In some ways, Samson reminds me a little of 2025’s MindsEye. Like that title, it is regularly gorgeous, features neat vehicles, and is intentionally narrower and far less GTA-adjacent in scope than it might appear at first blush. However, much like MindsEye, this experience is often frustratingly bad.
With extremely janky combat, predictable car chases, and a small pool of constantly repeating missions, this open-world driving-brawler hybrid becomes a dull and annoying slog long before you reach the end of your 12-hour stint. Worse still, even after clearing the mammoth $100,000 debt that drives the core gameplay loop, a game-breaking bug left me soft-locked out of finishing the main missions and rolling credits.
A Gritty but Broken World
The setup for this Samson review is simple: you play as ex-con Samson McCray, who has recently returned to his neighborhood of Tyndalston. The game is set in the 1990s, though disappointingly, the choice of era has virtually no impact on gameplay beyond forcing McCray to use payphones. There is no '90s music on the car radios—in fact, there are no car radios at all.
McCray is under immense pressure, facing a $100,000 debt held over his head by an out-of-town crew using his sister as leverage. To keep them both alive, you must make daily payments through various criminal activities. The game structure includes:
- Three daily sections: Afternoon, evening, and night.
- Action points: You start with six points to spend on missions costing two or three points each.
- Debt collection: If you fail to scrape together enough cash, hired goons will arrive the next morning to pound it out of you.
While the sense of urgency is compelling for a brief time, the loop eventually breaks under the weight of sloppiness and repetition. Out of 14 intended story missions, I was only able to experience seven before bugs prevented further progress.
Stunning Visuals vs. Clunky Combat
It is important to note that Samson is not a massive-budget title. At its core, it is a straightforward open-world brawler with a basic driving component. While its narrow scope isn't the issue, the lack of refinement certainly is.
Visually, the game is impressive. From the way the midday sun pierces McCray’s crumbling apartment to the steam emanating from manholes on rain-slick streets, the aesthetics are wonderfully realized. Tyndalston feels lived-in and authentic thanks to layers of urban grime:
- Piles of garbage and stripped-down cars.
- Unique graffiti and hastily scrawled slogans.
- A detailed, compact neighborhood layout.
Unfortunately, these admirable visuals cannot counteract the shonky combat or dull driving. The strictly hand-to-hand brawling is clunky and graceless. Without firearm combat, many encounters feel hollow; even when police are present, they often seem to forget they are armed.
The lack of a lock-on mechanic means fights frequently devolve into spamming the light attack button while swinging the camera wildly. While the heavy attack lands with a meaty crunch, it is too slow to use effectively when surrounded. Even the finishing moves feel inconsistent, often failing to trigger despite appearing on screen. Ultimately, between the repetitive missions and the unrefined mechanics, this Samson review finds a game that looks like a masterpiece but plays like an unfinished prototype.
