The first of the polygon-rendered racing sims, the original coin-up took the arcades by storm. Just about every trick used in today's sophisticated 3D racers can be seen here with the notable exception of texture mapping.

Hard Drivin' is a faithful conversion of the 3D Arcade Hit from Atari Games. You are in control an hi-performance sports car.

Your objective is to race around the course as fast as possible and hit as many checkpoints as possible. If you hit a checkpoint you gain extra time to go farther. You will see traffic on the road both in your direction and coming down the opposite direction, so be careful when you pass…

The course has two sections: speed track, and stunt track. Speed track is longer, but you can usually achieve higher speeds. Stunt track requires you to perform several stunts such as jumping bridges, driving through a loop, and so on.

Crashing the car has no serious consequences and indeed shows a replay of your crash from a cinematic angle. Admire your crash head-on into the cement truck, or clipping the minivan, or flying off the bridge in the wrong angle… You lose several seconds as your car is “reset” and you get up to speed again.

The home conversions retained most of the then-advanced 3D graphics but lost the force-feedback that was in the arcade version.

The gameplay resembles a driving game, featuring a car similar in appearance to 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. It can be also seen as a predecessor and possible inspiration for Stunts, a racing game with similar visuals, controls and tracks. It also featured a realistic manual transmission mode, in which the driver would have to properly operate the car as they would in real life.