2023 marks the 10th anniversary of the infamous Ride to Hell Retribution. To celebrate the anniversary of this terrible game, we’re looking back to see if there have been any other games that completely missed the mark.
Ride to Hell Retribution
Originally released for Windows, PlayStation 3, and XBOX 360, Ride to Hell Retribution is an action-adventure game set in the 1960s. The premise of the game is pretty simple. Play as Jake Conway, a veteran who has recently returned from Vietnam, only to find his brother has been murdered by a rival biker gang – ‘’The Devil’s Hand’’. Sparking Conway’s quest to strap on his motorbike boots and seek revenge.
Whilst the original premise of the game sounded incredible. What more can you want other than riding across vast city streets whilst you desperately seek revenge, complete with iconic 1960s fashion, bikes, and culture? However, the actual gameplay looks like something out of a nightmare.
It lacked the open world that was originally promised by developers, along with being packed full of broken and repetitive gameplay, dated graphics, clunky controls, and not to mention those fully clothed intimate scenes… All of which resulted in the game going down as one of the worst video games ever made.
Aliens: Colonial Marines
Set in the infamous Aliens franchise, the 2013 FPS, Aliens: Colonial Marines, promised to expand on the events of the iconic 1969 film. The gameplay follows a group of colonial marines as they confront the Weyland-Yutani corporation and save the last remaining survivors of the Sulaco spaceship.
Whilst this sounds like a nail-biting adventure across the cosmos, complete with taking down deadly corporations and Xenomorphs, the actual game contained a lot of game-altering bugs, unbalanced gameplay, and controls. The killer, however, was the terrible storyline which lacked any continuity with the ‘’Alien’’ films, especially considering developers claimed it was supposed to be canon.
If you want to enjoy games from the Alien franchise that do include some incredible human vs Xenomorph action, be sure to take a look at the blog post linked below.
SimCity
Beloved city builder SimCity earned a well deserved brand-new refresh in 2013. Released only on Windows, EA’s 2013 game featured everything you needed in a city builder, but now with band-new online features. Players would be able to explore and interact with other player’s cities.
Whilst we all loved the idea of being able to visit our friend’s cities and cause chaos because you know, why wouldn’t we cause chaos? The online mode caused a series of problems for other aspects of the game, and even made it impossible for you to play.
Namely, there was no offline mode. You couldn’t play the game offline, you had to connect to an online server, which resulted in them quickly reaching max capacity, meaning some players were having to wait at least thirty minutes to play. That wasn’t the only problem with the game. It suffered from an unbalanced AI and notably smaller city size compared to previous SimCity titles, which significantly restricted city building.
The negative reaction towards SimCity resulted in the franchise being abandoned by EA, and even resulted in them modifying their focus on purely online-based video games. This meant they would even go on to rework The Sims 4, which was in development at the time.
Saints Row
In the 2022 remake of Saints Row, become the ultimate self-made criminal and gang boss as you form The Saints. The fast-paced gameplay allows you to rapidly climb, fight, shoot, and explode your way to become the number one crime boss.
Crazy weaponry and guitar gun aside, Saints Row suffered from an out-dated open world design, poor storyline, repetitive gameplay, and missions, along with rather awkward humour and attempts at slapstick jokes.
It’s in-depth story of a self-made criminal was supposed to set it apart from previous Saints Row titles. However, it doesn’t, and the highlight of the game is still aimlessly running around, equipped with crazy weaponry, causing huge amounts of chaos.
Lord of the Rings: Gollum
Whilst it was only released mere weeks ago, Lord of the Rings: Gollum has rapidly made its mark by causing a wave of negative reviews. This action-adventure game promised to allow us to return to Tolkien’s Middle Earth. Control Gollum as he embarks on his quest to retrieve his Precious whilst also battling the inner conflict between the innocent Smeagol and corruptive Gollum.
Adventuring across Middle Earth may sound like everyone’s dream, but LOTR: Gollum transforms it into everyone’s nightmare. Repetitive gameplay, poor controls, and optimisation are just a few of the issues at launch.
The Gollum’s character model was unexpectedly altered after the game’s original announcements, and not in a good way. We could maybe look past the lack of Andy Serkis, but the poor hair textures, climbing, and stealth mechanics are hard to ignore. What’s more, a huge focus of the game was supposed to be the inner battle between Gollum/Smeagol, with the player being able to pick whose choices they prefer. But in reality, these choices have little effect on gameplay.
Whilst LOTR: Gollum severely missed the mark at launch, Daedalic’s apology for the state of the game, gives a little bit of hope that it can become the Middle-Earth adventure game that we’ve longed for.
Don’t Miss the Mark with These Gaming PCs
Make sure your gaming performance doesn’t miss the mark with our top gaming PCs.
OcUK Gaming Radiance Frosty MK2 Configurable PC
Small, yet mighty the OcUK Gaming Radiance Frosty comes equipped with all the hardware you need to enjoy playing your favourite games. This includes an Intel i5 11400F CPU, for ultra-fast speeds of up to 4.4GHz, and an NVIDIA RTX 3060. Take advantage of enhanced Ray Tracing and AI capabilities, to unlock realistic lighting and shadows, along with buttery-smooth frame rates. What’s more, with up to 32GB of DDR4 RAM, wave goodbye to pesky slow loading times and enjoy near-zero input lag and speeds of up to 3200MHz.
The finishing touches to this PC includes the sleek all-white Micro-ATX case, customisable RGB, and colourful braided cables.
OcUK Gaming Radiance Frosty MK2
- Configurable gaming PC
- Includes an Intel i5 11400F CPU and NVIDIA RTX 3060
- Up to 32GB DDR4 RAM
- Installed within an all-white Micro-ATX case
- Custom colourful braided cables
Refract Gaming Jade Pre-built PC
A part of our Refract Gaming range, the Jade pre-built system has been optimised for mid-tier gaming and budding content creators. Utilise the AMD Ryzen 7 7700 CPU for ultra-fast processing and seamless multitasking, that is perfect for both work and play! Plus, with an NVIDIA RTX 4060 Ti GPU, all your favourite games will be rendered in photo-realistic quality with stunning lighting and shadows, for next-level immersion. Lastly, you’ll have all the storage space you need for your expanding gaming library, thanks to the 1TB SSD.
Refract Gaming Jade
- Designed for mid-tier gaming and budding content creators
- Includes an AMD Ryzen 7 7700 CPU and NVIDIA RTX 4060 Ti GPU
- 32GB DDR5 RAM
- Includes a three-year warranty, which covers parts and labour
OcUK Gaming Karambit Configurable PC
Achieve cutting-edge gaming performance thanks to the OcUK Gaming Karambit PC. Harness the Intel i5 14600KF CPU with its hybrid P- and E-core architecture to achieve powerful performance, seamless multitasking, and enhanced efficiency. A must-have for gaming and streaming, alike. What’s more, utilise the NVIDIA RTX 4060 Ti and Ada Lovelace architecture, to unlock stunning hyper-realistic visuals and silky-smooth frame rates.
As a configurable gaming PC, you can adjust the base hardware specification of the OcUK Gaming Karambit to perfectly suit your individual preferences. This includes customising the case, upgrading the processor, memory, cooler, and graphics card, along with opting for additional drives for all your favourite games, music, creative projects, and more.
OcUK Gaming Karambit
- Configurable gaming PC
- As standard includes an Intel i5 14600KF and NVIDIA RTX 4060 Ti GPU
- 16GB DDR4 RAM
- Flexible storage options are available
Did We Miss Any?
Be sure to let us know what other notable games you think missed the mark in the comments below.
*Prices correct at time of writing and PC specs are subject to change.
- 7 min read
Ruth Rowley
Author
Ruth has been with Overclockers UK for over a year and has gone on to write about everything ranging from in-depth hardware guides to monthly game releases.
Outside of writing blog posts, she can be found wrapped in a blanket with her black cat, engrossed in a book or playing life-simulation games such as The Sims, Stardew Valley, and Animal Crossing.
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