Payday 2: Crimewave Edition

MOST of us remember playing cops and robbers as kids.

Well Payday 2 allows you recapture the imagination of your youth and relive your favourite scenes from heist films without the inconvenience of a prison sentence.

The morally dubious but undoubtedly fun multiplayer shooter sees you team up with three other players online to rob banks, jewellery stores or even snatch drugs from a Russian mob owned nightclub.

Overkill Software and Starbreeze Studios' game works best when you have a good team.

So one of you might be cracking the safe while another is keeping an eye on hostages or keeping the police busy.

On the downside, online matchmaking is still being refined on Xbox One.

This means finding people to play with is currently a very frustrating process while playing offline is not recommended because your glitchy computer-controlled partners are more or less useless.

The gameplay is also not as sharp or responsive as the likes of Call of Duty or Halo.

But Payday makes up for that in intensity with security guards, police officers and SWAT teams making you really earn your ill-gotten gains before your getaway driver arrives to a pounding soundtrack.

With more guns, more missions and all the download content, if the online issues can be resolved this 'Crimewave' edition of Payday 2 has the potential to be the best of the bunch.

DAVID MORGAN