Admit it - you've thought about it. It's okay; every red blooded American man has walked in to a bank, and thought how easy it would be to hold it up. Not that you would actually do it, but you've checked out where the cameras are, noticed the security guards; hell you've even picked out the weak looking tellers. This would be easy you think to yourself.

As it turns out it wouldn't. Payday: The Heist, the new tactical shooter from Sony Online Entertainment puts you in the shoes of a group of would be professional criminals in some major heists. What makes the game so interesting is that things get tense and can go so wrong so quick. It's these tense moments that give the game it's heart, and at times its hard to resist, just don't play alone or you're sure to get bored really quickly.

There's not really a story to wrap your head around in Payday, just imagine the opening scene of the Dark Knight, where the guys in the clown masks rob the bank (or Point Break) and mix in some Left 4 Dead style gameplay. Your objective is simple; break in and get as much loot as you can. Of course, there are different ways to do this, but it seems to always end the same way, through gun fire and force. Never the less, it's the moments leading up to the climax of each mission that truly makes Payday such a unique title.

"...that's where the game both goes right and completely wrong."

Take the bank map for instance, you start at the outside of the building and you walk in as a normal patron, it's here perhaps that you make the most important choice of your game, do you just go in guns blazing, or do you play it cool, looking for the cameras (eliminating them makes the cops respond slower) and planning your tactics? This becomes all the more tense when you're playing with a full stable of human players in your gang and you've got that one guy who doesn't listen to the plan and just goes in to and starts firing off rounds. The game then becomes a mad dash to restore some sense of control over the situation - and that's where the game both goes right and completely wrong.

Payday is at its best when it's throwing everything it has at you, but in the midst of all of this, it seems to lose its grip on the smaller, technical side of things. The maps aren't really all that big, but I still found it extremely hard to find my way around most of them. Each of your objectives is shown on the screen by a yellow outline, but the game doesn't bother to show you at all if it's behind other walls or on separate floors. The game moves pretty fast, and as a result of all of this, I constantly found myself running around trying to find pathways I had already found to complete my objective. It was really frustrating to have to deal with respawning enemies in the same section that I did before just because I couldn't find my way around.

"...slowdown plagues the game during its more frantic sections."

Presentation wise, Payday is more of a mixed bag, while the detail in the maps is impressive, there are some pretty funky animations and worse yet, slowdown plagues the game during its more frantic sections. It is a bit funny that the game was obviously developed and voiced by a European team, as the characters in the game sound an awful lot like Steve Martin and Dan Akroyd doing their “two wild and crazy guys” stick from Saturday Night Live.

PayDay: The Heist is not a deep game, it's not polished and if it were a $60 retail game it wouldn't be worth it, but as a $20 digital title, it's more than worth it. The game is filled with tense moments that are sure to keep you and your multiplayer buddies on your toes, and perhaps more importantly, it's a title that feels different than most shooters on the market.