Ride To Hell: Retribution — The Tenth Circle of Hell

 

It turns out that games are not only good, average, bad, 'movie tie-ins', and 'Activision movie tie-ins'. The project Ride To Hell: Retribution deserves a separate line at the end of this list. 

 

Biker Jake, returning to his hometown after military service, immediately encounters trouble. His brother was killed right before his eyes, and Jake himself was left bleeding on a deserted street. But he turned out to be as resilient as the bride from 'Kill Bill'. Now, none of the bandits will escape his vengeance.

 

 

 

The creators stretched a simple revenge plot to epic proportions and generously seasoned it with chatter. But as soon as the local heroes open their mouths, one immediately wants to offer the deepest apologies to domestic 'professional programmers' for all the negativity directed at them. Such bad intonations and barely audible whispers are probably not heard anywhere else. 

 

One cannot fail to mention the presence of 'erotic' scenes in Ride To Hell: Retribution. However, the 'wooden puppets' rubbing against each other in clothes are hardly capable of arousing excitement.

 

But this is a game about bikers! Ride To Hell: Retribution features motorcycle chases, shootouts, and brawls. However, the authors turned each of these components into an abomination. 

 

Jake's 'iron horse' races as if on rails, bouncing off fences like a rubber ball. It's easy to control the motorcycle, but there's little joy in it. Biker clashes on the road are presented as monotonous 'press the button' mini-games. Such is Road Rash…

 

 

The cover-based combat system seems to have been created back in the era of the concept's inception. Jake reluctantly presses against objects, doesn't always peek out, and moves slowly. If an enemy and the hero meet face to face, the aiming system goes crazy, and the camera starts twitching in an epileptic fit. Enemies easily withstand several hits to the torso. Therefore, during skirmishes, the hero is forced to carefully keep his distance and riddle the enemies' brainless heads, trying to cope with the jerky controls.

 

Finally, hand-to-hand combat resembles a group of drunk wrestlers settling scores. One doesn't want to activate finishers, so as not to witness Jake's clumsy movements unnecessarily.

 

These are the components, with a bitter seasoning of story, that make up this not-so-short (about eight hours on normal difficulty) adventure. Combat levels force the hero to clear one room after another. Many scenes are designed to artificially prolong the game. The 'one song per level' principle also doesn't add joy. Soon, even the not-so-bad guitar riffs become more irritating than the buzzing of a dental drill. 

 

The authors' desire to make the game more diverse only brings negativity. In particular, controlling a stationary machine gun is much more dangerous than simply killing enemies from a distance. The game becomes wildly difficult almost at the very beginning, then too easy later on. 

 

 

The mission objective marker only allows you to gauge the direction of movement, which sometimes leads to confusion. Sometimes the hero fails a mission for no apparent reason, gets stuck in textures, or turns into a statue in a flat area and doesn't respond to commands.

 

The unforgivable flaw of the game is that it tries its best to be a lengthy adventure with a claim to variety. Therefore, Ride To Hell: Retribution feels significantly worse than movie tie-ins by Activision — at least those end quickly. And this... This is one of the worst games in the history of the industry. 

 

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