Hard Drivin, A Retrospective

What manner of things in this..... Its not a game as its too boring to be a game, and its not a simulator as the cars physics are just garbage....... But it was something that Atari tried to push into the gaming world..... with the usual Atari results.

[@bob23301]

Back in the day this game in the arcade was like touching the future, it was so advanced.

[@ManBearPig20oh10]

This and virtua racer blew my kid brain lol

[@gamehulk]

The appeal of the game, after you learn to play it well and you can take the stunts at the correct speeds without crashing, is to get farther down the road earning more time and making faster laptimes. Playing with a force feedback steering wheel really helps, not tapping on a keyboard roasting your tires with every violent virtual yank of the steering wheel. Part of the challenge is that the turns are flat and the tires fairly hard and it's easy to lose your grip--they designed it that way so it mimics how a real car handles, not how videogame cars handle.

[@jayme69]

I was blown away the first time I played Hard Drivin' on the sit in cabinet but really thought of it as a driving simulator. I even enjoyed it on the Atari ST much like I enjoyed playing a flight simulator like Falcon. Yes it was a short lived experience and Stunt Car Racer was a much better game but I still remember it fondly :-) Keep up the awesome work!

[@Gen-X-Memories]

I thought it looked really cool for its time. I can't believe its been that long since I was 19 years old.

[@juststatedtheobvious9633]

The Megadrive game is using real polygons. And the overall library has more 3D games than you might suspect... For EA, the secret was to use the Z80 to help the 68000 do the calculations.

[@CartoonrBOY]

You're using digital inputs to drive an analog simulation. No wonder you thought it was crap. I always sought this out in the arcades - I got pretty good at it & would have people watching me navigate the track with power-slides and perfect jumps - I even used the clutch! It was such an involving game.

[@dankurina9191]

I found speed which is on the signs is critical for negotiating the jumps, turns and spirals.

[@CoryAtRandom]

Spent many an hour at the arcade playing Hard Drivin’ loved it

[@mrfoobarf5670]

Put quite a many of coins into it back in 1991-2.

[@SteveBrandon]

Hard Drivin' was groundbreaking but it wasn't quite the first arcade racing game to use 3D polygonal graphics. Winning Run by Namco beat it to arcades by about two months with its December 1988 release in Japan. I enjoyed the Genesis/Mega Drive version of Hard Drivin' for what it was, back when a 3D racing game only had to "work" to be good. As far as I know, Hard Drivin' was the first fully 3D racing game on any home console although I did already have Vette (1989) and, I think, also Test Drive III: The Passion for MS-DOS on PC by the time I got Hard Drivin' on the Genesis.

[@juststatedtheobvious9633]

After the north American crash, Atari arcade was a very different company from the home division.

[@tancar2004]

After the videogame crash of 1984 Atari's parent company Warner Brother's split Atari up. The home division which had the 2600, 7800, Jaguar, Atari ST, and Falcon was sold off to Jack Tramiel and became Atari Corporation. Warner Brothers kept the arcade division renaming it Atari Games. So the company that made the computers was NOT the same company that made Hard Drivin.

[@bobbytheitguy4289]

Now we know where Elon Musk got his design ideas for the Cyber truck

[@adesignersperspective]

while i completely understand your sentiments, i personally don't think it's fair to call this a bad game. given the fact that it came out in 1989, it was EXTREMELY ahead of its time visually and in all other ways including its physics. was it a bit of a glorified tech demo that was perhaps *too* far ahead of its time for its own good? perhaps yes. but it actually is possible to get good at the arcade version of the game though calling the controls nuanced is an understatement and it takes *a lot* of practice and patience. i won't say the same for the genesis or SNES ports, though, though it bears mentioning that "tengen" who handled the genesis port was actually just atari themselves. they sometimes used the name tengen instead of atari for their non-atari console games.

[@jumpinjono]

I remember this in the arcade back in the day. The talk of it originally being a driving simulator was definitely mentioned in one of the computer mags of the time. I tried it plenty of times in the arcade but never liked the feel of it at all. Sega’s Power Drift was so much more fun that year so would always try and find that in an arcade

[@SimmeringPotpourri]

I took the driving course that our high school offered in the mid-80's. We had this trailer classroom with all of these driver simulators. We all watched a movie projected on the back walk and reacted to it. I got a low score so I knew it was BS seeing I played a ton of video games at the times I knew I wasn't THAT bad at driving. This would have been amazing to have in our school. As far as an arcade game, it sucked.The 3D was pretty cool for the time but it lacked real gameplay.

[@zhammmy]

I remember the steering was so heavy when playing the game at the arcade. Race Drivin' was so much better!

[@mhult5873]

This game, or a game very very similar looking, had the fun F1-car with a bug that gave instant max speed after a jump - and holding that max speed until you left of the accelerator or crashed. No crashes - "trainer mode" (cheat, or perhaps menu option) was used a lot, I remember😅 One thing I was amazed by, at the time, was the advanced and realistic graphic. I remember that I explored the map and looked at the different buldings, etc. And you even had road signs that looked real and could choose the speed- och the stunt course. Br

[@SPQR101010]

i learned how to drive a manual on this game, physics were ok, but the steering wheel and manual were good for the time.

[@brianperkins6121]

It was and still is one of the only "True" driving physics simulators to hit the arcade market, all of the other racing games out there even those that have much more advanced graphics are basicly an arcade driving experence , not a true driving simulator , and you absolutly can not play the game with keyboard or digital joystick input devices..

[@dankurina9191]

Lol. This was the de facto driving simulator back in the late 80s with the polygon graphics and steering and I think even a clutch in the arcade version. Yes the physics are really over exaggerated. Makes you wonder if that was over done to get people to spend more money. And a home setup with mame and steering and peddles was complicated but doable. I've seen videos on here with properly calibrated wheels and players doing well. The best port I've played has been on a pc with Midway Arcade Treasures that can use a gamepad easily with time cheats. Yeah its a HARD game to play but is possible.

[@MotownBatman]

Special Needs/Ed Class in high school had the "Virtual Drivers Ed" Program for Windows 3.1 Having a few friends who are now more understood as Autistic, in that class: I tried like hell to make a copy of the Installer Discs. But the teacher even being a fan of mine, wouldnt allow it LOL They had the Killer Steering & Shifting Setup, I just thought it was Fun as Hell to Play

[@freddaniali]

I agree with you that the best cars come from Europe.. and I also agree that this was a terrible simulator. Even Atari's Pole Position was way more life like in handling on an F1 car.

[@chicolatino7]

was stunts a sequel to this? looks pretty similar

[@411DL]

Sequel was named Race Drivin' that had the Super Stunt Track.

[@twankistevenson3884]

So.. The Commodore 64 version of this was so bad that it ONLY got released on a compilation.... Except if you were a member of The Home Computer Club... then you could have the pleasure of making this one of the, must pick at least 6 of the editors choice games in a 12 month period and could cough up the FULL £9.99 for the "pleasure". Yeah without question the WORST game I had on the C64 by a mile!

[@411DL]

K... So your impression of this game was from when you were 14. And now it looks like you're replaying it on an emulator where you have a binary D-Pad mapped to the steering instead of something variable like at least a thumb stick. So I can understand your perception and opinion. Like another commenter said, I learned how to drive stick on this. Well, not Hard Drivn' rather Race Drivin' which was slightly refined and added the stunt track. Even in the arcade when I found Race Drivin' I could complete both tracks at the age of 16 so I have a much less gloomy opinion of it. These days I can play it on original Xbox as part of some classics pack.

[@schmitty1944]

This is the worst review of this game. So many incorrect facts given. You didn't even bother to get real footage! Just emulated driving obviously using a keyboard to steer. Just because you are not good at it doesn't make it a bad game.

[@fumaninjaknownoequal]

Total garbage game. Complete agreement