Samson: A Diamond in the Rough That’s Still Mostly Coal
I remember when a game shipped complete. Back in my day, you bought a cartridge, you popped it in, and it worked. No day-one patches, no “we’ll fix it later” promises. Samson is a game that desperately wants to be that kind of finished product, but it’s clearly been pushed out the door before the glue dried. And that’s a shame, because underneath the jank and the bugs, there’s something genuinely interesting here.
Let’s start with what works, because there is good stuff. Tyndalston is a fantastic setting. It’s a small, densely packed port town that feels lived-in and filthy in all the right ways. The art team poured their hearts into every alley, every backstreet, every neon-lit puddle reflection. The atmosphere is thick enough to chew — it’s got that grimy late-‘90s/early-2000s crime drama vibe that games like Driver and the early Max Payne titles nailed. Walking around at night, with Jesper Kyd’s moody soundtrack humming through the speakers, I felt genuinely immersed. The UI is also a treat, with a halftone-print, Xerox aesthetic that feels like a love letter to the PS2 era.
The driving? When it works, it’s satisfying. Your muscle car has weight, the PIT maneuvers are legit, and there’s a real thrill to smashing an enemy car into a wall during a chase. The map may be tiny — you can loop it in under six minutes — but it’s packed with shortcuts and details that reward exploration. I appreciate that the game doesn’t try to be GTA. It’s a focused, brutal little chapter in a hard man’s life. That’s a noble ambition.
But then you have to get out of the car and throw punches. And oh, the punches.
The melee combat is the game’s biggest sin. For a title that explicitly removed firearms to focus on hand-to-hand brawling, the system is a mess. Hits don’t always register. Enemies teleport to you. Dodging is unreliable. Parrying is a gamble. The camera refuses to zoom out in group fights, so you’re constantly blindsided by enemies you couldn’t see. I’ve had fights where I’m stuck on a curb, or my character does a full 360 because the game can’t decide which way I’m facing. It’s not just unpolished — it’s broken. And because losing a fight means losing all your cash, this becomes a frustrating loop of “hope I don’t glitch out.” I’ve read better worldbuilding in a second-hand paperback, and I’ve fought better systems in 20-year-old brawlers.
Driving, while better, has its own issues. Cars feel like boats on ice, especially at high speed. The police AI is omniscient — they know exactly where you are at all times, and the only reliable way to escape is to floor it down a bridge for thirty seconds. Sliding at speed is basically a death sentence. And while the core loop of doing jobs to pay off a daily debt is clever, the mission variety is paper thin: beat someone up, follow a car, smash a car, race. That’s it. The game tries to stretch this over a 20-hour grind, and it shows.
Performance, too, is a sore spot. For an Unreal Engine 5 game that’s not exactly pushing huge open-world vistas, Samson runs hot. Stutters, frame drops, and the occasional crash are all too common. I’m running a solid mid-range rig, and I shouldn’t have to rely on DLSS performance mode to keep things smooth. The minimum requirements on the store page are a lie. This game needed more time in the oven — maybe six months, maybe a year.
The story is serviceable B-movie noir: hard-luck guy comes home to save his sister from debtors. The voice acting is decent, but the plot never develops any real weight. The sister feels like a plot device, not a person. The ending is abrupt and low-budget. The debt system, while a good idea on paper, lacks teeth — you can always run from the collectors. There’s no real sense of danger or consequence. And the achievements? There are achievements that demand dozens of hours of mindless repetition. That’s not content, that’s padding.
Now, I’ve read that the developers — Liquid Swords, led by the co-founder of Avalanche — have been releasing updates post-launch. Some players report improvements. That’s encouraging. But a full-price release shouldn’t be an early access title in disguise. I’m tired of “release now, patch later” culture, especially when the game costs a fair $25. That price buys you goodwill, but not forgiveness for a broken core.
Who is this game for? If you’re the kind of gamer who loves the vibe — the grunge, the 90s crime aesthetic, the compact city — and you can stomach jank, there’s fun to be had. I’ve seen players call it a “diamond in the rough,” and I get that. When the combat clicks (and it does, occasionally), when you nail a perfect parry and finish a guy with a brutal environmental takedown, it feels great. The driving has moments of pure adrenaline. The city is a joy to explore. But those moments are too often drowned in frustration.
I can’t recommend Samson in its current state. Not when there are games like Sleeping Dogs, Mafia II, or even the old Driver games that deliver this same experience with a fraction of the bugs. If the developers continue their post-launch efforts and bring the combat up to snuff, fix the performance, and add mission variety, I’ll gladly revisit and change my score. Until then, this is a 5/10 game with a lot of heart but not enough polish. I’ve seen better, and I’ve played better. And I’m too old to waste time on something that runs like a three-legged horse, even if it looks like a stallion.
Verdict: Wait for a deep sale and a bunch of patches. The potential is there, but the execution isn’t. Not yet.