Name: Samson: A Tyndalston Story Plays Like a Brawler Set in Max Payne’s New York
Uploaded: 2026-02-27T21:31:52.000Z
Duration: 10 min 28 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Reflexive pronouns

I first took notice of a Tindleston story when its team of former Just Cause and Mad Max developers posted a blink and you'll miss it teaser of Tindleston itself.

The city reminded me of GTA 3's Liberty City or Max Payne's New York.

Adverbs of manner

My first look at proper gameplay in a demo with the creative director only upped my interest, and

now that I've had the chance to actually play Samson, albeit only for an all too brief hour, I'm officially amped for this gritty, grimy rundown brawler with pseudo open world freedom where your heavy punch can drop bad guys in one bloody shot and you pop painkillers to stay in the fight.

The Setup for this 1990s set crime story sees you as Samson McCrae fresh out of prison after eating a charge as a result of a robbery in St.

Your sister Oona pulled some strings to help keep you safe while you were inside and she cut a deal upon your release.

You've got to repay the money lost from the failed heist and to people that will absolutely kill you both if you come even $0.01 short.

I'll feed you the jobs I find, make sure you can chip away at that debt.

What's important to make clear up front is that Samson is not a triple A game.

You'd be forgiven for thinking it was at first glance because Its Unreal Engine 5 powered visuals are quite impressive both in terms of Samson's character model and the city of Tindleston Lighting has a very fluorescent tinged yellow tint to it that you really had to live through the 90s to understand.

Vehicles look great and the city itself looks very very lived in.

But Samson doesn't have the scope of a AAA game.

And that's not a complaint, it's just important to properly calibrate your expectations.

The opening cutscene is not a full blown cinematic, but a voiced over motion comic.

Plus voice acting is so so at best when you ring his neck tell him Floyd Quintero says hello.

And this isn't a 40 hour open world sandbox.

Oh, you do plenty of driving around a neighborhood and perhaps more of Tindleston unlocks the further into the story you progress.

But this is not a massive playground full of chatty NPCs and side activity.

Again, this isn't a complaint, but it's important to emphasize because when you first, fire up Samson.

It seems like it's following a very GTA esque playbook, but

I really like the choices that Samson makes within its more limited scope.

For instance, there are numerous little things around the world to take note of and interact with from notes and photos in your apartment.

To save sandwich Ford signs you can knock over with your car in order to gain small bursts of nitro Boost.

The more bad guys you beat up and the more missions you complete, the more XP you earn.

That gets redeemed for a point in one of four Instinct, which boosts your adrenaline tactics, ups your health, aggression, increases your power and cunning, which ups your finesse.

This allows you to tailor your Samson to your preferred playstyle, whether you'd rather absorb and dish out maximum punishment in each fight or strike quickly and frequently in order to speed up the maxing out of your adrenaline meter, at which point you can click in both thumbsticks and enjoy a brief period of dealing extra damage.

Gameplay segments are split into days, and within each day are afternoon, evening and night.

Every time the sun rises, you'll have to pay back a certain amount of your debt.

In order to do that, you'll need to take various small jobs around Tindleston.

Fortunately, you've got choices each day.

My first job involved finding the manager of a club called Chubbs and, well, beating the crap out of it.

I had to worm my way through the bowels of the club first, fighting my way through his goons in the process.

This mission functioned as a bit of a tutorial, allowing me to practice parries, dodges, light punches, heavy punches, and

After I'd built up enough adrenaline during the fights.

It didn't hurt Samson's chances of me loving this game when the very first dude I threw a heavy punch at dropped immediately, his face covered in his own blood.

Most of the time in a game like this, guys can take an unrealistic number of hits, but

Not everyone will hit the floor after a single punch, but

the fact that it can happen not only made me feel like a badass, but

but it added to the underworld grittiness that is clearly oozing out of every square inch of Tindleston.

As I was saying, you've got choices at each segment of the day, but

each choice takes a certain amount of time.

Meaning you can't just do a dozen jobs in a single day in order to quickly pay down your debt and break the game.

So when I was for example, shadowing Dave the bookie, that took all afternoon of in game time.

First I had to drive to where Dave had last been seen.

Then once I'd clocked him, I had to follow him from a safe distance lest he recognize the tail and get spooked, triggering a mission failure so that he'd lead me to evidence of what he was suspected of by the people I took the job from.

And then I had to square up against Dave and his associates.

By the time it was done and I got paid, the day moved to evening.

Some jobs can only be taken at certain times of day.

Like when I had to take out the cars of two guys who were avoiding my temporary employer.

First I drove to where they'd last been seen and.

And then both cars came flying around the corner in front of me and the chase was on.

The problem was my car was already pretty beat up from the erratic driving I'd been doing in previous jobs.

So the first time I tried the mission, my pursuit led us to a freeway on ramp where I was able to get behind the closest of the two target cars.

And then I nitro boosted directly into his rear bumper, slamming his car into the curving wall of the on ramp and taking it out.

Problem was, the bumper boost also took my pre battered car out as well.

And by the time I grabbed another car, the second of the two cars I was pursuing who was already in front of me, had gotten away on the retry.

I stopped at a gas station repair shop first, spent some of my hard earned cash, which I remind you I needed every cent of to try and make my daily debt payment.

And was then able to keep my car intact while taking out both of my four wheeled targets.

I got paid and I headed home for the evening.

And so before I could crash on my own couch for the night, I had to bloody my knuckles one more time.

Both combat and driving were a lot of fun in my one hour hands on.

I have no idea if Samson will ever introduce guns into the mix, but

The melee combat system feels heavy in a really good way.

Meaning that Samson takes shots just as hard as he dishes them out.

I like the mix of punches, parries and dodging.

Sure, the Arkham combat arguably remains the brawler standard, but

but Samson's fisticuffs are slower and more deliberate in a way that I quite enjoy.

Driving, meanwhile, also has a welcome weight to it.

All of the fictional cars in Samson are 90s era at the newest.

Given the 90s setting, Samson's own car is a 70s Chevelle like two door muscle car and as such it's no light Lotus.

Are these simulation style driving physics?