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Hands-on With PAYDAY: The Heist’s Wolf Pack DLC | PSNStores

Hands-on With PAYDAY: The Heist’s Wolf Pack DLC

Posted by on August 27th, 2012 | 0 Comments | Tags: ,

As most of you know, I am a huge fan of PAYDAY: The Heist. And being the huge fan that I am I did pretty much everything the game had to offer. Platinum Trophy, check. Reach level 145, check. The only thing holding me back from getting my gold masks was a hard drive failure. So I was super pleased when Overkill announced the Wolf Pack DLC. Not only was it bringing some new heists, but there was more stuff to unlock and higher levels to attain.

The Heists

While everyone who has PAYDAY can play these new heists, only those with the Wolf Pack DLC can host the games. Both Counterfeit and Undercover are great additions to the game, each offering up something unique.

Counterfeit

This is my favorite of the new heists. In Counterfeit you are a “pool repair” crew who have caught wind of a counterfeiting operation going down in a swanky Miami beach community. This mission has two options available for you. You can take a stealth approach or go in all guns blazing. The stealth approach, while harder, makes the mission run more smoothly with less time used in gunning down cops and more time spent cracking the safe. To make sure you do this correctly it is a must to coordinate the hostage taking so that no one gets away. If one person makes it out, you will have the police raining down on you in no time at all.

Another key addition to this heist is the use of crowbars, circuit breakers, and water valves. Crowbars made their first appearance in the Panic Room heist, but now they are mission critical. You will have to use them to make an escape and also gain access to the counterfeit plate holding safe. Here is a tip: it is best to scout the locations of the two crowbars before you start the heist.

New to the DLC maps are the idea of the cops shutting off the power. In Counterfeit the police will constantly be trying to do this while you are drilling a hole in the safe. In lower difficulties they simply just flip the circuit breakers in one of the two houses, but when playing on Overkill a Bulldozer will cut the block’s power. This is more time consuming as you have to run out in the line of fire and reset the power from the generators. A Bulldozer or other special units will certainly be waiting for you.

Similarly after you have the hose hooked up to the safe, special units will cut the water off. In the same fashion as returning the power to the block, you will have to battle outside and restore the water to the houses. Both the water and power restoration aspects of the heist are a breath of fresh air. It is always fun to do something new and you will quickly find the best way to handle both of these situations.

After doing all this you must make your escape through the sewers. The crowbar will find heavy use here as you will have to force open some gates. You have limited time to do so and it is a rush to make it out just in the nick of time. There have been two occasion where my team made it with just 1 second remaining on the clock.

There is also a variant to this heist where the owner plants C4 in the safe room. You must quickly defuse all 7 charges or you will be blown to shreds. This caught me by surprise my first time and when we all died I think I was laughing for a good 5 minutes. Also for the fans, check the newspaper on the kitchen table you might get a kick out of the headline.

Undercover

The final heist added via Wolf Pack is Undercover. This has your crew battling police forces while trying to rob the IRS of tens of millions of dollars. It begins in a run-down building in a nondescript city. The first task you have is to board up any windows and vents, so that you will be safe from both sniper fire and police units. Hidden throughout the level are wooden planks that you will have to place on these windows. It is very helpful to do this in areas where you are going to be at constantly. I usually try to board up all the windows by the computer and on the floor where the limo might land.

How would a limo land in this building? Well our good friend Alex, yes the guy who flies the helicopter in Panic Room, is back and this time he has a crane. After the cops bust the rogue IRS agent trying to make a shady deal, Alex grabs his getaway limo with a magnet. From here a few different things can happen. He can drop the limo and have it stay on the roof, the limo can bust through the roof and land on the stairs, it can land on the stairs and catch on fire, or it can land on an exposed balcony of the building. Of these choices the variants where it stays inside are the easiest. That is because you won’t have to worry about sniper fire, and trust me this is a good thing. If you thought Panic Room had a lot of snipers, prepare to be shocked.

After you find the limo it is time to use the saw which you know and love from Panic Room and Green Bridge. Sadly it seems the crew still is using the same brand as before and that means you will constantly be having to restart it. But by now you should know the drill. After sawing your way through it is time to get your money, but first you will need the access codes. This is where you get to act tough or beat them out of the IRS agent, the choice is really yours. You have to be careful though, if you are too rough with him he will pass out and cost you precious time.

There are three different codes you will need to get and you will be fending off cops the whole time while doing this. They also have learned about how electricity works, so you will be turning the power back on throughout this mission. This again is handled though circuit breakers and generators. The power generators on the roof are a real pain. It is a good plan to work in teams because going on the roof is pretty much a suicide mission due to sniper fire.

After transferring the $25million to your personal account you have to make an escape via the roof tops. You could watch the video above to see this, but we failed :(.

The Gear

Along with the ability to host the new heists, Wolf Pack also comes with some new gear to use and level up. This is through the new Technician skill tree. 48 new levels have been added to the game to unlock and this is probably what makes it worth the $9.99 price tag.

Stryk Pistol

This automatic pistol spits out rounds real fast. It also seems to pack a bunch and has a relative low recoil. It is a great pistol to bring on any mission that doesn’t require you to be stealthy. The only real down side to the gun is that it burn through ammo almost a little too fast. You need to be very aware of your ammo situation or else you will be hitting the ammo bags hard. It is also pretty useless when bleeding out due to that fact.

AK Rifle

The new primary weapon added is an AK Rifle. It has a manageable recoil and decent accuracy. I did have some trouble hitting snipers in the bank with just the iron sights though, so you may want to wait until a scope is added at later levels. The main drawback with this gun is the reloading time however. If you reload with a few rounds left in the clip you are fine. HOWEVER if your clip is empty you have to go through what seems like an eternity to reload the gun. Sure the animation looks cool, but I think it is just as long as the Brenner machine gun. There are also no reload upgrades available for it, so someone will need to bring the speed reloaders perk.

GL40 Grenade Launcher

I didn’t really know what to think when I saw they were adding a grenade launcher to the game. This was due to the fact that there are no grenades in the vanilla version at all. Only the police have the ability to use smoke grenades, so adding a frag grenade to the mix seemed like it might break the game. This is not the case thankfully. The GL40 is a great weapon that is very helpful against heavy armored police units like Shields and Bulldozers. It also seems to explode all the breakable things around it, so have fun blasting through some levels like First World Bank. There is a relatively small magazine compared to other weapons so use this only in a rough situation.

Tool Kit

The Tool Kit might seem like the one item you might pass over, but trust me it is one of the most important things added via Wolf Pack. While it doesn’t give you any tools to use in level it does make the tools to find work better. You can quickly repair broken saws, place items faster, etc. It is a really handy item to bring along. It is in the equipment slot so if you are used to going into heist with extra ammo or more body armor you might need to adjust how you play.

Sentry Gun

The last item is a Sentry Gun. This is great to use in levels like First World Bank where there are many narrow hallways. A laser beam is used to detect enemy movement so the gun knows where to shoot. The only real downside to the Sentry Gun is that is will chew through its ammo rather fast. But at later levels when it is fully maxed out this is less of a problem. The Sentry gun is also really handy when you need to watch your back. You can rest a little easier knowing a Cloaker can’t blindside you with a stun-baton.

The Extras

The Wolf Pack DLC also adds a few other things too. As mentioned before the level cap has been raised to 193. As someone who was getting a little bored at 145, it is really great to be able to gain levels again. There is also one new perk added to the game, Big Game Hunters. With BGH everyone can carry a little more ammo in their guns. This might not seem like a big deal, but when you have an extra ammo also equipped guns like the Brenner can have upwards of 400 rounds total. This means less trips to the ammo bag and more time helping your team out.

As someone who is such a big fan of PAYDAY, I am really happy with what Wolf Pack brings to the table. Now excuse me as I try to get my S-rank back.