Samson review: A small, repetitive sandbox

When Samson: A Tyndalson Story was first revealed, you could immediately see that it would not compete with the likes of Grand Theft Autodespite its urban crime background. It was marketed as a more condensed, focused action adventure (one that retailed for just $24.99 at launch), and I was more than ready for it. Like many, I've been burned out on open-world extravaganzas, and a more concise take on the gritty urban crime genre seemed right up my alley.

I want to clarify that my expectations of Samson weren't unreasonable – I went into it expecting a middle of the road indie game, hopefully with a compelling story and some fun mechanics, but nothing too crazy. Unfortunately, now that I've rolled points on the game, I can say that my mediocre expectations were not met in the slightest. About games like Hollow Knight and Clair Obscur are inspiring stories about the potential of the indie scene, then maybe we can imagine Samson as a cautionary tale: a reminder that not all underdogs come out on top, as sad as it may be to admit.

Although not entirely without its benefits, Samson is ultimately a frustrating, hollow and unpleasant experience that I cannot recommend to anyone, regardless of personal taste. Its core game loop wears thin almost immediately; its history, while bare-bones, ranges from yawn-inducing to laughably bad; and its poor technical condition and baffling design choices only serve to exacerbate these fatal flaws.

Samson is a small, repetitive sandbox

Samson opens with a very rudimentary animated prologue explaining how Samson has just broken out of prison, and how his sister Oonagh is being held by a rival gang for a $100,000 ransom. Samson must return home to the streets of Tyndalson, reconnect with his old gang and engage in various criminal undertakings to earn enough money to free his sister. This informs the game loop: the player can choose from a selection of several jobs within the small Tyndalson map, each of which will provide a monetary reward and consume units of time, much like in Persona. You must meet a certain dollar threshold each day, and higher paying missions usually take longer.

Here is where Samson runs into its first problems: individual jobs have no real story or structure, they consist of the same three tasks (racing, picking off other cars, and fistfights), and, worst of all, they repeat. To clarify, this means you'll be replaying multiple missions as part of the main campaign. And no, there are no variations between mission walkthroughs, nor is there any point or reward system to incentivize better performance. It's hard to fully convey how painfully overwhelming and boring this becomes.

It would be a little better if the moment-to-moment gameplay was rock solid, but it just isn't. To the game's credit, the driving mechanics are decent and heavy, and I probably had the most fun tackling the Street Trials jobs, which are basically super-technical time trials. The other car-based missions involve either racing to specific locations on the map or crashing into other vehicles to incapacitate them. While driving feels good, the aforementioned lack of variety means that once you've played one category of driving missions, you've effectively played them all.

Missions that don't revolve around driving revolve around fisticuffs. There are technically different types of “on foot” quests, but the ways in which they change the core of brawler gameplay are so minor they're hardly worth mentioning. For example, the Jack missions are pretty much the same as the fighting-only Beatdown missions, but you have to collect various generic items after or during the fight. The combat mechanics themselves are shallow and awkward, often feeling insensitive, but you get used to them after a few hours. Unfortunately, it doesn't blossom into a satisfying and robust combat sandbox, just a serviceable one.

There's a common saying in the gaming community, often applied to massive AAA open-world games from developers like Bethesda and Ubisoft: “as wide as an ocean, but as deep as a pool.” Samsons map is so small you'll memorize it before too long, but it has no content worth exploring, no secrets, no fun side quests, no gear or collectibles to grind. The world of Samson is both wide and deep like a puddle.

The story doesn't come close to saving Samson

There are basically no cutscenes in it Samson: almost the entire story is conveyed through simple dialogue exchanges either in person or on the phone, without any cinematography, editing or unique animations. If the story actually had any substance this might have been acceptable, but SamsonThe story feels like it was written in a single night. There's no stakes—Samson regularly talks to Oonagh on the phone, and she never seems forced or pressured—and every line of dialogue is so generic that it can sometimes be hard to pay attention.

Samsons marketing suggests that Oonagh's ransom is growing every day of the game, but this is not true. You start with a debt of $100,000 and must make a minimum payment of $3,000 per day, an amount that eventually increases to $3,400, but never higher.

In addition to the aforementioned jobs, Samson also features 14 story missions, although these are essentially unrelated to the Oonagh plot, making the overall story feel even more disjointed. These story missions focus on Samson's “crew”, a loosely defined organized crime group that is as cliche as you can imagine: everyone is rough and no-nonsense, but of course this is the “good” gang, not like the other “bad” gangs that do evil and dishonorable things. It all comes across as a privileged teenager's idea of what organized crime is like — I can't even say it's a bad imitation of the likes of GTA or Sleeping dogsas Samson makes no attempt at playfulness, humor, or character building. In a game this barren on the gameplay front, a good story would have gone a long way, but Samsons writing doesn't even crack the bar for competence.

The world of Samson is both wide and deep like a puddle.

Samson is a glitchy, poorly designed mess

In addition to everything else, Samson has countless different issues on the optimization and design fronts, further detracting from any strengths the game might otherwise have had. I ran into too many bugs to count, ranging from minor or amusing graphical quirks to crashes and mission-breaking bugs. For example, I still haven't been able to complete the 13th chapter of Samson due to a bug that prevented me from completing Chapter 12. Thankfully, a completely unrelated glitch made Chapter 14 available from the start of the game, so I was still able to witness Samsons nonsensical and anticlimactic finale.

There are a number of poor design choices in the Samson also, like how if you fail a mission, you lose all the money you've earned up to that point in the game day, and you have to start all over to restart the mission. Alternatively, you can spend an extra time unit to restart the mission without losing money, but both of these outcomes are simply too punishing, especially when mission failures can be triggered by errors or other trivial factors, such as accidentally stepping outside a battle arena. There are several other quirks, like not being able to heal and hold a weapon at the same time, but I digress.

I take no pleasure in lambasting a studio's debut, without downplaying it Samsons fundamental flaws would be to distort it. I could say that maybe you'll enjoy the game if you temper your expectations, or that it will improve once Liquid Swords fixes its crippling bugs, or even that behind its repetitive gameplay and bland story is the beating heart of passion, but the reality is that Samson is more than just a decent but flawed game. It's a passionless, joyless, derivative chore, and I wouldn't suggest playing it unless you're getting paid to do so.