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These days, it takes a special kind of game to pique my interest. Unless it’s a known franchise, I rarely pay attention to games that come out of the woodwork. When I first saw Deliver At All Costs, I was immediately intrigued.
The isometric gameplay, the destructible environments and the Crazy Taxi-like feel to it all drew me in and wouldn’t let up! That’s why I reached out to Konami to see if they could provide me with a code for the game to try out.
Konami awesomely said yes, and here we are!
So was Deliver At All Costs what I expected?
What is Deliver At All Costs?
Deliver At All Costs is an isometric driving action game. It was developed by Studio Far Out Games and published by Konami. It’s available right now on the PC, as well as the PlayStation and Xbox consoles.
As mentioned, our review code was kindly provided by Konami! Thanks so much!
Deliver At All Costs puts you in the worn-out shoes of one Winston Green.
Down on his luck, jobless and broke, Winston answers an ad for a courier driver for a company called We Deliver and that’s where things get carried away. Winston is quickly roped into doing all sorts of outlandish jobs: from delivering a huge fish, to delivering tons of balloons (that lift his car off the ground at the slightest bump), to getting rotten watermelons recolored green so that they can be sold.
It’s all weird, it’s ridiculous, but best of all, it is entertaining. The missions themselves might be a tad frustrating (the physics in-game can be really wonky) but the premise makes for a fun time with a little patience.
You’ll definitely need that patience because the game…well, the game isn’t that good. It’s partly due to the camera. It’s not freely adjustable, offering only two different viewpoints. While both work fine for the most part, controlling your car is problematic sometimes.
The game offers two different control schemes, but neither does the job perfectly.
The advanced one (where you turn by moving the analog stick left or right) is the better of the two (the other one moves your car relative to where you’re moving the analog stick) but it can get confusing when you’re driving backwards or just swapped the camera angle.
Speaking of which, the camera angles aren’t really conducive to the action either.
For one, the isometric perspective makes it really hard to judge depth or distance.
On foot, it’s a major issue because you might have thought you’re perfectly lined up for a jump, only to find that you’re waaaaaaaaaaaay off the mark. It’s also really tricky to gauge whether something is higher or lower than you, because everything looks so flat (in terms of depth).
It also affects your driving at times, because the camera can be obscured by buildings and terrain. Thankfully, the destructible buildings help a lot in rectifying this, because you can just smash through what’s blocking you most times.
Winston really has no qualms about property destruction on a massive scale. The destruction is the best feature of the game. While the physics might be a weird at times, the satisfaction you get from watching buildings get smashed (and then come crashing down) by Winston’s reckless driving is intense!
Winston himself is rather likeable despite that, so you’re actually invested as he gets himself deeper and deeper into messes.
He’s hiding a secret himself too, and that’s actually one of the main reasons I stuck around. I was pretty curious about why Winston was in the mess he was at the beginning of the game.
The wacky humor and premise behind the game are front and center at all times, and its charming take on the 1950s gives it all a unique old timey flair. It has a certain nostalgic feel to it, and actually reminds me of Back to the Future, when Marty time travelled back to 1955.
The music, the UI, the visual design…it’s all reminiscent of that period. I wasn’t born then, but I do love me some oldies music (Earth Angel and The Great Pretender) are some of my favourite songs!
Deliver At All Costs is an open-world game but the city is segmented into parts, which is a bit of a shame. A few parts are dedicated to various city districts, while a couple of others are set in the outskirts, which includes a port, swamp and volcano.
The outskirts are honestly boring. There’s not a lot of destructible stuff in them so the action isn’t as visceral. In fact, it’s downright tame compared to the chaos you can get up to in the city sections. You bust through walls like the damn Juggernaut and buildings can literally come crashing down if you damage them enough.
It’s a damn shame that Deliver At All Costs doesn’t bother to count your damage (à la the Roundabout games) because it’d be great to know how much it’d cost to repair everything that got wrecked every mission.
You can drive around the world causing havoc in between jobs, so you’re not just forced to deliver stuff. There are a couple of side missions as well as collectibles (mainly cash crates) to find out in the world. You’ll also get blueprints from some jobs, which lets you build upgrades for your delivery vehicle provided you have the cash and materials.
It’s a great way to break up the monotony of doing deliveries but it also exposes the world for its emptiness. There’s really not much to do in it apart from what’s been mentioned above. The world doesn’t feel alive. It doesn’t feel like things go on with or without you there to witness them.
There’s no emergent gameplay element to Deliver At All Costs (other than being chased by the cops) so everything feels dependent on your actions. Whether it’s on foot or in the game’s vehicles, it’s always you that kicks things off. Rarely do I see the AI make mistakes and drive through a wall without me being there. Nor do I see the police chase anybody else.
The world feels too static, as if everything revolves around Winston. Like it only comes to life whenever Winston is in the vicinity, and returns to being frozen in time again when he leaves.
On the ROG Ally X, the game performs adequately. On 1080p, with everything turned up, the performance is fine. There are some stutters and slowdown when things get really, really intense but those times are rare…unless you purposely destroy a lot of stuff for no reason.
The game’s more than playable despite that, so you can safely play it outside with no issues.
The Bottom Line.
Deliver At All Costs is at its core a very fun game. It nails the vibe it was aiming for dead on, and the destructible environments are a definite plus. The kooky plot, the ridiculous missions and the characters are just icing on the delicious cake.
That cake, however, isn’t cooked all the way through.
Some parts are underbaked and problematic. The camera angle and controls can hinder at times, the world doesn’t feel alive and dynamic and there’s a lack of things to do in the open world.
It doesn’t mean the game is bad per se, it just means that it takes some patience and perseverance to coax the fun from the game. With enough of that, Deliver At All Costs really does make for a fun game and one unlike most others out there right now.
TLDR:
A lot of fun to be had, but some flaws detract from the overall experience.
The Good:
- The visual design and setting.
- Destructible environments.
- Fun missions.
The Bad:
- Camera angles can be problematic.
- Car control could be better.
- Not a lot to do in the open world.
Salehuddin Husin, EIC
Sal's been in the industry since the early 2000s. He's written for a ton of gaming and tech publications including Playworks, Hardwarezone, HWM and GameAxis. Recently, Sal served as a juror for the Indie Game Awards at Taipei Game Show 2020. A geek and hardcore gamer, Sal will play everything, on any platform.
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