Hard Drivin'

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Hard Drivin'
Developer(s)	Atari Games Applied Research Group, Tengen, Sterling Silver Software, Domark
Publisher(s)	Atari Games
Distributor(s)	Electro Source
Designer(s)	Atari
Platform(s)	Arcade, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, Atari Lynx, Atari ST, Commodore 64, DOS, Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, ZX Spectrum
Release date(s)	Arcade in 1988, Amiga in 1989, Amstrad CPC in 1989, Atari ST in 1989, Commodore 64 in 1989, DOS in 1990, ZX Spectrum in 1990, Sega Mega Drive/Genesis in 1991, Atari Lynx in 1991
Genre(s)	Driving, Racing, Simulation
Mode(s)	2 players (taking turns)
Input methods	Steering wheel, Pedals
Cabinet	Sit-down
Display	Horizontal Raster, 504 x 384

Hard Drivin' is an arcade game that invites players to test drive a high-powered sports car on stunt and speed courses. The game featured the first 3D polygon driving environment^[1] via a simulator cabinet, rendered with a custom architecture^[2]. The force feedback, car physics simulator, game design and most game programming were done by Max Behensky.

Hard Drivin' was released at a time when arcade driving games were implemented with scaled 2-D sprites and when solid polygon graphics (as opposed to wireframe) in games of any kind were rare. (Pole Position and Out Run are classic examples of driving games using scaled 2-D sprites.)

Contents 1 History 2 Gameplay 3 Sequels 4 Ports 5 Physics 6 Easter eggs 7 Miscellanea 8 External links 9 References

[edit] History

Hard Drivin' was originally meant to be a high speed chase simulator for police, but when the government no longer wanted it, the people at Atari added a Stunt track and sold it as an arcade machine.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Gameplay

The gameplay resembles a driving game, featuring a car similar in appearance to the Ferrari Testarossa. The screen shows a first person perspective from inside the car, throgh the windshield. To separate it from other driving titles of that era, stunt loops and other road hazards were added. The game generally consists of 1 or 2 laps around the stunt track. In certain modes, the player races against the computer controlled car, Phantom Photon. The game challenges the players in a daredevil fashion and broke away from traditional racing games like Out Run or Pole Position. Stunts, a racing game produced later, has similar visuals, controls and tracks.

It also features a realistic manual transmission mode and force feedback steering wheel, in which the driver would have to properly operate the car as they would in real life.

A notable feature of the game is the "instant replay" display that is presented after a crash, which sets Hard Drivin' apart from most driving games of its time, which after a crash would just put the player back on the road, stopped, and let them accelerate again. Before resuming play after a crash, Hard Drivin' would run an approximately ten second animation, captioned "Instant Replay", which showed a wide aerial view of the movements of the player's car and surrounding vehicles leading up to the crash, with the player's car always centered on the screen. During the replay, the player could not change the action on screen, but the replay could be aborted to immediately get back to active gameplay. The replay would continue for about two or three seconds after the crash, showing a polygon-rendered fireball and the movement of the car, including any spinning, flipping, or bouncing off the struck obstacle. The replays add to the appeal of the game and actually add a motivation to crash in spectacular ways in order to see them played out from the aerial view.

Besides collisions, a non-survivable landing after going airborne (even if the car landed right-side up), or even going too far off-road, could cause a crash which would be replayed like any other crash, with the car even exploding into the same orange fireball. The game tracks the player's progress around the track by invisible waypoints (denoted by flags on the course map showing the player's progress when the game ends due to time running out), and after a crash, the car is placed back on the track at the last waypoint passed; this sometimes is a significant distance back from the point of collision. (One of the waypoints on each track was the marked checkpoint about halfway around, which when passed granted the player extra time.)

Hard Drivin's approach to collisions or unrealistic events—putting the car back on the road at a standstill—was the norm for driving games until later games such as Cruisin' USA and its successors introduced intentionally artificial physics to force a car to always stay near the road and land right-side up pointing forward.

After going off-road, the player has ten seconds to return to the road, or else he will be stopped and returned to the road, at a standstill, at the last waypoint passed (just like when a crash occurs, but without an instant replay).

[edit] Sequels

1. Race Drivin' (1990)
2. Hard Drivin' II - Drive Harder (1991, Atari ST, Commodore Amiga)
3. Hard Drivin's Airborne (1993) (unreleased)
4. Street Drivin' (1993) (unreleased)

[edit] 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 game was ported to various 8- and 16-bit platforms in 1989/1990, and to the Gamecube, Playstation 2 and Xbox (Midway Arcade Treasures 2 collection) in 2004.

[edit] Physics

The engine, transmission control, suspension, and tire physics were modeled by Doug Milliken who was listed as a test driver in the game credits. In the 1950s his father William Milliken of Milliken Research led a team at Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory in Buffalo NY USA (later Calspan) that converted aircraft equations of motion to equations of motion for the automobile, and became one of the world's leading experts in car modeling.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Easter eggs

• One of the buildings along the speed course, a small camouflage-painted building, if approached from behind (a non-trivial task, given the off-road time limit) has a sign above its normally-unseen door that says "The Hut".
• If the driver made a hard left turn at the start of the game, a 'secret' track was available. The track was a long straight road leading to a very short circular track (a skid pad test track) around a tower.
• If the driver slowed down and stopped in front of one of the buildings, a 'keyhole' appeared on the building's door.
• Running into a cow will cause a "moo" sound to be played. (In the Sega Genesis port (at least), there is exactly one cow, next to the red barn between the initial speed track straightaway and the stunt track turn-off, and if viewed from the side it can be seen to be fake with a rectangular brace behind it propping it up; nonetheless it will moo if driven into or through.)

[edit] Miscellanea

Lists of miscellaneous information should be avoided. Please relocate any relevant information into appropriate sections or articles. (August 2007)

• Prior to the release of Hard Drivin', by 1986, Namco had acquired a controlling interest in Atari games. The sharing of R&D information would spawn many games using the same polygon engine years later.
• A free, playable version of Hard Drivin' was displayed in the Franklin Institute Science Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1989.

[edit] External links

• Hard Drivin Resource
• Reviews of Amiga version
• Hard Drivin' at the Killer List of Videogames
• Hard Drivin' at World of Spectrum
• Hard Drivin at Arcade-History.com

[edit] References