Grand Theft Auto 3 was a revolutionary game, which has had a major impact to this day. Of course, as technology has advanced, the ability to create large, open, worlds has increased. Still, the format, style, themes and other elements found within that game are borrowed from, revisited and paid homage to even today. Such is the case with Samson: A Tyndalston Story, from developer Liquid Swords, which is now available on consoles.
I was originally interested in this game when it was about to release on PC, but was unable to play it due to not having access to or owning a gaming PC. Now that it’s available on consoles, I’m happy that I was able to experience it. It’s a game with issues, but an ambitious and enjoyable project from a smaller studio.
Samson is the story of a middle-aged man who’s lived a tough, criminal, lifestyle. Having taken the fall for a crime he was part of in St. Louis, he’s in jail and has a hit put on him inside. That’s where the game begins, as the tutorial involves him fighting his way out of being shanked.
Following this in-jail assassination attempt, he’s let out of custody, and says that it’s due to the help of his sister and the people he was involved with. However, it wasn’t made entirely clear how this all worked. Still, it’s the basis for the game’s story, which is centralized around the idea that Samson must earn money and pay those he’s indebted to back. They want $100,000, and are holding his sister Oonagh hostage, although she says she’s being treated well. Still, she’s being forced to cook their books, has eyes on her 24/7, and is having her life threatened until her brother pays his debt. She is able to call him almost every night though.
This is all very important to note, because this campaign is designed with daily cycles, involving an action points system. Every day, Samson has an amount of money that he must earn and pay back. In order to do this, he must complete missions involving being a getaway driver, participating in (occasionally) overly difficult races, beating people up, stealing contraband, and the like. However, he’s only able to do a set amount of missions each day. It’s usually three per day, but it depends on how you do, and how many action points you have left.
Samson wakes up at noon, and can begin doing missions then. Doing one moves the time to evening, then doing another moves it to night. That’s because completing them uses his daily action points up, and the same is often true for retrying a mission if you fail it. That’s not always the case, though. Sometimes it’s possible to retry without spending any action points.
After completing missions, spending his available action points for the day, and making as much money as possible, Samson must retire to his seedy apartment in a graffiti-covered building. There, he can answer phone calls from his sister, call the friend who’s helping him, and sleep. When you lay down on the couch and go to sleep, the debt is automatically repaid — at least to the extent possible, if you haven’t earned enough. If you’ve made more money than required, you can choose to add that to your payment or keep it for the next day. I found the latter to be the best idea, as you never know what is going to happen. However, it is possible to lose money if you die and visit the clinic.
Failure to pay your owed amount back can result in strikes, and three strikes can mean a game over. However, it’s apparently possible to start from the previous day if you do fail in this way. I didn’t, though I was unable to pay the full amount on night five, and later on, when I lost several thousand dollars after forgetting to heal during a fight. Then, after that, I fell into the water and immediately drowned while trying to get into the third getaway car of a fifteen minute long mission I had spend almost ten minutes on, and lost more money. Yet, even then, I didn’t incur a strike. It said I’d made a bad payment, but my strikes remained empty. Maybe that’s because I had overpaid a few times?
There are other ways to get money, and I’m not just talking about picking it up from enemies who’ve dropped it upon being downed. Yes, it is possible to get cash from defeated enemies, but there are also drug shipments to destroy, as well as bags full of money to steal. You’ll have to drive around and keep your eye out for the latter, and find hints for the daily drug locations. Be warned that things are sometimes up high, requiring climbing onto shipping containers and up onto rooftops, using the game’s cumbersome and inconsistent mechanics.
It’s also possible to steal a yellow taxi and drive around earning pocket money by picking up fares and driving them to their destinations. Don’t expect to earn a lot from this though.
Samson is a semi-open world game, which was apparently once intended to be larger. It’s set in a somewhat large borough of a dirty, dated and decaying city, which is dark, dreary, and brown. As such, it includes the freedom of mobility, be it by walking the streets or driving. You’ll mostly want to drive, though, in order to cover distances, and can press the d-pad to summon your car. A number of the missions require you to, as well, and will fail you if you exit the car for too long. The same is true when your car is destroyed, and you’re left without.
Within this game lays a decent vehicular damage system, which can be both helpful and frustrating, such as when your car gets destroyed during a checkpoint race. Some of its objectives require the player to drive around the city and destroy cars belonging to targets, enemies and gang members. This is done by ramming them, or slamming sideways like in a Burnout game. However, the mechanics behind this system are inconsistent and mediocre at best. I didn’t really enjoy the times where I had to chase, or follow, or find cars and destroy them.
In reality, the damage system is too punishing. For a game that wants you to slam into upwards of three other cars, and destroy each one with multiple hits or perfectly timed swipes (which are rare), the player’s car(s) take too much damage. This is especially true when these types of missions are automatically failed when you’re out of a car for too long. It can also be annoying during races, but not as much.
I would usually steal a parked car to use for those types of missions, because I didn’t want to face having to pay over $800 to repair Samson’s own. The times where I didn’t do this generally ended in regret, because that’s a good chunk of money when the whole conceit of the game is paying back a large debt. It seemed like only parked cars could be stolen, but there were plenty of them.
The driving mechanics found within Samson: A Tyndalston Story are middling. The steering is floaty, and it’s not unusual to crash into things. Hell, I once witnessed a cop car I was following drive into two different buildings, and fail to move through an intersection. At other times, cars I was tailing would spend a long while at a stop sign before moving again, making me think that they were never going to do so.
The game seems to want more precision (through some of its races) than its mechanics allow for, which makes things frustrating. It’s not a huge deal during regular driving, but the races can be a pain in the ass. Well, some of them. The first one I tried, early on, was much more difficult than most others.
There are also a number of chases involved herein, including from gangs who are mad at you and, of course, the police. However, it isn’t that difficult to get away from them, especially when you can turn off the engine after driving down an alley. The police aren’t too dangerous or all that competent, even though they can call a helicopter. I ran into a couple of them during normal driving, and nothing even happened.
Another important thing to note is that there aren’t any guns to be found within. There are melee weapons, like tools, bowling pins, frozen fish, bats, whips, sex toys, bottles and the like, which can be used during hand-to-hand combat or thrown. However, the combat is primarily driven by fist-fighting. Enemies flash yellow when they are about to hit you, and then flash red if they’re about to do an attack that cannot be blocked. It’s possible to parry the yellow ones, but the red ones cannot be. They must be dodged.
I found dodging everything to be best, because you can come right back with a hard-hitting kick after doing so. The parrying is inconsistent, and doesn’t always work. It seemed that, if I failed parrying the first hit, it was nigh impossible to parry the second or third.
The combat can be kind of sluggish, and the controls aren’t the best. However, it’s alright, and does the job.
One good thing is that Samson can use painkillers to regain health, and can carry five of them to start. With skill (health, stamina, cunning, strength) upgrades and perks, that can increase, as can his healing. Enemies often drop painkillers, at least on normal or easy, but they can also be purchased from the unofficial medical clinic, which generally isn’t necessary.
Players will also find stamina injections, and those will contribute to a meter that quickly fills (during combat), before providing a short period of heightened damage and fighting abilities. This can be very helpful in fights against numerous enemies, including heavy ones, as well as while driving, but it doesn’t last long while in a car.
This is a buggy experience though, and I’ve noticed some things, including enemies not flashing yellow or red before attacking, and a car that was sunk halfway into the ground. I’ve also experienced numerous moments of slowdown while driving, which has slowed the game down greatly for a few seconds. In addition to this, I somehow ran into an invisible wall while driving over a crosswalk.
During my time with this game, I also encountered important NPCs who were standing awkwardly, such as with one leg raised and stuck into a pool table or column. There were also occasional times where I had to exit to the menu, and reload my last save, because an enemy failed to appear. The most notable occurrence was during one of the missions where you have to fight upwards of 12 enemies, who come after you in a designated area. I think the last enemy got stuck somewhere, and failed to show.
Tyndalston isn’t the most memorable city, location or setting, but it also fits the story and the atmosphere of this campaign. It’s run down, filthy, decaying and dreary, befitting the plot and its criminal undertones. There are different regions, as well as collectibles in the form of magazines and 163 sandwich boards advertising a seemingly disliked mayoral candidate, all of which I destroyed. You gain experience points and new jackets for the main character by running over said boards, and get extra turbo (for certain cars), or cheaper repair prices, for running over other, car-related boards. Perks and upgrades are often earned through progress, and looking for such things, including more damage during adrenaline mode, better healing and the like.
On the presentation front, this is a pretty nice looking and sounding game, although it’s rough around the edges. The voice acting is pretty good, the sound effects are solid and the music can be good, when there is some. Since this game is set in the 90s, you can expect some 80s synth music and instrumental rock, as well as older technology and vehicles. There aren’t any cellphones, there’s no internet, and the phones are rotary (or pay-phones). You’ll also have to open the map to choose where to go, then drop a pin. Afterwards, the path to that location point will appear on the mini-map.
Samson: A Tyndalston Story is rough, buggy and dated, but it’s still a pretty admirable effort from a smaller team. Some elements are frustrating, and the story lacks depth, but I had a pretty good time playing through its campaign. It’s decent overall, but its positives are sometimes hidden underneath and marred by unfortunate bugs and issues. The payback requirements can also be frustrating, especially when dying can cause you to lose several thousand dollars.
This review is based on the XBOX Series X version of the game, which we were provided with.