fast paced action shooter game!



They introduced some changes, like two new difficulties, and other free content to the community. Looks like after the turmoil last year they are back on track trying to improve the game. The new difficulties seem rushed, there aren't a lot of viable builds. Questionable DLC business model is still up. Actually it's more challenging and fun to play with the vanilla and free community weapons. The problem with DLCs are the paid heists, you need them if you want to host those heists, but you can still join lobbies if you don't own these. The problem will be finding those lobbies.




Some things have changed, and others did not. OVERKILL removed the paid safes/drills from drop rotation, although you can still open them if you buy a drill, so they kept the microtransactions. They are changing it in the near future though, so new safes will drop and users will be free to open them, or sell them on Steam Market. I have no problem with that, as long as it keeps accessible for everyone without a pay wall.

They also changed/updated the game with some free content since my last review update, and few other paid DLCs.

It seems they are launching less DLC but the paid DLC model has not changed though, they still keep releasing themed DLC split in two packs, like the Biker Heist and Biker Character Pack, those could easily be a single pack. At least they will keep supporting the game until 2017, which is definitely a good thing. Users decide if they want to buy DLC or not, but lets hope the quality is good. Buy it on sale, on the cheap :)






OVERKILL introduced new microtransactions with random safe card drops and drills and weapon skins, equivalent to CS:GO weapon cases and keys and skins with steam market support, also similar to a model of free-to-play games. The difference is that PD2 is a paid game and those skins actually boost some stats.

Adding microtransactions was something they said they never would do.
Developer can't keep their word:
...We've made it clear that PAYDAY 2 will have no micro-transactions whatsoever (shame on you if you thought otherwise!) and...
> http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3127521

They launched a "weapon rebalance" patch with the excuse to increase diversity and versatily of other weapons. The thing is, with some stats being nerfed and stats boost added to skins, seems like a clear move from them to incite people buying those skins.

Pistols making more damage than heavy shotguns and assault rifles. What is this nonsense? To bring some shotguns back to their level before the "rebalance patch" you have to use special ammo, that is a feature of Gage Shotgun Pack, a DLC that wasn't required now is.

In the process of updating their game, popular mods were killed because OVERKILL made changes on how the game worked with LUA modification scripts. OVERKILL claims that breaking mods was not intentional. But how can you trust someone's word if they went back on it already? Call it conspiracy theory but maybe they just wanted to protect their new investment (microtransactions) to prevent malicious scripts from tampering with the game and finding a way to get easy safe card drops. Now it's gonna take a lot of unpaid effort from modders to get things working again, or maybe those mods will be just dead.

Mods are in the process of being fixed. Several of them are working again. Unfortunately some good modders got disgusted by recent OVERKILL choices and abandoned their mods :(



Very good game to play Co-Op with friends. Even playing with random people can be fun. Playing solo is usually not fun (I think solo play is suitable for stealth), but it's not the idea of the game. Some heists you can go loud or stealth, which renders a unique course as the heist takes place, or you can even do some of the heist in stealth and the rest loud. Could have more missions although they have some variation from time to time, It's a good thing that the developer is always launching new patches with improvements and bug fixes.

Since the Death Wish patch, despite adding a new difficulty and some particular changes to the heists some aspects of the game were changed. Some of those changes modified the way certain skills worked and how they were implemented, and the most dramatic change was to the Stealth mechanics. I think those changes balanced the game better, in some ways it made the game more challenging, The new stealth mechanics requires more situational awareness and avoiding detection, it's not "bad", it works well for some heists but it makes luck to play a bigger part in other heists. I enjoy both Stealth and the Full assault gameplay but I enjoyed the "old stealth" because it was more simple and less time consuming, waiting and luck played lesser parts.

Since my initial review there was a good amount of new heists added, some in free updates, most in paid updates (DLC). Despite heist DLCs most DLC packs are for weapons, masks, materials and characters. Missing some optional content isn't game breaking, but the DLC are too many and there are small things that could certainly be already in the game like a sniper rifle, light machine gun, grenades, more good weapon mods: all this was included behind a paywall (DLC), which is not nice. Also some DLC make the game somewhat easier, which feels that it's a bit of a "pay to make it easier" DLC.

After so many hours playing I still enjoy playing with friends, so I still enjoy the game, although it's a bit tiresome to play the same heists over and over, so I tend to play only the Death Wish difficulty which still puts some challenge. The Infamy system is useful until Level 5 because it discounts the number of points you have to spend to unlock higher skills in the skills tree, so you can make better builds spending less points. Beyond that it's just more grinding for a few masks, materials and patterns.

I don't like the random card/loot system that awards you items or masks, even useless money or little EXP boosts, I think it should be reworked. The rewards should be more balanced so everyone feels rewarded playing every single heist.

+ Great Co-Op fun with friends!
+ There is some variety of heists, but it becomes tiresome after many hours playing over and over the same maps
+ Stealth or Full assault option on most situations
+ The developer is present and tries to update the game with good frequency
+ The new stealth adds a new challenge and situational awareness
+ Good range of skills. You can specialize or make good builds depending on your role in the heists
+ Many weapons are available and can be modified, although some are DLC exclusive, but I have to say that most weapons I use are those included in the game and community updates.

- "New stealth" is more waiting game in certain situations than really a matter of being skilled.
- The Infamy system is too much grinding for little reward
- The rewards (loot system) should be rebalanced and reward the player more with more rare items
- DLCs are too many, some things could be already in the full game or included for everybody. At this point all the DLC together cost way more more than the original game.
- Some weapon and character perk deck DLC make the game easier in certain ways, which unbalanced compared to the original free loadout of the game.

Honestly, for starters this is not my favorite genre of game, and second, mostly because of the first, I got bored really fast. So I cannot comment on the aspect of the gameplay mechanics and balance, nor if it's fun or not. What I can say is that the user interface looked at the same time kinda cluttered and generic, and the sound effects had poor and generic quality. Maybe some time I'll go back to it and try again.

Interesting concept of a game. The sound effects did not seem too interesting, but it seems that the games try to develop a story. Will go back to it some time and see how it goes. What I didn't like was the camera moving as I moved the character on screen, but besides that looks like a decent puzzle platformer. As the game is still in early access I believe there is room for improvements.

Its a little, fast paced shooter game with grapling hook mechanics. Didn't find much innovation. The art style is good, the sounds are very simple, I think it could be a lot better with more variation. Also adding a fast paced action music would improve things.

Must be more fun for people who enjoy PVP, not really my thing. According to Steam charts there are less than 10 people people playing :( Nowadays it's hard to launch PVP focused games without a great promise of entertainment and innovation. It's sad because the devs mentioned they have been working on the game for 2 years.

Given current state at $8 price I would not recommended it :(

Start > Die, Start > Die, Start > Die... Nothing else.

It's a roguelike top down shooter, you get some power ups during gameplay, and the enemy waves increase in numbers and has a few different enemy types. When you die, it's over, you'll have to start over again. It became boring after a few minutes. The graphic style is pretty simple but decent, as well as the sound effects. I feel the field of vision is too limited, it should be wider. Also, other than only a survival mode, maybe a mode where you can get optional upgrades and restart with upgrades.

Just got the game in Early Access, and I would like to throw my first impressions and suggestions.

When I started playing I found the black/white aesthetic good, I believe it's intended as part of the post-apocalyptic setting and story telling, other than that I don't understand very well the reason of this approach. But, as the time went by I think it started "hurting my eyes" and got a bit of headache, I had to stop. The black/white aesthetic idea is nice, but I think it could be optional, specially for those who are more sensitive to this kind of graphics. I also believe the game has potential to be aesthetically good with a "colorful" scheme, because the ambient looks too much the same with the black/white scheme, and I can see there are a lot of objects, landscape, the ruined buildings, etc so the black/white graphics don't seem to make justice to the work of art put in the game.

I enjoyed the art of the loading screens, and in game menu, also the intro video. I think the black/white aesthetic is perfect at those times, but not during the entire game. But speaking of loading screens, I'm not a big fan of them when they get in the middle of the gameplay, I think while I was in the first area I before I got to the survivor I got 2-3 loading screens (switching map areas?) although they were fast, it kind of breaks the immersion/continuity of the gameplay. If the loading screens can't be avoided, maybe add a little something to those screens as part of the story telling.

I felt the "tutorial" part lacking, as the only advices I got were how to drain health from dead enemies and press space to sprint. I had to look in the options menu which were the controls and find out I had "reaper" abilities, but got no description what those would do and how they worked. I felt I was thrown in the game without some guidance of the basic mechanics.

As for the animation the character seemed too "rigid" in his movement, when going to left/right it would "flow better" and look more natural if the character also leaned a bit to the sides, specially when sprinting. Also the melee animation only has one type (front kick with left leg), I would like to see more variation like punches, hitting the enemies with the back of the gun, kicking with the other leg, etc.

Speaking of the combat system I got to the point that I found it lacking because I was just expecting the action music when an enemy was near and "camp" from a distance using my first reaper skill that shoots (whatever it is called) or "kiting" the enemies, because at close range death seemed almost certain. Also, I would like to see a difficult setting when starting the new game, not just in the options menu, and a brief description to what the difficulty affects and who should pick which difficulty.

As I'm not a native english speaking person, and this would also be beneficial to the hearing impaired, I would like to see more subtitles, even during the video. There was some dialog between characters that had only text, I would love to see those lines voiced as well. Also, game and subtitles in serveral languages would be awesome.

I think the game has potential if it lives up to a good story and decent gameplay. With some improvements it can get only better. Only thing that did upset me was the headache, and I would have to blame the black/white color scheme. I'll resume gameplay and play some more, but I'm afraid that my game sessions can't last long.

An improvement compared to the first game of the series, also bigger game. Beautiful sceneries, captivating characters, immersive story and good soundtrack. You can explore, free roam, do the main story missions and optional missions, grab collectibles, almost in any order. There are items upgrades, new weapons, and skills. Many places to go and exploration to do. The Deluxe Edition includes 3 bonus areas, that are not important for the main story but provide additional game time if you had not enough exploration already. This game is worth to be played, even if you are new to the series, this is a good start. This game kept me entertained for more than 40 hours.

You will hear a lot that this is mix of puzzle platformer and Portal, with an indie taste. But the game is original, and fun. Very simple mechanics but yet good puzzles presented to the player not too difficult, some require more thought than others and its really nice when you figure out on your own how to do it. But fear not, if you get stuck you can obtain the solutions right in the game and you can move on to clear the next level/puzzle. Lacking a bit of better sound effects and music, but those are still adequate to the game.




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Portuguese translation:

Você vai ler bastante que esse jogo é uma mistura de quebra-cabeça em plataforma e Portal, com um jeito indie. Mas o jogo é original e divertido. Envolve mecânica bem simples, mas os quebra-cabeças são interessantes mas geralmente nada complexo, alguns necessitando de mais tempo e experimentação para dar certo e é bem legal quando você descobre por conta própria. Mas não tem problema se você empacar em alguma parte porque você pode obter a solução de dentro do jogo mesmo. Os efeitos sonoros e músicas tem pouca variabilidade mas do jeito que estão se encaixam bem com o jogo.

I took longer writing this review than I played the game. The game is awesome, requires extreme precision and timing and it will punish you everytime. It's obvious it requires a lot of practice and concentration. The visuals and sound effects fit perfectly with the game. It is extremely hard and frustrating. Unfortunately it's not for me. I passed the time where I had to quick reflexes. Maybe some time I'll try it again.




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Portuguese translation:

Eu demorei mais pra escrever esse review do que pra jogar esse jogo. O jogo é ótimo, necessita de extrema precisão e timing, ele te pune toda hora que você erra. Fica bem óbvio que precisa praticar bastante e ter muita concentração. Os efeitos visuais e de som são perfeitos para o jogo. É extremamente difícil e frustrante. Infelizmente não é pra mim, passou o tempo em que eu tinha reflexos tão rápidos. Talvez eu tente esse jogo em outro momento.