Ever since I watched it on opening night back in 2011, I’ve always wanted to play a video game that captured the essence of Nicolas Winding Refn’s masterpiece, Drive. The absolute effortless cool of Ryan Gosling’s unnamed getaway driver has yet to be replicated in any game I’ve played. Well, until now, that is, thanks to a… hoodie-wearing, down-on-his-luck, dad-looking dude in his mid-40s named “Samson McCray”.
Yeah, this is going to take some explaining.
Drive’s prologue is not a classic high-intensity getaway sequence. Instead, Gosling’s calm demeanour sees him drive two masked criminals through the streets of LA in such a casual manner that it pretty much distresses his on-edge passengers. Where most Hollywood drivers would be pedal-to-the-metal in an attempt to flee the scene, Gosling goes smooth to blend in with the traffic. By far his coolest move is to park up, cut the lights, and let the searching LAPD mistake his Chevrolet Impala for average Joe’s sedan. In this high-stakes escape situation, the most thrilling moment is when it comes to a complete standstill. And that’s exactly how I evaded the law during my first major escape in Samson, the GTA-ish debut from new developer Liquid Swords.
With a tap of the right bumper button you can cut your engine, hushing its cylinders and extinguishing the lights. When I first noticed this unusual addition to Samson’s otherwise traditional driving control scheme, my mind immediately replayed that moment from Drive. And so, when the blue and red lights lit up the streets of Tyndalston, a fictional New York analogue trapped in the grimy 1990s, I tried to escape Gosling-style. And it worked. I pulled into a side street, applied the brakes, cut the engine, and watched as the cops drove on by, ignoring my parked car in their search for something with squealing tyres. It was absolute magic. And I’ve never been able to properly replicate it since.
