Hard Drivin'

Released: February 1990
Published by: Domark
Developed by: Domark
Author(s): Juergen Friedrich, Richard Browne, Marcus Goodey

Introduction

Hard Drivin' was a port of the arcade driving game by Tengen. Originally released on the Amiga, Atari ST, ZX Spectrum and Amstrad CPC platforms the year before, the DOS version arrived in February 1990.

Maxing out in 16-colour EGA, it looked the part and contained everything the other versions had with a stunt and speed track. Sadly, the driving gameplay itself was very poorly executed, making it difficult to enjoy.

The game was mildly refreshed later in 1990 with Hard Drivin' II: Drive Harder, which offered a track editor and two-player link up.

System Requirements

System Requirements	Intel 8088/8086 CPU, 512 KB of RAM. Graphics support: Hercules, Tandy/PCjr, CGA and EGA. Audio support: PC speaker only. Peripheral support: Keyboard, mouse or joystick.
Original Media	One 3.5" 720 KB (DS/DD) floppy disk.
Installed Size (MB)	228 KB

From where can it be run?

Hard Drivin' can be run from the floppy disk or copied to your hard disk.

 

Copy Protection

The game has no copy protection.

 

How to Setup

There is no configuration or installation program for Hard Drivin'. Just run HARD.EXE and select the graphics mode you wish the game to use:

 

Problems

No issues found in playing this game.

Keys

Use the arrow keys to accelerate, decelerate and steer, with SPACE to brake.
For manual gears, use keys 1-4 to select the gear.

 

To Quit the Game

Press ESC at any time to return to DOS.

 

Supporting Documents

• Instruction manual

 

Save Games

The game has no facility to save your progress.

 

Versions of the game known to exist

Version	Date	Comments
1.0	February 1989	Initial public release.

Original Floppy Disk Contents

The floppy disks have no specific volume label. Here are each disk's contents:

Disk 1 of 1 (3.5" 720 KB DS/DD floppy):   Directory of A:\ FILES <DIR> 08-02-2025 16:37 HARD EXE 53,878 03-04-1991 23:10 1 File(s) 53,878 Bytes Directory of A:\FILES CUP SHA 824 15-01-1990 1:23 EXPL1 SHA 704 15-01-1990 1:23 EXPL2 SHA 824 15-01-1990 1:23 EXPL3 SHA 864 15-01-1990 1:23 EXPL4 SHA 1,324 15-01-1990 1:23 EXPL5 SHA 1,424 15-01-1990 1:23 EXPL6 SHA 1,824 15-01-1990 1:23 LOADING CPX 12,748 15-01-1990 1:23 LOADING EPX 15,458 15-01-1990 1:23 LOADING VPX 21,789 15-01-1990 1:23 LOGO SHA 3,264 15-01-1990 1:23 MAP CPX 4,941 15-01-1990 1:23 MAP EPX 5,215 15-01-1990 1:23 MAP VPX 5,290 15-01-1990 1:23 MNT01 SHA 344 15-01-1990 1:23 MNT02 SHA 992 15-01-1990 1:23 MNT03 SHA 1,080 15-01-1990 1:23 MNT04 SHA 1,648 15-01-1990 1:23 MNT05 SHA 1,480 15-01-1990 1:23 MNT06 SHA 904 15-01-1990 1:23 MNT07 SHA 2,072 15-01-1990 1:23 MNT08 SHA 696 15-01-1990 1:23 MNT09 SHA 1,344 15-01-1990 1:23 MNT10 SHA 144 15-01-1990 1:23 OBJECTS DAT 21,272 15-01-1990 1:23 PANEL CPX 11,915 15-01-1990 1:23 PANEL EPX 12,012 15-01-1990 1:23 PANEL VPX 12,310 15-01-1990 1:23 REDFLAG SHA 354 15-01-1990 1:23 SELECT CPX 5,730 15-01-1990 1:23 SELECT EPX 6,113 15-01-1990 1:23 SELECT VPX 6,261 15-01-1990 1:23 SET1 EGA 55 15-01-1990 1:23 SET2 EGA 690 15-01-1990 1:23 SET3 EGA 600 15-01-1990 1:23 SND PIN 2,494 15-01-1990 1:23 TRACK DAT 11,996 15-01-1990 1:23 YELFLAG SHA 354 15-01-1990 1:23 38 File(s) 179,353 Bytes

 

Installed Directory Contents

Once installed, the following directory structure exists in the game directory:

Directory of C:\GAMES\HARD FILES <DIR> 08-02-2025 16:37 HARD EXE 53,878 03-04-1991 23:10 1 File(s) 53,878 Bytes Directory of C:\GAMES\HARD\FILES CUP SHA 824 15-01-1990 1:23 EXPL1 SHA 704 15-01-1990 1:23 EXPL2 SHA 824 15-01-1990 1:23 EXPL3 SHA 864 15-01-1990 1:23 EXPL4 SHA 1,324 15-01-1990 1:23 EXPL5 SHA 1,424 15-01-1990 1:23 EXPL6 SHA 1,824 15-01-1990 1:23 LOADING CPX 12,748 15-01-1990 1:23 LOADING EPX 15,458 15-01-1990 1:23 LOADING VPX 21,789 15-01-1990 1:23 LOGO SHA 3,264 15-01-1990 1:23 MAP CPX 4,941 15-01-1990 1:23 MAP EPX 5,215 15-01-1990 1:23 MAP VPX 5,290 15-01-1990 1:23 MNT01 SHA 344 15-01-1990 1:23 MNT02 SHA 992 15-01-1990 1:23 MNT03 SHA 1,080 15-01-1990 1:23 MNT04 SHA 1,648 15-01-1990 1:23 MNT05 SHA 1,480 15-01-1990 1:23 MNT06 SHA 904 15-01-1990 1:23 MNT07 SHA 2,072 15-01-1990 1:23 MNT08 SHA 696 15-01-1990 1:23 MNT09 SHA 1,344 15-01-1990 1:23 MNT10 SHA 144 15-01-1990 1:23 OBJECTS DAT 21,272 15-01-1990 1:23 PANEL CPX 11,915 15-01-1990 1:23 PANEL EPX 12,012 15-01-1990 1:23 PANEL VPX 12,310 15-01-1990 1:23 REDFLAG SHA 354 15-01-1990 1:23 SELECT CPX 5,730 15-01-1990 1:23 SELECT EPX 6,113 15-01-1990 1:23 SELECT VPX 6,261 15-01-1990 1:23 SET1 EGA 55 15-01-1990 1:23 SET2 EGA 690 15-01-1990 1:23 SET3 EGA 600 15-01-1990 1:23 SND PIN 2,494 15-01-1990 1:23 TRACK DAT 11,996 15-01-1990 1:23 YELFLAG SHA 354 15-01-1990 1:23 38 File(s) 179,353 Bytes

 

Game Review

Domark's Hard Drivin' started life as a sit-down arcade cabinet, first launched in February 1989. It was incredibly popular, with both manual and automatic transmissions available, good sense of speed, a force feedback steering wheel and either 3 or 5 screens for a 'wraparound' effect as you sat in the seat for top-notch authenticity. It arrived as a port on the 8- and 16-bit home computers shortly after but many of these were criticised for their "slideshow" frame rates and monochrome graphics. In March 1990 we got the DOS version which I'm reviewing here.

The game is similar in its design goals to 4D Sports Driving / Stunts, but fails to hit the mark even closely, with even the VGA graphics option only making use of 16 colours and no sound card support.

Both the stunt track and the speed track from the arcade are reproduced, but while the game is colourful in EGA and VGA modes it is choppy to play, the steering, braking and acceleration is slow to take inputs and vague, with the steering itself only able to make small adjustments left or right. Running it on a much faster system does not help - the frame rate is arguably pretty good, but the driving physics are flawed - if you try to take a corner too fast, you hear a squeal and your car is pointed further in the direction you were steering. This detracts from what might have been quite a fun little driving game. Comparing it to 4D Sports Driving, there is no comparison - the amount of content in Hard Drivin' is tiny with just one track, no option to select a different vehicle, no track editor, and the sluggish controls make it just painful to play.

You can play with keyboard, joystick or even a mouse, which is good. I mentioned the keyboard inputs are slow to take effect. With mouse control, at least you can more quickly put the wheel into full lock left or right, but this then throws your car into a skid, so you still need to be careful not to apply too much at once. Arguably, it's almost easier to control the car using the mouse, as the input is accepted that little bit more quickly than with the keyboard. The same is true when using an analogue joystick.

It may feel like an open world title but don't be fooled - go even a smidge off the tarmac and you have 10 seconds to get back on, otherwise you will automatically crash. Hard Drivin' does show you about 7 seconds of instant replay after your crash in a kind of helicopter view, but there is no facility to control camera angles or save a replay to disk. A crash simply delays your progress, as you are positioned back on the track a little way back from where the crash occurred.

Barriers are placed at strategic locations to try to prevent you from skipping past some of the stunts, and if you do try to get around them, you may or may not be successful - I tried going around the loop and while it worked, rejoining the track appeared to get my car stuck in a 10-second bout of falling through the ground before crashing into nothing.

No sound card support also aligns with our assumptions on just how rushed this game was - with cringy music and pretty awful engine sounds, this game is best avoided.

The only redeeming feature of Hard Drivin' is that you could run it on pretty basic PC hardware, with an 8088 or 8086 computer, and the full range of graphics standards is included (though as mentioned VGA only runs in 16 colours). Given a decent PC, the frame rate of the game isn't bad.