Set in the '60s during the West Coast counter-culture revolution, Ride to Hell should appeal to sandbox anarchists out there.
You play Ray Kaminski, a Vietnam ex-prisoner of war who's returned from the conflict to find a very different world waiting for him: where almost every bar, restaurant, and community surrounding the city of Blackfield is overrun with crime, drugs, hippies, and bikers.
You soon fall in with the Devil's Hand, a local biker gang that plays host to a rogue's gallery of lively-named characters like Clutch, Spitfire, and Moby Dick. Naturally, you're free to take on missions at your leisure (of which there are plans for more than 100), trick out your bike in the Garage, or just cruise around looking for some tail.
Jake Conway, fresh out of the army and a Vietnam vet, returns to his home town of Dead End to find his kid brother rocking their father’s biker gang vest and trying to be cool. It only takes about ten seconds for a rival gang, The Devil’s Hand, to take interest and cut him up. Cue a pathetic tale of revenge that is to scattered, pointless and thin the only analogy I can come up with is confetti.It’s like confetti.
There isn’t one main problem; the entire plot seems problematic. The characters are either so poorly written it’s impossible to care or they are just plain repulsive. Jake is a dumb brick shithouse with about as much personality as a doorstop. When you aggressively want your lead character to shut up every time he opens his mouth, there’s something wrong. Mack, the obligatory Krist Kristofferson-like older father figure, is equally boorish, grumbling through line after line of exposition.
Ride to Hell: Retribution appears on Xbox site with more info and pictures.
Player Attack: While we're not sure what's different about it, mysterious title Ride to Hell: Retribution has been re-classified in Australia, given a new codename: Cook's Mad Recipe. Whatever you want to call it, this upcoming, open-world story of a returning Vietnam veteran looks set to be Australia's first R-rated game featuring "high impact sexual references".
