Ride To Hell: Retribution review – one percenter
Ride To Hell: Retribution (360) – diabolical
There’s a new contender for the worst video game ever made, not to mention the worst interactive sex scenes, in this bizarrely awful new biker game.

Whenever reviewing an epically bad video game we’re always reminded of a conversation we had with a fellow journo, at a preview for a mediocre-looking new game. Which title it was is unimportant but in trying to guess the quality of the final product our acquaintance suggest that, ‘It has to be a pretty unusual game nowadays for it not to be at least pretty good’. We’re here to report that Ride To Hell is the most unusual video game we’ve ever played.

Words cannot explain just how awful Ride To Hell really is. Believe us we’ve tried, and no matter how much we rearrange terms like ‘dreadful’, ‘abominable’, ‘appalling’, and ‘worst game ever’ they just don’t do justice to the level of brazen incompetence at work here.

The one and only impressive thing about Ride To Hell is that publisher Deep Silver has created a trailer for it that doesn’t give away the fact it’s so bad it could suck the enamel off your wisdom teeth. It does this by, very sensibly, not showing any actual gameplay and not letting any of the characters speak.

Interestingly it also features the main character rocking backwards and forwards in a semi-catatonic state, which appropriately enough was the position we found ourselves in after a few hours. In fact as dishonest as the advertising first seems there are plenty of clues as to the game’s real quality, including the box art being adorned with a badge that says ‘1%’. Technically this is a reference to being part of an outlaw biker gang, in realty though it’s the only time you’ll ever see someone being unfair with the game’s score.

Ride To Hell tells the story of Jake Conway, a Vietnam War veteran who swears vengeance against the biker gang that killed his brother. Not a very original set-up in itself, but the ’60s setting and the attempts to evoke movies such as Easy Rider are certainly unusual for games. In fact a little digging reveals that Ride To Hell was first announced back in 2008, when it was to have been an open world game on a scale to make even Grand Theft Auto envious.

We can’t judge it on what it was meant to be though, only what it is. And Ride To Hell is to Grand Theft Auto as hydrochloric acid is to a nice refreshing glass of Pimm’s. The game as it exists now is completely linear and it involves alternating between the worst driving game we’ve ever played and the worst beat ‘em-up we’ve ever played.

Ride To Hell: Retribution (360) - Harley any fun at all
Ride To Hell: Retribution (360) – Harley any fun at all
Not wishing to sully Road Rash’s good name by putting it in the same sentence as this game we’ll say only that the driving sections handle like a unicycle with a busted wheel and that British developer Eutechnyx is so lazy it resorted to quick time events for the in-saddle combat.

The fighting sections maintain the same level of quality and are the very definition of button-mashers, as you battle through waves of enemies that either act like lobotomised lemmings or killing machines of Terminator like efficiency. The gunplay is even worse and why it was left in the game we can’t begin to imagine, although perhaps it was to make every other cover-based shooter look better by comparison.

But the fact that Ride To Hell plays as badly as a one-legged football star is by no means its biggest problem. Being caught up in one of the worst boss battles this side of the industrial revolution is one thing, having to sit through the game’s cut scenes is quite another.

The reason you don’t hear anyone speak in the trailer is that the voiceovers are so embarrassingly awful we honestly assume they’re the programmers themselves trying to save money. Despite the simplicity of the plot characters come and go with little rhyme or reason, as Jake makes use of a bizarrely powerful walkie talkie that acts exactly like an out-of-time mobile phone.

But that’s nothing compared to the numerous sex scenes, for which the developer seems to have used a hormonally-challenged tweenager as technical advisor. Although all the women are semi-offensive caricatures, and the game makes a great fuss about portraying the dirty deed itself, everyone keeps their clothes on at all times. Not just their underwear but every stitch of clothing they own. Even during a five person orgy.

It almost seems a shame to interrupt this carnival of ineptitude to point out such a mundane problem as the game’s litany of bugs and glitches. Not just the odd flickering graphic but proper old-fashioned crash bugs that bring the game to an instant, and usually very welcome, halt.

The only way to look at Ride To Hell favourably is as some sort of post-modern statement by Eutechnyx, where they’ve tried to ensure that every single thing that could go wrong with the game does so in as epic a fashion as possible. Even if that wasn’t the intention it’s the end result, and such a concentrated amount of failure is almost awe-inspiring in its completeness.

In Short: Genuinely one of the worst video games ever made, where the dry-humping sex scenes are no less confused and impotent as the rest of the gameplay.

Pros: The setting and original open world concept would make for a great video game…

Cons: …but there’s not a single thing this doesn’t get wrong, from the dire driving and fighting to the sanity-defying awfulness of the storytelling – and especially the sex scenes.

Score: 1/10

Formats: Xbox 360 (reviewed), PlayStation 3, and PC
Price: £39.99
Publisher: Deep Silver
Developer: Eutechnyx/Deep Silver Vienna
Release Date: 28th June 2012
Age Rating: 16