The Worst Game of 2013: Ride to Hell Retribution

#1: Ride to Hell: Retribution

I’m sure this game being awarded worst of 2013 is no shocker to any gamer, but it doesn’t make it any less terrible.  Ride to Hell is the type of bad that nobody can rightfully imagine, the type of bad not seen for years, and the type of bad that should be experienced by everybody.  The game may be completely broken, but it is so endearingly hilarious, that it is worth playing at least once.

The Video Game Equivalent to Troll 2

For anybody who has seen the documentary Best Worst Movie, or its subjected film, knows that a movie with a terrible story, acting, and events can get a following because it is so hilariously bad that it’s entertaining; maybe the same for games.  Ride to Hell takes itself seriously despite being one of the worst games ever to befall a gaming platform.

Set in the late 60s, Jake Conway, a Vietnam veteran, returns home to find his home under siege by an army of evil bikers who are out to kill Jake and his family.  After Jake’s brother is killed by the gang, he swears to get his revenge by killing the gang’s leaders and anybody in the way.

So what is the revelation on why his family is targeted by an evil gang of bikers, because his father bet his mother in a motorcycle race against the game’s antagonist and fled with her after losing.  In short, the plot is because he just doesn’t like them and also shows how women are portrayed in the game.

Ride to Hell disgustingly portrays women as virtual chunks of meat as every female character in the game uses the same character model: thin, wearing a small jean jacket, an even smaller shirt, and just as small shorts.  Their only role in the story is to  let Jake get his groove on in the [finger quotes] “sex scenes,” where him and his skanky friend, or friends, awkwardly rub on each other fully clothed.

I take two things from this: the developers have never met a female in their entire life and they were desperately trying to make the game gritty and scandalous.  I know you guys were going for shock value, but you got to be kidding me, I’ve seen racier content of C-SPAN.

To add the rotten cherry to this large pile of excrement, the acting is so bad, that it makes the annual kindergarten Christmas play look like Broadway.  Couple this with poor animation in which Jake’s happy, sad, angry, surprised, constipated, and getting jiggy wit it face all look the same to create the year’s worst story and presentation hands down.

It Only Gets Worse From Here

Gameplay is divided between three styles: driving, fighting, and shooting.  This is a jack of all trades, good at none type of game where everything is done so poorly, that it will be unplayable for many.  First, is the fighting gameplay.

The developers’ goal for Ride to Hell was to create a fighting style similar to the one find in Batman: Arkham City.  I believe they succeeded, if Batman drank a bottle of Nyquil, a Jager bomb, and three shots of Tequila before going out to fight crime.  One button is used to attack, one to break defense, and the other to either block or counter if the game is feeling charitable.

Gunplay doesn’t fair much better even if it tries to be traditional with cover-based shooting.  In fact, taking cover makes enemies more accurate, but Jake will not get a scratch if he is standing out in the open.  Couple this with enemies that line up and forget that they are supposed to be behind cover instead of on top of it, and you got yourself a shooting gallery.

As it has been established, the A.I. is terrible and will sometimes not do anything at all.  In one level, one of the big brute enemies looked at the protagonist for a few seconds and then disinterestedly walked away without attacking once.  In fact, many of the enemies will not shoot or attack, but will instead run up to Jake and will practically place the barrel of the gun to their heads.  I’m guessing they want out of this too.

The last is the driving segments, and I use the word driving looser than the game’s slutty female characters.  While the tracks tend to be straight roads with few to no turns, driving is still difficult because the vehicles handle like the road is frozen, drenched in oil, laced with Teflon, and covered with invisible banana peels.  This means Jake can lose control without warning if the player so much as turns wrong, hits a small bump, or even breathes too hard next to the gaming platform.

With the tracks being so narrow and the controls being so terrible, Ride to Hell less resembles a driving simulator and more of a game of pinball.  There is also combat while driving which is done through either quick-time events, shooting, or by letting the computer drive into a wall which is the most common.

It is difficult to tell if your gunshots are landing while driving because of the slow motion and poor graphics, but you’ll always know when they are dead because their bike rockets forward, called a whiskey throttle by the way, and right into a wall.  Considering how enemies will crash into a wall that is parallel to them, I believe the developers got all of their driving data by observing the go-kart track at a local Putt-Putt.

These generally take up the brunt of the game, but when Jake isn’t on a mission, he is exploring his headquarters.  Here, Jake can customize his bike’s aesthetic, buy weapons, and sell drugs to a meth addict which is just as classy as it sounds.  The game looks like it’s trying to be a sandbox, but go too far and Jake is magically transported to the town’s entrance; it’s like that awesome dream where you run through your front door and come in through the back.

They also try to add setpieces, which are generally Jake running from some hazards like a fire from a gas tank he shot for no reason, a combine tractor, or my favorite: an exploding double wide in a trailer park.  I love that part of the game because it is extremely symbolic of the entire project.  If anything, the game should have been named The White Trash Variety Hour.

Worst Game Ever?

So it is quite obvious that Ride to Hell: Retribution is terrible in every way shape and form, but is it the worst game ever made?  It’s debatable, but it will live in infamy as at least one of the top ten.  Try it, laugh at it, and then either return to the rental store or burn it so it can back from whence it came.

Fifth Worst Game of 2013: Dead Island Riptide

Fourth Worst Game of 2013: Star Trek

Third Worst Game of 2013: Aliens Colonial Marines

Second Worst Game of 2013: Dark