"5th Rate Driving Grame or Entertaining Crash Simulator?"

Now I know what you're thinking. How could you possibly give this game a 8!? I'm sure that's the reason why you are reading this review. Now let me break it down. Games are meant to be forms of entertainment right? Well just because a game is horribly made doesn't necessarily mean that it is worthless (or in the case of E.T. less than worthless). Hard Drivin' (because the apostrophe is really saving space) is a prime example of this concept.

Graphics: 1/10
Now, the graphics are horrible. Let me set that straight. Objects are blocky, or rather, just plain old blocks. Houses, cars, and the ground lack textures, are bland, and can't even hide behind the fact that they were once good graphics (because they weren't). People who complain that Final Fantasy 7 has bad graphics have never seen this game. In short, don't expect to be impressed with the graphics, unless of course you are hoping to be impressed with how much a game could make you want to pour acid into your eyes so that you would never have to see such graphics again.

Sound: 3/10
One of these points goes to the opening selection theme which is pretty catchy, one goes to the music that plays immediately after a crash because it's hilarious, and one point goes to the easter egg (if you can call it that) cow that moos when you run into it. Other than that, there is barely any music in the game (one more song at the score screen) and few crappy sound effects.

Control: 2/10
The game lags horribly, which might seem to be a graphical problem, but none the less causes it to be very difficult to steer and brake at the right times. Acceleration starts out slow but then suddenly speeds up tremendously. The same is said for braking. In short, unless you have good timing/planning skills, you will crash...a lot.

Gameplay: 2/10
There is little to no direction in the flow of this game. You can play on practice or normal mode with easy to hard difficulty (affecting the number of cars on the road). There is really only one track in the game, but it is broken into two separate branches at the beginning: speed and stunt. The speed track is nothing special, consisting of straightaways and a few long curves. The stunt track can be entertaining (because of the sheer number of times you will crash on it) and contains a jump, a loop, and a banked curve amount other irregular track design. On normal mode, a timer appears which can be incremented at check points indefinitely. If the player manages to make it to the finish line before the time runs out, they will be able to race against a computer and then the game is over. Pretty short and simple, but not very satisfying.

Overall 8/10
No, this is not an average (although by coincidence it is a sum). Individually, each part of this game falters. The sound, controls, gameplay, and pretty much everything just sucks. However, when you look at the big picture and actually play the game, it can be very entertaining. I played this game when it first came out, and had a great time with it because all I spent my time doing was finding the funniest ways to crash. Had I been looking for a challenging racing game or a long fulfilling game experience, I would have been disappointed. I'm not going to say that you should go out and buy this game (because paying money for this game is nothing short of robbery), but if you were to find the computer version or happen to have a friend who owns it, I would recommend that you give it a whirl. I can guarantee that you'll get a good 30 min of enjoyment each time you play this game if you go in with the right attitude. Going to this game looking for a sophisticated driving sim will send you away disappointed. On the other hand, if you are looking for a game where it is more fun to crash that to win, then Hard Drivin' might be worth a look.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 10/23/07

Game Release: Hard Drivin' (US, 1991)