Is there anything better than blasting caps and tearing through the desert on the back of a motorbike? The creators of Ride to Hell think not.
When we were recently offered the chance to check out the motorcycle madness of Ride to Hell in the Joshua Tree desert with a bunch of bikers, we couldn’t wait to kick-start the trip. And it was with visions of Hell’s Angels, Hunter S. Thompson, and Altamont dancing in our heads that we set out for the sand, pretty pumped to mix it up with a gang of tat-happy chopper connoisseurs.
The game, which will likely ship this fall, follows the story of a not-soeasy rider named Ray who has just returned from Vietnam and attempts to fall in with the local biker gang, Blackhand. As Ray, you dip into a life of sex, ’shroom tripping, and killer motorcycles. That is, when you aren’t pummeling other bikers without bothering to get off your bike, and hanging out with porn producers. All in a day’s work, my friend, all in a day’s work.
For several hours we kicked up desert dust, speeding past prickly brush and across dry lake beds, testing the limits of our cherrycolored ATV. Rounding a hill littered with shotgun shells and blown-out TVs, we mashed the pedals even harder, all the better to avoid a grisly
horror-movie fate.
Taking a break from fantasy, we let off a little real-life steam by blowing holes in targets, hammering them with assault rifles, handguns, and a .22. We watched exploded clay pigeons cover the ground like brittle confetti, until the sun settled into the mountains. But the night was hardly over—soon we cruised over to the local biker bar for tacos and tequila shots. Legendary Hell’s Angel Sonny Barger once said that his crew could outdrink, outfuck, and outfight anybody. After our night in the desert, we have a new appreciation for the ballsiness of that claim.
