Road to Sturgis

Ever since our first Teamworking Day, I have been a haunted man. I have not been whole. Some portion of my thoughts have always been with this hunk of aged beef:

At first I thought it was pure lust overriding my faculties, and that makes sense: He looks like Guy Fieri had a walk-on part in Waterworld. He’s a portly hombre with a visible facial grimeline wearing half of a Native American. He’s got a possum-head bracelet and Steven Seagal’s second-most racist coat. This man is an adonis, it’s no wonder he rented a hotel room in my mind and immediately gave it bedbugs. But then something occurred to me — I didn’t want to be loved by Davy Crockett’s great-great-grandson, Peevis Crockett… I wanted to be him. So I went and dug up his game. 

Harley Davidson: The Road to Sturgis promises to be a completely authentic snapshot of America as seen through the eyes of a dentist’s midlife crisis. But they couldn’t even handle a snapshot of a map on the title screen, so we must forgive their dream being greater than their reach. I will not waste time mocking these graphics again. Even though every screenshot looks like you ran it through a dot-matrix printer and a mud puddle then took a picture of it with a Playskool camera.

I’m sorry I lied to you about making fun of the graphics just now. 

I’m sorry I lied to you about being sorry just now.

Here’s the entire story of Harley Davidson: The Road to Sturgis:

God damn I miss when games had one screen and fourteen words to communicate the entire plot. Today you have to sit through forty-seven minutes of cutscenes explaining why you’re a Norman Reedus delivering fetuses in the post-apocalypse, but back in the ‘80s you would’ve gotten one holdscreen of a pixelated baby with the words “Greetings Norman Reedus, wasteland needs abortions!” and off you’d go.

Hell yes that’s our opening cinematic! A man who dresses like a stand-in for a local production of West Side Story and who walks like a stand-in for a local production of West Side Story goes to start his motorcycle, which immediately bursts into flame. As both a fop and an owner of several old motorcycles, I am absolutely here for this level of authenticity.

Oh shit, character creation! Are you kidding me, Road to Sturgis? You are decades ahead of your time here. I expected you to tell me I’m named Hank Harley and I love to Harley — but you’re giving me options? I better think of something good. I’m going to scroll back up and stare at that cover again for inspiration.

…

I’ve got it. It has taken three hours and two moleskine notebooks full of scratched-out, tear-blurred rejections, but I have the perfect biker name.

I am an artist.

This is the only other option in the character creator. It is the most robust character creator that video games ever should have had. Everything else added afterward was complete horseshit. All you ever need to know about anybody is their name and how hairy they are. Sweet Hot Dogger, let me assure you, it took absolutely everything in my power not to choose ‘bushy.’

Fucking stat allocation screen! 

Road to Sturgis!

Are you secretly an RPG??? Is there going to be an ability tree where I have to choose between Power Skid and Dry Hump? Am I going to collect a ragtag crew and try to kill god with Celestial Hepatitis? Sweet Christ, I am so here for this.

Thank you, NPC that looks like a xerox of a xerox of a WARNING: SEX OFFENDER IN NEIGHBORHOOD poster. 

Clearly, Scuzz Dogballs is not some prissy trick rider. He doesn’t spend his weekends looking for a 10mm socket. He thinks a bank account is for people without extra baggy underwear and he thinks a pick up line is what you call the rope you use to drag women behind your motorcycle. Scuzz Dogballs knows only one thing: Brawling. 

I am going to brawl the holy shit out of literally everything I see.

FIRE WHEN DONE, MOTHERFUCKER.

Is that… is that supposed to be me? You promised me grizzled, Road to Sturgis! Where is the grizzle?! This is not Scuzz Dogballs, Moto Brawler; this is Perry Winklebottom, Tennis Lothario. Don’t get me wrong, that still sounds like a great game, but it’s not the one you promised me.

Ugh, I guess I’ll ENTER STORE if only to get this disappointment off the screen.

Ah, I see my mistake. A true biker does not ENTER STORE. Now I’m not allowed to leave. 

I couldn’t figure out the controls to EXIT STORE, so I looked up the manual, found the EXIT STORE button, and confirmed that it did not work. I would die here. That’s the tale of Scuzz Dogballs: He briefly considered a motorcycle adventure but then settled down to run a discount riding gear outlet instead. RIP Mr. Dogballs, you died how you lived: As a crushing disappointment.

Starting over. There weren’t enough characters to write “Jr.” in there, so just know this is not the original Scuzz Dogballs, and he is nothing like his dad. He has one extra point in riding. Scuzz Dogballs, Sr. disowned him for it.

I won’t make the same mistake twice. I’ll never enter another business again. The open road is enough for me. 

You can see me here, not riding. I’m just sitting there, uselessly revving my Harley to the redline. This is partially because the controls are once again broken and will not allow me to shift, and partially because it’s a simulation game about the Harley experience.

I did not drive a single foot, but I did rev so hard that I burned out my clutch. Scuzz Dogballs, Sr. would never admit it, but Junior made his dad proud that day. 

All right, back on the road.

I did nothing and fell over. I probably should have read the manual before setting off, but that is not the Harley way. The Harley way is to gun it out of the dealership, immediately hit the side of a bus, spend the next sixteen months learning to walk again, then tell all the female servers at the wine bar that you “had to lay ‘er down.”

I finally figured out how to get into first gear, so I floored it up to a stunning 18MPH until I ran out of gas and had to be rescued once again by a kindly old man who I swear is making a face.

Fuck you, old man. Scuzz Dogballs, Jr. does not invest points in riding.

Let’s refill at the station:

Aw hell yeah, here we go. This is the Harley lifestyle simulator I’m looking for. You’re god damn right I see something else “I might be wantin’,” you nasty lil’ pump attendant.

Oh. She’s just… she’s going to ignore my advances. 

Man, the realism in this game is truly on point.

Let’s try something different. I won’t even ride, I’ll just click ‘events’ this time. See what else this game has to offer.

Another sex offender, this one in the middle of going Super Saiyan Blue, here to tell me there’s nothing happening in his dipshit town. I sure hope Scuzz Dogballs’s $18,000 Harley can take another twenty minutes redlining in first to make the next offramp where there will hopefully be at least one thing to look at. 

Actually, wait — you know what? I know how to do two things. I can get into first gear and I can pin it. That’s enough to do a fucking wheelie! 

Should’ve seen that one coming. 

To recap: In Road to Sturgis, I spent most of my time inventing a biker persona in preparation for thrilling fights and adventures I never had, I spent a fortune fixing my bike but barely got out of town, I was ignored by every woman who quietly seethed at my unwelcome advances, and none of the controls worked. 

Truly, this was the perfect Harley Davidson lifestyle simulator. 

I’m never playing it again. Unless…