Hard Drivin'

Hard Drivin' is a video game that invite players to test drive a high-powered sports car on a stunt course. The game featured the first 3D polygon driving environment via a simulator cabinet that rendered with a non-dedicated PC architecture. The steering wheel was also the first in arcade gaming history to provide force feedback on car impact.

Gameplay

The gameplay resembles a driving game, featuring the Ferrari Testarossa. To separate it from other driving titles of that era, stunt loops and other road hazards were added. The game generally consist of 1 or 2 laps around the stunt track. In certain modes, you race against the computer controlled car, Phantom Photon. The game essentially challenges the players in a daredevil fashion and broke away from the norm racing games like Out Run or Pole Position.

Sequels

Race Drivin' (1990)
Hard Drivin' II - Drive Harder (1991, Atari ST, Commodore Amiga)
Hard Drivin's Airborne (1993)
Street Drivin' (1993)

Ports

In total, there were 15 official releases for the Arcade, counting 11 cockpit and 4 compact versions, including various British, German and Japanese versions. The Arcade version was also ported to the Gamecube, Playstation 2 and Xbox Midway Arcade Treasures 2 collection in 2004.

Controversy

There is no apparent Ferrari license shown in any version of the game.
Despite claiming to be a real driving simulator, there were a lot of discrepencies between the game's software physics and the car physics on screen. However, the cockpit physics were considered very accurate at the time. The engine, transmission control, springs and cabinet physics were modeled by Doug Milliken who was listed as a test driver in the game credit. In the 1950s his father William Milliken of Milliken Research was considered one of the world's leading experts in car modeling.

Screenshots

Miscellanea

Hard Drivin' was the first driving simulator to use 3-D polygon graphics.
Prior to the release of Hard Drivin', Namco had acquired a controlling interest in Atari games by 1986. The sharing of R&D information would spawn many games of the same polygon engine years later. It can be credited that the success of the Hard drivin engine set the trend for the high quality simulation games in the early 90s.
Upon purchasing the Amiga version, a questionnaire contest was held where the first five people to answer correctly via a postcard sent to London would receive a free model Ferrari F-40 model car by January 8, 1990. The model car is 1/18th the size of the actual car.
Jerry Landers holds the official record for this game with 529,800 points.
Colliding with the arcade version's computerized cow at even the slowest speed would cause it to shoot straight up into the air and generate a loud "moo".
A free, playable version of Hard Drivin' was displayed in the Franklin Institute Science Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1989.

External Links