When I went to London a few weeks ago to play a triple-header of Konami projects including Silent Hill 2 Remake and Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater, I truly didn't expect the new IP to be the one that blew me away the most.
The folk over at Far Out Games has come up with the ingenious concept of making a Crazy Taxi-like experience where instead of ferrying people around a modern city you are a delivery driver living in a fictional 1950s American town. This game is known as Deliver at All Costs, and as the name implies, the aim is to complete your delivery objective whatever the situation, and believe me there will be times where you simply lose words for what is happening.
Deliver at All Costs plays from an isometric perspective, a bit like Diablo for example, and the idea is that you get behind the wheel of a car and tear up the world to get the job done without any regard for environmental impact. Oh, and there will be an environmental impact, as the game world is completely destructible, meaning you can plough through any building, smash any car, destroy any pipeline, or run down any pedestrian. It's a bit like Grand Theft Auto meets Destroy All Humans! in this manner, but the main difference is that in Deliver at All Costs there's not really any consequence for your actions. If you cause enough havoc, you may draw the attention of local police, but they are no match for your driving talents and after breaking line of sight, you can hop out of your car, leap into a dumpster and wait until the heat dies down.
You probably saw the mention of being able to exit your car and found it a little bit surprising and it kind of is. But the reason behind this is because the world is littered with nooks and crannies with hidden secrets and side quest providers, most of which are as bizarre and strange as the main delivery objectives. Why would you bother doing these beyond simply hunting for the elusive 100%? Because these often reward crafting parts or blueprints that you can use to enhance and change your car by adding a crane to aid in delivery tasks or by adding suspension doors that can be manually popped open when zooming around the world to take out and launch an unsuspecting civilian into the stratosphere.
Anyway, what about some of those wild delivery tasks I keep mentioning. What began as a simple crate of highly volatile fireworks exploding as I was transporting it between a couple of the different regions of the world map soon spiralled into delivering a live marlin bigger than my car, 80 rotting watermelons that each obeyed physics separately, and a balloon-making machine that would cause my car to occasionally lift off the ground for a few seconds. Each delivery task was massively different from the former, and you really, truly are never prepared for what Deliver at All Costs will throw at you next.
I will say that the world seemed a bit basic. While there are several unique areas each with their own biomes and styles to visit, when you're exploring the most you will be expected to do is simply smash crates marked with yellow crosses to loot the cash found within or discover and open chests to find additional crafting gear and blueprints. Once again, it's a bit Destroy All Humans! in this regard too, and less Maneater, where Tripwire managed to keep their weird world interesting with additional tasks and challenges.
Speaking about DAH and Maneater, Deliver at All Costs does have a similar sense of humour, with a very satirical comedic tone that fits the theme of the gameplay too. It makes you more inclined to learn more about the various characters and their motivations, even if the story seems to mostly revolve around the character of Winston Green simply attempting to survive after being laid off from his beloved and more impressive job as a rocket engineer.
But the thing is that there's an undeniably fun aura and aesthetic with Deliver at All Costs. This game is frankly effortlessly fun to pick up and play, and with a main story around 11 hours long - with completionists adding a further five hours or so to that - a purely single player design, and a set of gameplay mechanics and destruction engine that makes the semi-open world an actual playground, there is a lot of reasons to be excited about this game. I truly believe that the wacky nature will continue to make this game feel fresh as the hours roll on, and for that matter I'll definitely be returning to St. Monique for more Deliver at All Costs when it eventually debuts on PC and consoles.
