Drivin' me round the bend.

Hard Drivin’. Sadly not the title of the latest top-shelf provocative soft-porn title, but a 90's racing simulator, as reviewed on the Sega Mega Drive. Despite lack of naked torso, it did make me want to moan ‘ooh ooh OOOH!’, unfortunately not in a good way.

The title screen looks promising. One can almost envision scenes of fast-paced, adrenaline-junkie madness. Crisp air, full-throttle.

Or maybe not, I conclude, as I am smacked metaphorically in the face with graphics that would make even the ZX Spectrum weep into its rubber keys.

Upon initial play I was more than prepared for simplicity beats complexity. However, simplicity in this case cannot justify the terrible truth of this title: this is a very monotonous game. This is a very monotonous game. Very monoton....yes. You get the idea.

After what seemed like years (I over-dramatise; it was probably only a couple. Of days.) I finally couldn’t take any more and muted the television for fear of hearing the DrrRRR, GDRrrRRR engine roar in my head for ALL ETERNITY (a la Bananaphone style).

Not only is the soundtrack non-existent and sound FX dangerous for human consumption, but the actual race track itself would send even a screaming child to sleep within minutes. I can almost swear I sat slumped on my sofa at one point, eyes drooping, mouth drooling and the “Up” directional pad wedged firmly in place by my left finger. Not the most inviting prospect had my boyfriend (if I had one) walked in on me.

I can understand the limitations of a console, and would much rather spend hours perfecting my mastery of games such as Skool Daze and Jupiter Lander than fall asleep playing new releases on an Xbox 360 that appear to have more movie-esque footage than actual gameplay. I can understand these limitations, but fail to see how such a shoddy title could be released for a console that became renowned for great titles such as California Games, Golden Axe, and of course Sonic the Hedgehog 2.

I’m not saying I could produce a game that would fare any better – my one ditch attempt at programming beyond my preference of BASIC involved the use of Visual Basic and finished up in a bright pink GUI .exe file that printed amusing swear words at the click of a command box – but I still vouch that this title should be swerved with aggressive avoidance.

It is indeed conclusive that in the Grand Prix of rubbish games, Hard Drivin’ surely gets the chequered flag.

Labels: hard drivin, racing sim, retro gaming, sega mega drive