This was a great point and click adventure game from LucasArts during their heyday in the 1990s. It made me want to get a bike and roam the deserts of the southwest US. Watch out for spoilers, if you’re the sort of pussy who worries about them. The story is that a noble biker gang, The Polecats, led by the stone faced and lantern jawed Ben Throttle, receives an offer at the chance to escort the founder or Corley Motors, Malcolm Corley, to a shareholders meeting. Of course, it’s a trap. Ben declines. Corley, himself, is a gearhead and former biker, weathered by age and disease. While focused on the engineering end of things, he’s inadvertently allowed a slimy and ambitious associate, Ripberger, to get too close, and now the company is threatened. Ripberger kills Corley and frames Ben’s gang for the murder, and the rest of the plot is set in motion after that. The murderous stooge intends to shift the motorcycle company into producing minivans, and eschewing motorbikes. Replaying it recently, I was struck by the strange similarities to both Harley-Davidson’s past as well as their current status. A game from 30 years ago predicted that Harley, under corporate structuring, would abandon their base, stop building proper motorcycles, and focus on all the wrong things. Also, the name (((Ripberger))) has some nice implications. No motorized vehicle offers as much freedom as a motorcycle. A small tank of gas can carry you hundreds of miles. You don’t need a landing strip for taking off or arriving. Hell, you don’t even need much of a road. Harley-Davidson, as part of their adherence to globohomo, wishes to strip away that freedom, locking everybody into fifteen minute cities, just like the rest. A fun game that predicted a damn shame.