Sometimes potential can be seen miles away from the final destination. I see potential with Samson, but it has not quite completed its journey yet.
The story of Samson has the titular character back in the town of Tyndalston from a prison stint and owing some very bad people a lot of money. His poor sister’s safety is at stake with the bad men, but Samson is hellbent on doing everything in his power to get his debt paid and keep his family and his life safe and sound. Not a bad bit of motivation to get a player into the game.
Samson has the spirit of a Grand Theft Auto but the heart of a late-stage Max Payne. The gameplay is completely driven by the narrative, but offers moments of exploration and freedom, should the player want to drift out and around town. Players will see that the moment they get the first phone call offering Samson a job to earn some cash, and then feel that Max Payne-type of gameplay, with violent fist-a-cuff decisions they will have to make. For any GTA fan, or Rockstar Games fan in general, this is going to be a little slice of heaven.
Now, before everyone gets all excited about this pre-GTA 6 experience, let’s talk about how the gameplay works. The structure of the entire experience is dependent on Samson paying back his debt to bad people through completing shady jobs and missions. Samson will get a phone call, a mission will be offered, and if he takes it, then he has to follow the exact instructions to get things done to make dough. For example, the first job offered in the game, just to get players’ feet wet, is Samson having to take down some folks behind a drug store. If the player doesn’t get Samson there on time, or if they aren’t in the exact place, the mission will automatically fail and have to be replayed (or abandoned). Having to follow exact instructions is maddening, since there isn’t much flexibility in this game. I died so many times on that single mission and almost gave up on the entire experience. It was difficult, but, in a sick sense, cool that it was that rigid with its demands. It certainly made the game challenging.
Anyway, the more that Samson does these types of missions and meets the criteria given to him, the more money he makes, and the closer he gets to getting out of debt. Now, the other catch to this game is that Samson is more of a fist kind of hitman. He punches, blocks, and whacks people to get jobs done. This is more of a melee game, which makes it unique, especially considering the GTA-like world that was wrapped around it. Having this type of fighting system creates scenarios where the player has to strategically think about how they are going to approach a potentially violent situation. If a player goes into a fighting scenario without a plan, then it’s simply not going to end up well for them. The game is very challenging in this way, but also deeper because it’s more than just button-mashing. Planning a way out, knowing how and who you should be taking down first, helps to manage melee scenarios easily. I am not sure I want my fighting games to have strategy involved with them, if they’re not of the Street Fighter variety, but it’s a unique avenue that makes your brain think just a bit more than expected.
Now, while going around and completing missions would be fine and dandy, the devs at Liquid Swords felt that there also needed to be a human and health component in this process. As the day turns to night in Samson’s world, he becomes fatigued, which affects his ability to fight. He has adrenaline shots to keep him going temporarily, but eventually, he has to go back to his apartment and rest so that he may fight another day. This element of gameplay ties into what missions Samson should take on, and when he should accept them. For example, during my gaming session, my guy took on a delivery mission that had him hop in his car and deliver two items in a finite amount of time. He was already tired, as it was getting late into the evening hours, so doing this kept his time short before he had to retreat home. Other missions will take longer, which means Samson is more vulnerable and can easily be taken down if things go wrong, and if he is experiencing fatigue from the lack of sleep. Ultimately, adding this ‘need to rest’ component into the gameplay mix makes the experience a bit more cognitive than it already is, which, again, makes the player think a bit more about the missions they take on and the strategic approach they take when selecting missions.
Speaking of missions, the controls used during melee scenarios aren’t the best in the world. The fighting system is basically Samson lightly and heavily attacking his foe. The button push to execution is a bit sluggish, as is the action of landing a punch. It’s not as easy as Batman Arkham Knight’s mechanics, but it’s far more accurate than any GTA game. Players will win more than they will lose, but hitting bad guys can be an inaccurate and slow process, if not outright irritating at times. The controls and fighting never felt fully comfortable during my time with the game, and made me want to jump in Samson’s car and take people out that way (and you can do this). Driving around and causing chaos, including taking cars that aren’t Samson’s, is a hoot. Fighting is not a hoot, but it is manageable.
Staying with the topic of cars and travel, the city of Tyndalston is huge and detailed. Driving around the city, which looks like a rundown Pittsburgh with its spiraling interstate and roads that are surrounded by what appear to be mountains, shows off how much time and love were spent in creating the environment. Samson contains a huge and active world where the player can bump into missions and personalities left and right. The devs were shooting for the stars with how big the city was in this game, and I think they made it to those stars. The city is so big, multi-tiered, and interesting in its design, culture, and variety of stopping spots. It’s so big that I would have preferred just to drive around most of the time during my review period. It’s impressive how much detail and depth were put into this portion of the game.
On the topic of detail and depth, the presentation value of this game is out of this world gorgeous. While updates are still rolling out on it, the game offers some detailed textures, fantastic ray tracing, and just small bits and pieces that make the grungy city that Samson lives in come to life. Graphically, this game is phenomenal, as this portion of the overall design was given a lot of love and care. It’s one of the prettier games I have seen on PC in a while.
So, having said that, the game does have some glitches to it that are slowly being patched. While I only got booted from the game once since launch, turning the graphics up on a 50xx series card-led computer and seeing how much it can’t push the graphics on ultra or even quality settings is a bit sad. The game doesn’t feel optimized yet, and, while the devs are still working on it, it’s an ongoing process of fixes. While it isn’t as broken as Batman Arkham Knight right out of the gate, it still has some issues that cause the frames to stutter, textures to pop in here and there, and GPUs to scream. It’s a work in progress, but it is improving. Probably not fast enough for PC elitists out there (kidding).
Overall, this game has a good bone structure to it, fantastic intentions on how gameplay should work, and some growing pains that must be worked out to live up to its potential. And believe me, gamers, there is a lot of potential to be had with Samson. If the developers can right the ship, this game could be something special. As it stands, it’s a work in progress, but one that gamers should really think about taking a hard look at.
On that sweet note, let’s wrap up this review.
Conclusion
Samson from developer and publisher Liquid Swords brings some GTA-like ideas to the table with a hard-nosed, mission-based fighting game that only the likes of Rockstar could be proud of. The effort to bring a variety of missions, challenges, and exploration to players is evident the moment the game loads into a very large and detailed city. While not perfect in its execution and still being updated, the game does enough to warrant a hard look for those searching for something to tide them over before GTA 6 gets here.
