Recent reviews by np_sub

Game is worth.
Note that the developer (single person) has stated that the game will never be on sale. https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=7884

I've been playing Factorio since 2014. When I saw it was coming to Steam, I knew it would be one of those successful early access games such as KSP, Prison Architect, etc. I didn't expect it to be this successful. If I had to summarize my experience with Factorio with three words, it would be Efficiency, Arithmetic, and Optimization. This game can be played in a multitude of ways. You can go all-in and calculate every production line and get all of the ratios to line up. Or, you can just let yourself be free and build whatever's needed. Theres one big satisfaction to planning out everything; it all looks satisfying seeing everything organized without any hiccups.

http://i.imgur.com/VlpFv8A.jpgohgodRIP
gameplay killed m

This review was created during the second day of the Hype Train update.

To directly put it, it's a great game if you an go through the grind and especially if you can play with 2 or 3 other friends.

To indirectly put it, the game is a wreck. The developers, Overkill, are indeed making an effort to create new updates, albeit small updates, but the main, horrendous issue is their lack of quality control. As I said, the devs make constant updates, but they never or very rarely patch the updates; if it isn't game-breaking, they won't even consider looking at it.

For example, take the contract, Four Stores: the whole contract can be beaten instantly by taking advantage of the improper balancing; what's the point of a mission if anybody can do it in a couple seconds? There is no fun in instantly completing something that would otherwise be long and tedious but rewarding at the end.

Then there are the basic fundamentals a game should have; this can be demonstrated by the contract, Mallcrasher. The objective of Mallcrasher is to destroy and vandalize a worth of a certain amount of monetary value within the map. When a player would destroy or vandalize an object, the game inadequately provides feedback. How is a new player suppose to know what to destroy and what to not even bother with? For all he or she knows, shooting a wall would cause damage of value, but the game doesn't register it because it is not programmed to preceive it as an act of destruction. Not to mension the grind; the game is a complete grind for levels, or reputation as the game calls it.

Another evidence of improper balancing is the contract, Hoxton Breakout: it is possible for a level-zero-new player to reach maximum base level of 100 in just about 12 contracts or 24 in-game moments.

The developers are effectively "pulling a fast one" and leaving in the old stuff just for the new people to play. If there was a statistic of which contracts were most oftenly played, contracts such as Jewelry Store, one of Payday 2's most basic and oldest heists, would be at the bottom of the bunch. And regarding the game mechanics, the whole game is run off of one of the most basic types of programming language, LUA. This does mean that more people are easily able to manipulate the game for the better but at a cost; cheaters and hackers are a fairly common sight. Because it is able to be modified, many groups are even releasing their own custom-made content that generally makes the game more enjoyable, and now we get to my main argument.
The devs have taken the mods for granted. The most probable reason why they are leaving stuff like Four Stores and Mallcrasher exist this way is because of the modding community. They automatically assume that for the small issues, the aged players will just simply know how to accomplish, and don't focus on the new players, and to have players put in their own time and effort just to make a game, that they bought, play at its full potential? It's really sad and embarassing for the average player required to mod their game, just so they can play fully play it. Overkill is a unique developer; they do push for constant new updates, but always tend to forget their actual audience for the updates. More and more people are buying Payday 2 as I type. People may of told them that Payday 2 is a phenomenal game, but do they know the truth and analysis behind Overkill's act?

The mod community is like Overkill's dust pan, catching and cleaning all of Overkill's dropped mistakes.

Other Notes

• Singleplayer is still really lacking; the bots are only bullet sponges and don't do anything else.
  
• The devs have effectively run out of major ideas and are just adding new perk decks and characters.
  
• The new maps consist of tons and tons of reused game textures and models. Few new models and game assets are created every map update.
  
• Some achievements are either currently or have been broken such as Swing Dancing, melee kill achievement, and some of the old Train Heist achievements where an update completely broke stealth making the achievement near impossible to obtain.
  
• Overkill's most recent DLC(as of day 2 Hype Train) was only 4 masks and supposed secret content for $20 USD.
  
• The long awaited Infamy 2.0 update has been a rollercoaster of responses, mainly consisting of negative responses as far as I have seen.
  
• Nearly pay-2-win scenario with DLC: newer DLC gun mods eclipses the stats of some older DLC gun mods and mostly all of the stock-game gun mods.

Disclaimer: This is a review. Don't hate on opinion.

Edit as of Day 5 Hype Train: The devs have been acting horrendously during the Hype Train event. As I mentioned up above, the mod communities are simply just Overkill's maid and butler; in fact, they even designated a specific group of people connected to the modding community as the "official" mod group; this group is the team behind Hoxhud. When people think of Hoxhud in Payday 2, they picture an innocent mod that makes the game actually playable; but, as you look into the depths within Hoxhud, you will find out that the creator of Hoxhud, Olipro, has the ability to terminate the use of Hoxhud on any player and at any time. Then there is another mod group, which is my personal preference, called Pocohud; the creator of Pocohud is Zenyr. Pocohud and Hoxhud are extremely similar in many different aspects however, Pocohud has, by fact, much more functionality than Hoxhud (the creator does not have the ability to disallow the use of his mod), yet Overkill grants strictly Olipro game updates prior to release. (Zenyr has released an announcement based on this act committed by Overkill) Every day during this event (Hype Train), new updates are released; update after update requires very high upkeep on game-changing mods; therfore, many different mods are either lacking some or all of their necessities resulting in fatal errors. The thing the bugs me the most is that Overkill has completely ignored all pleas by various different mod developers and instead strictly only listens to Olipro's Hoxhud team and their TeamEvil counterpart while there exists a different but better mod that eclipses Olipro's mod.

Edit as of Early Crimefest 2015: When do the developers decide that enough is enough? What defines "crossing the border" in their terminology? Payday 2 is forever plagued with the rancid developers that once cared.

Edit as of Q4 2016: The devs have run out of ideas, yet they keep content flowing. Is this content good, you ask... All I can say is that they seem to be digging themselves deeper in a hole of power creep.