TITLE: Ride to Hell Retribution
PLATFORM: PS3, XBOX 360, PC
DEVELOPER: Eutechnyx
PUBLISHER: Deep Silver
GENRE: Action Adventure Sleaze fest
RATING: M
The biker
culture shares many memorable characters from entertainment media like Johnny
Strabler, Wyatt aka the Easy Rider, Jax Teller, and my personal favorite Billy
Bad just to name a few. On June 27th 2013 however, a new prospecting "hero"
was released onto the unsuspecting public destined to become infamous for years
to come for both bikers and gamers alike. That character in question is Jake
Conway, a rough and rugged son of a thought-to-be-dead outlaw legend who returns
home from the service only to witness his world get torn apart by the rival
gang called the Devil's Hand. Resulting in typical bikesploitation fashion, he
saddles up on his faithful hog, vows revenge and won't stop until the injustice done onto
him and his family is righted. "Ride to Hell: Retribution", promised
to bring a fun 1960s biker bash with brutal fights and intense motorcycle based
combat but don't bother listening to GameStop's intentionally misleading rating
average of 8.5 because it's not even close.
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Biker Moses is that you? Jake then discovered
that the lord does work in mysterious ways.
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The
history surrounding RTH is an interesting one for it's been in development for
at least five years. Originally due out in 2009 Deep Silver, cancelled the
project right before the closing of their Vienna studio and at the time it was
advertised to be open world sand box title similar to the popular GTA series.
It was later revealed that Eutechnyx was continuing to develop the game without
Deep Silver's involvement and that alone should be a red flag to consumers. To
those unaware, Eutechnyx is pretty much the Asylum equivalent when it comes to
producing trashy racing games. They are responsible for such shovelware
classics like, "Big Mutha Truckers",
"Pimp my Ride", and "Street Racing Syndicate" which
to date was highest appraised release scoring a 7.1 from IGN. It's seems odd
that Deep Silver, a company whose lately been releasing higher quality titles,
like "Metro Last Light" and the highly anticipated "Saints Row
IV" would still be doing business with a company whose bread and butter
relies on producing NASCAR titles. Aside from the game's history being similar
to that of "Duke Nukem Forever", the saying goes that in a group one
is only as strong as the weakest link and like chain of an AMF era Harley, history
shows that Eutechnyx is as faulty as it gets.
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Hope you like this loading screen because you'll be seeing
it every few minutes..Murica
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To say
that RTH has a structured narrative would be an insult to the art form of
storytelling. Before twenty seconds pass, players will be already be thrown for
a loop when the game breaks from a riding cutscene to instantly throw them into
a turret gunfight followed by a short fist fight for an confusing attempt of
participating in a interactive trailer. The game is littered with moments where
the story doesn't fit in context with the gameplay. While racing away from a
group of bikers on a long highway, the next scene shows Jake stranded at gas
station surrounded at gunpoint without any evidence on how he ended up off his
bike in the first place. Do you simply need to steal a tanker to crash through
a fence across the street in a grassy field? Well sucks to be you because the
game will instead have players race
against police for miles in the dessert only to end up raiding a power station.
The narrative is so convoluted that the surgeon general should've placed a
warning on the case stating that if one tries to make sense of the story arc, a
brain aneurysm might occur. This is most likely because Eutechnyx ripped out all
the sandbox elements and in a careless attempt hacked and slashed certain clips
in order to try and keep a basic story around. It fails though since no
character development occurs and players won't be giving two shits about who
lives or dies by the end.
When it
comes to gameplay, RTH doesn't have a single original element in its entire
package as it blatantly rips all mechanics from more successful franchises. The
hand to hand combat comes straight from "Batman Arkham Asylum", the
running/cover mechanic comes from "Gears of War", and it still tries
to sell the illusion of being in an open world like GTA. None of these are executed
properly however, and they just come off as lame in appearance and
functionality. The one area that RTH should've excelled in -the motorcycle
combat- is absolute rubbish boiling down to simple quicktime events to ward off
attackers, and sometimes if the player takes too long, the enemies will off themselves for you. "Road
Rash", a game that came out on the Sega Genesis in 1991 has a better combat system then this
game that came out in 2013. Furthermore there's no satisfaction in playing the
riding sections at all because it's mostly on rails. If a player is on the
right side of the road, the game will suddenly take control and move them to
the center so they can have their scheduled QTE quarrels. When players can
control their bike, everything feels floaty and they'll discover that it's impossible
to crash or fall off because most of the time Jake, recklessly bounces off of
objects like a bowling ball going down a bumper lane. Even if he hits an
oncoming car, he'll just stop and stare at it while the game fades out to a
reset. The roads in Jake's area must be
a real pain in the ass to commute on because every two miles there seems to be
a randomly parked rig straddling over all the lanes without reason or a downed
tree causing major accidents just so the game can force the player to use the
pointless power feature. In fact "pointless", pretty much sums up the
riding levels as a whole. Most serve no real purpose and are nothing more than
shameless padding placed in by the developers to extend the length of the game.
Navigating Jake on foot is no better as the Batman-esc
combat system is a joke. Players can counter punches but if they miss the
indicator odds are the enemy won't hit anyway. Enemies are ridiculously strong being able to block what should be unblockable
weapons like axes or knives and unless you shoot them in the head, they will
absorb clip after clip of ammunition as if they were being shot with marshmallows.
Headshots don't instantly kill some enemies however, like the countless thugs
sporting Lord Humongous' hockey mask because plastic is obviously bullet proof
and bosses take enough ammunition that would leave an armored humvee in ashes.
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| Lord Humongous's followers are resistant to head shots. It's better to just walk away. |
When it comes to enemy AI pretty much everyone in town is
out to kill Jake and that's likely because they are all wigged out on drugs. No
matter who Jake fights, whether it be gang members, policemen, truckers, or
even factory workers, everyone is holding and drop bags of coke when defeated
so Jake can collect and sell later. Their methods of attack boils down to bum
rushing Jake like mindless zombies regardless of what their social standings should
be, (Can anyone explain why the cops would randomly form an alliance with gang
members in an attempt to bring Jake down multiple times?) When enemies pack
heat, they will at times hide behind cover, but eventually, they all end up running
towards the player without any hint of self preservation allowing them to get
mowed down like lemmings.
Hopefully players enjoy the art on the loading screen
because god knows that they will see it more than actual gameplay . It harshly
interrupts everything constantly on an average of every three minutes given on the assumption that the player doesn't die or
the game doesn't crash. The coding in this game is an absolute mess and mark my
words will crash and will be noticeable in the way it handles the game's
objective targets.
The one thing I did have fun with was the bike customization;
when it wasn't freezing up that is. The amount of accessories a player has at
their disposal to make their own chopper is deep enough to make one's creation
feel unique but after one visit will likely never be returned to since the only
reward really is only seeing it parked in a level or rendered in the cutscenes.
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Jake is known to have Mongo-like rages from time to time.
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As I
mentioned earlier RTH is a game that spent five years in development but in
terms of graphics, comparisons reach back to almost ten years ago during the
era of the PS2. GTA Vice City rivals this game in looks all around. The facial
animations range from unsettling mouth flapping to moments of just plain
hilarity when Jake shows off his rage face. Everybody moves in a stiff manner
and clipping can be found everywhere on characters along with their
surroundings. Character models are extremely limited and are recycled within
the gameplay as well as the cutscenes. I don't how many times I saw the same
long haired dude wearing the same plain white shirt, but all I kept asking
myself constantly was didn't Jake kill him near the beginning? Texturing is amateurish
to say the least with slow rezzing being a constant problem and there is no
reason why a chain linked fence should form bullet holes when trying to shoot
through them.
Now it's time for me to address the elephant in the room
because as I'm sure as many have heard already, RTH has advertised itself as an
adult game with adult situations and it turns out to be true but it is anything
but sexy. Though Jake is a misogynist pig, throughout his journey he meets a plethora
of scantily clad women and without giving so much as a proper hello to any of
them they all end up sleeping with him. It don't matter if players are in a
middle of a gunfight or not, if players walk up to a woman standing around or
calling for help, the game will jump cut to Jake banging the crap out of them ......while
they are all still fully clothed. I don't know if Jake has a dry humping fetish
but calling these multiple cutscenes awkward is putting it lightly and considering
how every pair of tits in the game is powerless to resist their overwhelming
urges to get some of the man ho's salami it's also an insulting view on women
to say the least.
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It takes a real man to satisfy a woman through her coveralls.
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What
can I say about the soundtrack in RTH? Well it's good whenever the game decides
to play the music. It's clear that almost no budget was spent on sound for this
game, because there are many times when a big gunfight calling for some bad ass
tunes is met with absolute silence. Sound effects are pathetically minimal and
generic and the voice overwork is so bad that it's actually glorious. I don't
know who the voice actors were, but it's obvious that no one gave a crap about
putting any kind of effort in this section of the game. Nobody emotes how they
should and dialog is delivered like it's their first time seeing it and reading
it aloud.
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This isn't some mod for a reaction image on a public forum. Facial animations are just that bad.
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In the end RTH is a game that feels totally unfinished and
it's release is nothing more than shiftless attempt to grab some quick cash on
an lost investment. I found myself powering through it not because I was having
fun, but because I was curious to see if things could get any worse and it gets
an extra half of a point for all the unintentional laughs it delivered. It's
a shame though because in the right hands it could've been something great. The
project was clearly too ambitious for Eutechnyx who should stick with what they
know best and that's keeping cars racing around a oval track, but maybe Deep
Silver will turn the franchise back around with its RTS version titled
"Ride to Hell: Route 666" that's scheduled to release later on Xbox
live Arcade and PS3 later this summer. In the meantime if what players yearn
for is a good biker gang game then check out GTA's , "The Lost and the
Damned". For those still determined to give this waste of time a shot,
they'll be happy to know that as an added bonus, collectible cards are hidden
throughout the levels showing photos of the staff that managed to successfully
swindle consumers out of their hard earned money.
Ryan Pierce
RATING: 2.5 out of 10
PROS: The soundtrack is
good whenever it decides to play.
Bike customization was a fun way to kill
twenty-five minutes once.
It's so bad that players will get a good laugh
from time to time.
CONS: PS2 gen graphics.
The riding combat system is absolute QTE
garbage.
The story is FUBAR.
Voice acting is legendarily awful.
Riding sequences are pointless shameless
padding.
Awkward tacked on fully clothed sex
scenes.
Enemy AI is pathetic.
Really limited character models.
Weapons damage is way too weak.
Coding is a wreck causing multiple crashes
and error messages.
$30.00 is still way too much.
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