Better left dead on the side of the highway
The video game equivalent to Tommy Wiseau’s The Room (2003)
How? HOW?! That was the question echoing in my brain every five seconds while playing this… ‘game.’ How did this Frankenstein’s monster of half-baked ideas, broken mechanics, and jaw-droppingly awful execution see the light of day? Once in a generation, we get a game so irredeemably awful, so hilariously inept, that it transcends bad and becomes a work of accidental comedy genius. Enter: Ride to Hell: Retribution. Now, let’s be clear — this isn’t just a bad game. This is a game that crash-landed onto shelves in a flaming heap of smoldering wreckage and was immediately immortalized as one of the worst games ever made. A bottom-of-the-barrel action-adventure that tries to tell a gritty tale of biker gangs and the grimy criminal underworld. You know, cashing in on that Sons of Anarchy wave back when every other dude was growing a beard and pretending he knew how to fix a Harley. On paper, it sounds like a slam dunk: Grand Theft Auto on a motorcycle. How do you mess that up? Turns out, quite easily. Ride to Hell doesn’t just fail; it fails so spectacularly that it almost feels intentional. Bugs, glitches, and mechanics that feel like they were coded by someone who learned game design from a three-minute YouTube tutorial. This game is a flaming train wreck of stiff combat, wonky physics, and dialogue so cringeworthy I would consider this attached on your IMDB page along the lines of having sweatshop manager on your resume.
But we’re just getting started.
Ride to Hell tells the story of Jake Conway, a Vietnam vet trying to readjust to civilian life with the help of his family. But when his brother – a guy so forgettable I can’t even be bothered to name him – crosses paths with a dangerous biker gang, he gets whacked, and Jake sets off on a blood-soaked revenge tour filled with blow, bullets, and babes. On paper, it’s a grindhouse flick waiting to happen. In reality, it’s a dumpster fire of missed potential.
The game is a 3rd-person-shooter, and I stress the word “extremely” broken when regarding the shooting… or combat… or bike riding… or ANYTHING. The gunplay is wonky as all hell; every single gun all sounds the same, the aiming is very annoyingly janky, and the cover based aspect of it is more half-assed than a donkey split in two. While shooting is the primary aspect of the game, melee is also utilized, arguably even worse. The combo system is horrendously designed, and trying to actually land a full combo is about as smooth as a jagged rock. One hilarious hack you can perform is an unblockable infinite kick. You can literally just kick them to death. While it takes awhile to actually kill enemies it’s funny as hell to see. The bike riding segments are shameless padding to stretch out the game’s length. You can’t turn around or back up in reverse, so anytime you hit anything you are teleported back up the road. I’ve never seen such poorly designed driving mechanics in any game ever. Completely superfluous to the plot are these sort of side missions – saving women being harassed by men. That doesn’t sound terrible on paper, but the actual implementation is a whole other story. Jake beats up these men who were trying to have their way with these innocent women. Afterwards they award you….by having sex with you. Every single time. The portrayal of women and masculinity in this game are so offensively juvenile they make Jerry Springer look like the work of Ernest Hemingway.
The whole time I kept asking, why? How? How did this happen? The answer? They were trying to salvage the unsalvageable. Ride to Hell: Retribution started life as an open-world sandbox game, co-developed by Deep Silver and Eutechnyx. But when Deep Silver pulled out (shocking), Eutechnyx was left holding the bag – and let’s just say they couldn’t carry it. With the deadline closing in, they threw together whatever they had, scraped it off the floor, dumped it on a plate, and served it up anyway. Can you imagine how much worse it would have been if they stuck with the open-world approach? That said, Eutechnyx, hats off to you. You didn’t just make a bad game. You made a game so astoundingly, offensively bad that it’s almost a work of art that damn near deserves an award for utter incompetence. Take a bow. You’ve earned it.
Stay cool,
Fil
Verdict: 1/10